Susan Dorman wrote: > How well did Clemens speak/write German? Rather well, in my opinion. His play "Meisterschaft," written in German, shows good competence. He delivered amusing speeches in German, and had good enough knowledge of the language to be able to make rather clever wordplay in German. Whenever he used the language in his stories, or travel journals, it was well done. He worked hard at it, both for himself and helping his daughters to learn the language. He, of course, downplayed his own abilities, but it's clear that he was quite competent in this difficult language. The best thing about his German is that he writes the language like he writes English--without pretentious floweriness. Alan Eliasen