The Twain House in Hartford is in possession of the book of Schopenhauer’s essays. I’ve seen it; there’s one line of lightly dismissive marginalia very early in the book, which leads me to conclude that Twain may not have read much further in it.

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> On Oct 18, 2020, at 12:22 PM, Eva Schweitzer <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> 
> Twain spoke about Schopenhauser, as documented in our books "Mark Twain in Berlin." He did not like him. He did not mention Nietzsche, though (as far as I remember)
> ________________________________
> From: Mark Twain Forum <[log in to unmask]> on behalf of Mac Donnell Rare Books <[log in to unmask]>
> Sent: Sunday, October 18, 2020 6:06 PM
> To: [log in to unmask] <[log in to unmask]>
> Subject: Re: Twain and ... Schopenhauer?
> 
> Twain also owned a copy of Kant's Critique of Pure Reason in the 1880s,
> so some of Kant's influence on Schopenhauer may have been direct on
> Twain.  As for Neitzsche, Twain may have said he didn't read Neitzsche
> himself, but he certainly knew his philosophy if his comments to Lyon
> are any indication-- when she was reading Neitzsche in 1906 and quoting
> Neitzsche to Twain because she thought they were similar in their
> outlooks (cf Gribben). Another approach could be through the authors
> heavily influenced by the Kant-Schopenhauer-Neitzsche school of thought,
> like Tolstoy, whose works were read by Twain the 1880s and 1890s.
> 
> I don't have any works by Kant, Schopenhauer, or Neitzsche from Twain's
> library, although I may have some works that quote from them that Twain
> owned. That would take some poking around. But the Tolstoy connection
> involved just two degrees of separation: Among Clara's signed cabinet
> photos of musicians in her social circle in the 1890s, is a photo of
> Tolstoy inscribed to Ossip. Twain and Ossip spent time together in 1898
> and again when Ossip showed up at Stormfield to recover from surgery.
> I've seen no evidence they ever spoke of Tolstoy, and I don't know under
> what circumstances Ossip met or knew Tolstoy, but the subject could have
> come up.
> 
> Kevin
> @
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> 
> ------ Original Message ------
> From: "Barbara Schmidt" <[log in to unmask]>
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Sent: 10/18/2020 10:34:50 AM
> Subject: Re: Twain and ... Schopenhauer?
> 
>> Alan Gribben in MARK TWAIN'S LIBRARY: A RECONSTRUCTION records a volume by
>> Schopenhauer ESSAYS OF ARTHUR SCHOPENHAUER -- a translation published in
>> 1892 that was sold in the 1951 sale of Clemens's library. It is listed as
>> belonging to Jean and Clara. In addition, Gribben also records that
>> journalist Henry Fisher  also commented on Twain's interest in
>> Schopenhauer's writings. Whether the volume from the Clemens library has
>> ever been recovered or examined for marginalia is not documented.
>> 
>> Barb
>> 
>>> On Sun, Oct 18, 2020 at 10:08 AM Dave Davis <[log in to unmask]>
>>> wrote:
>>> 
>>> This one sentence from Arthur Schopenhauer intrigues me:
>>> 
>>> *Our hesitation before such a colossal thought will perhaps be diminished
>>> by the recollection... that the ultimate dreamer of the vast life-dream is
>>> finally, in a certain sense, but one, namely the Will to Live, and that the
>>> multiplicity of appearances follows from the conditioning effects of time
>>> and space [the morphogenetic field whereby the Will to Live assumes forms].
>>> It is one great dream dreamed by a single Being, but in such a way that all
>>> the dream characters dream too.  *
>>> --Arthur Schopenhauer, "Transcendental Speculation on Apparent Design in
>>> the Fate of the Individual,” "  (1851)
>>> 
>>> (More about that:
>>> https://harpers.org/2012/02/schopenhauer-causality-and-synchronicity/ )
>>> 
>>>  It reminds me of the great conclusion of #44, The Mysterious Stranger
>>> which we all know:
>>> 
>>> "... "It is true, that which I have revealed to you; there is no God, no
>>> universe, no human race, no earthly life, no heaven, no hell. It is all a
>>> dream--a grotesque and foolish dream. Nothing exists but you. And you are
>>> but a thought--a vagrant thought, a useless thought, a homeless thought,
>>> wandering forlorn among the empty eternities!"
>>> 
>>> (Actually, the whole of that last, concluding Chapter)
>>> 
>>> 
>>> I recall that SLC told a correspondent he had never read Nietzsche; but we
>>> also know that he could get by, reading German, and was in Germany quite a
>>> bit in the 1890's, when such ideas were in the air there.
>>> 
>>> Any thoughts? Maybe they both got it from Shakespeare. Ideas float around,
>>> expression is everything.
>>> 
>>> DDD
>>> 
>>