"I have to spend August and September in Hartford which isn’t San Francisco." - Mark Twain #QotD

Letter to: Mrs. Jane Clemens and Mrs. Moffett, in St. Louis:

Feb. 6, 1868. MY DEAR MOTHER AND SISTER,
I have to spend August and September in Hartford which isn’t San Francisco. Mr. Conness offers me any choice out of five influential California offices. Now, some day or other I shall want an office and then, just my luck, I can’t get it, I suppose. They want to send me abroad, as a Consul or a Minister. I said I didn’t want any of the pie. God knows I am mean enough and lazy enough, now, without being a foreign consul.

In The Complete Works of Mark Twain: The Novels, short stories, essays and satires, travel writing, non-fiction, the complete letters, the complete speeches, and the autobiography of Mark Twain (Kindle Locations 122448-122452).

"Susy died in the house we built in Hartford ... to me it was a holy place and beautiful." Mark Twain #QotD

From "The Death of Jean"

Susy died in the house we built in Hartford. Mrs. Clemens would never enter it again. But it made the house dearer to me. I have entered it once since, when it was tenantless and silent and forlorn, but to me it was a holy place and beautiful. It seemed to me that the spirits of the dead were all about me, and would speak to me and welcome me if they could: Livy, and Susy, and George, and Henry Robinson, and Charles Dudley Warner. How good and kind they were, and how lovable their lives! In fancy I could see them all again, I could call the children back and hear them romp again with George — that peerless black ex-slave and children’s idol who came one day — a flitting stranger — to wash windows, and stayed eighteen years. Until he died. Clara and Jean would never enter again the New York hotel which their mother had frequented in earlier days. They could not bear it. But I shall stay in this house. It is dearer to me tonight than ever it was before. Jean’s spirit will make it beautiful for me always. Her lonely and tragic death — but I will not think of that now.

In The Complete Works of Mark Twain: The Novels, short stories, essays and satires, travel writing, non-fiction, the complete letters, the complete speeches, and the autobiography of Mark Twain (Kindle Locations 72630-72638).

"At the time of the building of one of the finest residences of Hartford ..." Mark Twain #QotD

"Mental Telegraphy"

At the time of the building of one of the finest residences of Hartford, which is still a very new house, a local firm supplied the wallpaper for certain rooms, contracting both to furnish and to put on the paper. It happened that they did not calculate the size of one room exactly right, and the paper of the design selected for it fell short just half a roll. They asked for delay enough to send on to the manufacturers for what was needed, and were told that there was no especial hurry. It happened that the manufacturers had none on hand, and had destroyed the blocks from which it was printed. They wrote that they had a full list of the dealers to whom they had sold that paper, and that they would write to each of these and get from some of them a roll. It might involve a delay of a couple of weeks, but they would surely get it.

From The Complete Works of Mark Twain: The Novels, short stories, essays and satires, travel writing, non-fiction, the complete letters, the complete speeches, and the autobiography of Mark Twain (Kindle Locations 54023-54028).

National Platypus day 2014: "Ornithorhynchus—grotesquest of animals, king of the animalculae of the world for versatility of character and make-up"

In honor of National Platypus Day 2014, here's a quote on my favorite monotremes, the Platypus (Ornithorhynchus anatinus)  and an illustration of the little creature from a volume on display at the Melbourne Museum during BHL Day 2014.

Speaking of the indigenous coneys and bactrian camels, the naturalist said that the coniferous and bacteriological output of Australasia was remarkable for its many and curious departures from the accepted laws governing these species of tubercles, but that in his opinion Nature's fondness for dabbling in the erratic was most notably exhibited in that curious combination of bird, fish, amphibian, burrower, crawler, quadruped, and Christian called the Ornithorhynchus—grotesquest of animals, king of the animalculae of the world for versatility of character and make-up
 - Mark Twain, Following the Equator

QotD: "The Australians did not seem to me to differ noticeably from Americans, either in dress, carriage, ways, pronunciation, inflections, or general appearance." Mark Twain

"The Australians did not seem to me to differ noticeably from Americans, either in dress, carriage, ways, pronunciation, inflections, or general appearance. There were fleeting and subtle suggestions of their English origin, but these were not pronounced enough, as a rule, to catch one's attention. The people have easy and cordial manners from the beginning—from the moment that the introduction is completed. This is American. To put it in another way, it is English friendliness with the English shyness and self-consciousness left out." Mark Twain, Following the Equator (1897)

 

QotD: Nature's fondness for dabbling in the erratic was most notably exhibited in that curious combination of bird, fish, amphibian, burrower, crawler, quadruped ... called the Ornithorhynchus

"Speaking of the indigenous coneys and bactrian camels, the naturalist said that the coniferous and bacteriological output of Australasia was remarkable for its many and curious departures from the accepted laws governing these species of tubercles, but that in his opinion Nature's fondness for dabbling in the erratic was most notably exhibited in that curious combination of bird, fish, amphibian, burrower, crawler, quadruped, and Christian called the Ornithorhynchus—grotesquest of animals, king of the animalculae of the world for versatility of character and make-up." Mark Twain, Following the Equator (1897)

This image is from the library at the Melbourne Museum. The museum hosted the start of the Global BHL meeting with "BHL Day" that included an open house for the visiting librarians.

Buona notte, Firenze ... until the morning ...

"I got lost in Florence at nine o'clock, one night, and staid lost in that labyrinth of narrow streets and long rows of vast buildings that look all alike, until toward three o'clock in the morning. It was a pleasant night and at first there were a good many people abroad, and there were cheerful lights about. Later, I grew accustomed to prowling about mysterious drifts and tunnels and astonishing and interesting myself with coming around corners expecting to find the hotel staring me in the face, and not finding it doing any thing of the kind." - Mark Twain, Innocents Abroad (1869)

Well, I can't say that I ever got lost again after the first morning in Florence, of course my circle was a pretty small of the historic old city, Ciao, til the morning.

Here's a few 21:00ish shots as I walked back across the Arno to the Hotel Santa Croce:

The great Florentines in Santa Croce, with some side comments by Mark Twain

One of my main goals in Florence was to visit Santa Croce and see the tombs and monuments to great Florentines. Santa Croce did not disappoint. From outside on the piazza, it's hard to grasp its size, inside it's immense. Though Santa Maria Novella is still probably my favorite of the "big three" in Florence, Santa Croce, whose bells I heard at night and which I passed every day, remains special.

Here's some comments from Mark Twain, from Innocents Abroad (1869) on the monuments of Santa Croce:

Caption

Galileo
That we had lived to see his dust in honored sepulchure in the church of Santa Croce we owed to a society of literati, and not to Florence or her rulers.
















Dante
We saw Dante's tomb in that church, also, but we were glad to know that his body was not in it; that the ungrateful city that had exiled him and persecuted him would give much to have it there, but need not hope to ever secure that high honor to herself.












Michelangelo, Machiavelli, Rossini (not Raphael)

"We went to the Church of Santa Croce, from time to time, in Florence, to weep over the tombs of Michael Angelo, Raphael and Machiavelli, (I suppose they are buried there, but it may be that they reside elsewhere and rent their tombs to other parties--such being the fashion in Italy,) and between times we used to go and stand on the bridges and admire the Arno."

(from left: Machiavelli, Michelangelo, Rossini)

Along the Arno with Mark Twain / " It would be a very plausible river if they would pump some water into it"

"We went to the Church of Santa Croce, from time to time, in Florence, to weep over the tombs of Michael Angelo, Raphael and Machiavelli, (I suppose they are buried there, but it may be that they reside elsewhere and rent their tombs to other parties--such being the fashion in Italy,) and between times we used to go and stand on the bridges and admire the Arno. It is popular to admire the Arno. It is a great historical creek with four feet in the channel and some scows floating around. It would be a very plausible river if they would pump some water into it. They all call it a river, and they honestly think it is a river, do these dark and bloody Florentines. They even help out the delusion by building bridges over it. I do not see why they are too good to wade." - Mark Twain, The Innocents Abroad (1869)

Well now, I think the Arno is a pretty passable river, especially by my West Coast (USA) standards. The Arno is no Mississippi of course, but seeing as the damage it's caused with it's floods over the centuries, I think that it's worthy of admiration ... and I'm sure this river otter I saw the other day would agree!