Throughout 1878 and 1879, Mark Twain and his family traveled in Europe in order to gather source material for a novel, A Tramp Abroad (published in 1880). Reverend Joseph Twitchell, a friend from the Clemens’s parish in Hartford, Connecticut, joined the expedition. After spending some time in Frankfurt, they ended up at the Schloss Hotel in the historic German town of Heidelberg. Below, Twain describes to his friend and publisher, William D. Howells, the balconies that allowed a great view of the Black Forest and Neckar River.
SCHLOSS-HOTEL HEIDELBERG, Sunday, a. m., May 26, 1878.
MY DEAR HOWELLS,—….divinely located. From this airy porch among the shining groves we look down upon Heidelberg Castle, and upon the swift Neckar, and the town, and out over the wide green level of the Rhine valley—a marvelous prospect. We are in a Cul-de-sac formed of hill-ranges and river; we are on the side of a steep mountain; the river at our feet is walled, on its other side, (yes, on both sides,) by a steep and wooded mountain-range which rises abruptly aloft from the water’s edge; portions of these mountains are densely wooded; the plain of the Rhine, seen through the mouth of this pocket, has many and peculiar charms for the eye.
Our bedroom has two great glass bird-cages (enclosed balconies) one looking toward the Rhine valley and sunset, the other looking up the Neckar cul-de-sac, and naturally we spend nearly all our time in these—when one is sunny the other is shady. We have tables and chairs in them; we do our reading, writing, studying, smoking and suppering in them.
The view from these bird-cages is my despair. The pictures change from one enchanting aspect to another in ceaseless procession, never keeping one form half an hour, and never taking on an unlovely one.
And then Heidelberg on a dark night! It is massed, away down there, almost right under us, you know, and stretches off toward the valley. Its curved and interlacing streets are a cobweb, beaded thick with lights—a wonderful thing to see; then the rows of lights on the arched bridges, and their glinting reflections in the water; and away at the far end, the Eisenbahnhof, with its twenty solid acres of glittering gas-jets, a huge garden, as one may say, whose every plant is a flame.
These balconies are the darlingest things. I have spent all the morning in this north one. Counting big and little, it has 256 panes of glass in it; so one is in effect right out in the free sunshine, and yet sheltered from wind and rain—and likewise doored and curtained from whatever may be going on in the bedroom. It must have been a noble genius who devised this hotel. Lord, how blessed is the repose, the tranquillity of this place! Only two sounds; the happy clamor of the birds in the groves, and the muffled music of the Neckar, tumbling over the opposing dykes. It is no hardship to lie awake awhile, nights, for this subdued roar has exactly the sound of a steady rain beating upon a roof. It is so healing to the spirit; and it bears up the thread of one’s imaginings as the accompaniment bears up a song…
The hotel grounds join and communicate with the Castle grounds; so we and the children loaf in the winding paths of those leafy vastnesses a great deal, and drink beer and listen to excellent music…
We left Hartford before the end of March, and I have been idle ever since. I have waited for a call to go to work—I knew it would come. Well, it began to come a week ago; my note-book comes out more and more frequently every day since; three days ago I concluded to move my manuscript over to my den. Now the call is loud and decided at last. So tomorrow I shall begin regular, steady work, and stick to it till middle of July or 1st August, when I look for Twichell; we will then walk about Germany two or three weeks, and then I’ll go to work again—(perhaps in Munich).
We both send a power of love to the Howellses, and we do wish you were here. Are you in the new house? Tell us about it.
Yrs Ever
MARK.
From The Complete Letters of Mark Twain. Los Angeles: Library of Alexandria (2012), pp. 602-8.
FURTHER READING
Twain gives an account of Heidelberg and the Schloss Hotel in A Tramp Abroad.
Read Twain’s essay on linguistics, “The Awful German Language.”