ching his
"people" and trying to make out what they were like. One day he went
over there, and sure enough there was a sign out, "Moblirte Wohnung zu
Vermiethen." A day or two later he was established in the very room he
had selected, it being the only room but one vacant.

In A Tramp Abroad Mark Twain tells of the beauty of their Heidelberg
environment. To Howells he wrote:

Our bedroom has two great glass bird-cages (inclosed balconies), one
looking toward the Rhine Valley and sunset, the other looking up the
Neckar cul-de-sac, and naturally we spend pearly all our time in
these. We have tables and chairs in them; we do our reading,
writing, studying, smoking, and suppering in them . . . . 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 dikes. 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....

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 manuscripts over to my den. Now the call is loud and decided at
last. So to-morrow I shall begin regular, steady work, and stick to
it till the middle of July or August 1st, 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).

The walking tour with Twichell had been contemplated in the scheme for
gathering book material, but the plan for it had not been completed when
he left Hartford. Now he was anxious that they should start as soon as
possible. Twichell, receiving the news in Hartford, wrote that it was a
great day for him: that his third son had been happily born early that
morning, and now the arrival of this glorious gift of a tramp through
Germany and Switzerland completed his blessings.

I am almost too joyful for pleasure [he wrote]. I labor with my
felicities. How I shall get to sleep to-night I don't know, though
I have had a good start, in not having slep