Mark Twain, a Biography — Volume II, Part 2: 1886-1900 eBook

Albert Bigelow Paine
This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 310 pages of information about Mark Twain, a Biography — Volume II, Part 2.

Mark Twain, a Biography — Volume II, Part 2: 1886-1900 eBook

Albert Bigelow Paine
This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 310 pages of information about Mark Twain, a Biography — Volume II, Part 2.

A part of the tragedy of their trip around the world had been the development in Jean Clemens of a malady which time had identified as epilepsy.  The loss of one daughter and the invalidism of another was the burden which this household had now to bear.  Of course they did not for a moment despair of a cure for the beautiful girl who had been so cruelly stricken, and they employed any agent that promised relief.

They decided now to go to London, in the hope of obtaining beneficial treatment.  They left Vienna at the end of May, followed to the station by a great crowd, who loaded their compartment with flowers and lingered on the platform waving and cheering, some of them in tears, while the train pulled away.  Leschetizky himself was among them, and Wilbrandt, the author of the Master of Palmyra, and many artists and other notables, “most of whom,” writes Mrs. Clemens, “we shall probably never see again in this world.”

Their Vienna sojourn had been one of the most brilliant periods of their life, as well as one of the saddest.  The memory of Susy had been never absent, and the failing health of Jean was a gathering cloud.

They stopped a day or two at Prague, where they were invited by the Prince of Thurn and Taxis to visit his castle.  It gave them a glimpse of the country life of the Bohemian nobility which was most interesting.  The Prince’s children were entirely familiar with Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, which they had read both in English and in the translation.

They journeyed to London by way of Cologne, arriving by the end of May.  Poultney Bigelow was there, and had recently been treated with great benefit by osteopathy (then known as the Swedish movements), as practised by Heinrick Kellgren at Sanna, Sweden.  Clemens was all interest concerning Kellgren’s method and eager to try it for his daughter’s malady.  He believed she could be benefited, and they made preparation to spend some months at least in Sanna.  They remained several weeks in London, where they were welcomed with hospitality extraordinary.  They had hardly arrived when they were invited by Lord Salisbury to Hatfield House, and by James Bryce to Portland Place, and by Canon Wilberforce to Dean’s Yard.  A rather amusing incident happened at one of the luncheon-parties.  Canon Wilberforce was there and left rather early.  When Clemens was ready to go there was just one hat remaining.  It was not his, and he suspected, by the initials on the inside, that it belonged to Canon Wilberforce.  However, it fitted him exactly and he wore it away.  That evening he wrote: 

                  Princeof Wales hotel, de Vere gardens,
                                July,3, 1899.

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Mark Twain, a Biography — Volume II, Part 2: 1886-1900 from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.