Complete Letters of Mark Twain eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 1,140 pages of information about Complete Letters of Mark Twain.

Complete Letters of Mark Twain eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 1,140 pages of information about Complete Letters of Mark Twain.
time, and Sunday is the only day that brings unbearable leisure.  I hope you will be in New York another winter; then I shall know what to do with these foretastes of eternity.”

Clemens usually wrote at considerable length, for he had a good deal
to report of his life in the Austrian capital, now drawing to a
close.

To W. D. Howells, in New York: 

May 12, 1899.  Dear Howells,—­7.15 p. m.  Tea (for Mr. and Mrs. Tower, who are leaving for Russia) just over; nice people and rather creditable to the human race:  Mr. and Mrs. Tower; the new Minister and his wife; the Secretary of Legation; the Naval (and Military) Attach; several English ladies; an Irish lady; a Scotch lady; a particularly nice young Austrian baron who wasn’t invited but came and went supposing it was the usual thing and wondered at the unusually large gathering; two other Austrians and several Americans who were also in his fix; the old Baronin Langeman, the only Austrian invited; the rest were Americans.  It made just a comfortable crowd in our parlor, with an overflow into Clara’s through the folding doors.  I don’t enjoy teas, and am daily spared them by Mrs. Clemens, but this was a pleasant one.  I had only one accident.  The old Baronin Langeman is a person I have a strong fondness for, for we violently disagree on some subjects and as violently agree on others —­for instance, she is temperance and I am not:  she has religious beliefs and feelings and I have none; (she’s a Methodist!) she is a democrat and so am I; she is woman’s rights and so am I; she is laborers’ rights and approves trades unions and strikes, and that is me.  And so on.  After she was gone an English lady whom I greatly like, began to talk sharply against her for contributing money, time, labor, and public expression of favor to a strike that is on (for an 11-hour day) in the silk factories of Bohemia—­and she caught me unprepared and betrayed me into over-warm argument.  I am sorry:  for she didn’t know anything about the subject, and I did; and one should be gentle with the ignorant, for they are the chosen of God.

(The new Minister is a good man, but out of place.  The Sec. of Legation is a good man, but out of place.  The Attache is a good man, but out of place.  Our government for displacement beats the new White Star ship; and her possible is 17,200 tons.)

May 13, 4 p. m.  A beautiful English girl and her handsome English husband came up and spent the evening, and she certainly is a bird.  English parents—­she was born and reared in Roumania and couldn’t talk English till she was 8 or 10.  She came up clothed like the sunset, and was a delight to look at. (Roumanian costume.).....

Copyrights
Project Gutenberg
Complete Letters of Mark Twain from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.