The weather continued bad in France and they left there in July to find it little better in England.  They had planned a journey to Scotland to visit Doctor Brown, whose health was not very good.  In after years Mark Twain blamed himself harshly for not making the trip, which he declared would have meant so much to Mrs. Clemens.  He had forgotten by that time the real reasons for not going—­the continued storms and uncertainty of trains (which made it barely possible for them to reach Liverpool in time for their sailing-date), and with characteristic self-reproach vowed that only perversity and obstinacy on his part had prevented the journey to Scotland.  From Liverpool, on the eve of sailing, he sent Doctor Brown a good-by word.

To Dr. John Brown, in Edinburgh: 

Washingtonhotel, Lime street, Liverpool. 
Aug. (1879)
My dear Mr. Brown,—­During all the 15 months we have been spending on the continent, we have been promising ourselves a sight of you as our latest and most prized delight in a foreign land—­but our hope has failed, our plan has miscarried.  One obstruction after another intruded itself, and our short sojourn of three or four weeks on English soil was thus frittered gradually away, and we were at last obliged to give up the idea of seeing you at all.  It is a great disappointment, for we wanted to show you how much “Megalopis” has grown (she is 7 now) and what a fine creature her sister is, and how prettily they both speak German.  There are six persons in my party, and they are as difficult to cart around as nearly any other menagerie would be.  My wife and Miss Spaulding are along, and you may imagine how they take to heart this failure of our long promised Edinburgh trip.  We never even wrote you, because we were always so sure, from day to day, that our affairs would finally so shape themselves as to let us get to Scotland.  But no,—­everything went wrong we had only flying trips here and there in place of the leisurely ones which we had planned.

We arrived in Liverpool an hour ago very tired, and have halted at this hotel (by the advice of misguided friends)—­and if my instinct and experience are worth anything, it is the very worst hotel on earth, without any exception.  We shall move to another hotel early in the morning to spend to-morrow.  We sail for America next day in the “Gallic.”

We all join in the sincerest love to you, and in the kindest remembrance
to “Jock”—­[Son of Doctor Brown.]—­and your sister. 
                              Truly yours,
                                   S. L. Clemens.