This chapter does not appear to derive from Twain's letters to the Daily Alta California except for the final paragraph of letter number 5, published September 5. Twain travels from Marseilles to Paris by train. He describes the French railway cars and the fact that no water closets may be found on the train, only in the stations. We are treated to a comparison with his stagecoach ride from Missouri to California, as related in Roughing It. Twain provides us with a portrait of "The Old Traveler", someone we can still meet today. That retired person of leisure, vacationing in a foreign land, who knows more about most everything than anyone else. Twain meets this person, in different guises, several times during the Quaker City Excursion. Twain suffers the loss of one of his cherished fantasies, a luxurious shave by a French barber, by painful experience. He is also disappointed by the lack of gas lights in his hotel room.
Reading Date
August 16, 2011
SL Venue
Fate Gardens
Twain Chapter Comments