XVIII.

LETTERS FROM EUROPE, 1878-79. TRAMPING WITH TWICHELL. WRITING A NEW
TRAVEL BOOK. LIFE IN MUNICH

Whether the unhappy occurrence at the Whittier dinner had anything
to do with Mark Twain's resolve to spend a year or two in Europe
cannot be known now. There were other good reasons for going, one
in particular being a demand for another book of travel. It was
also true, as he explains in a letter to his mother, that his days
were full of annoyances, making it difficult for him to work. He
had a tendency to invest money in almost any glittering enterprise
that came along, and at this time he was involved in the promotion
of a variety of patent rights that brought him no return other than
assessment and vexation.

Clemens's mother was by this time living with her son Onion and his
wife, in Iowa.


To Mrs. Jane Clemens, in Keokuk, Iowa:

HARTFORD, Feb. 17, 1878
MY DEAR MOTHER,--I suppose I am the worst correspondent in the whole
world; and yet I grow worse and worse all the time. My conscience
blisters me for not writing you, but it has ceased to abuse me for not
writing other folks.

Life has come to be a very serious matter with me. I have a badgered,