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"Down the Rhone," written some twenty years later, is a chapter from another book that failed of completion. Mark Twain, in Europe partly for his health, partly for financial reasons, had agreed to write six letters for the New York Sun, two of which those from Aix and Marienbad appear in this volume. Six letters would not make a book of sufficient size and he thought he might supplement them by making a drifting trip down the Rhone, the "river of angels," as Stevenson called it, and turning it into literature.

The trip itself proved to be one of the most delightful excursions of his life, and his account of it, so far as completed, has interest and charm. But he was alone, with only his boatman (the "Admiral") and his courier, Joseph Very, for company, a monotony of human material that was not inspiring. He made some attempt to introduce fictitious characters, but presently gave up the idea. As a whole the excursion was too drowsy and comfortable to stir him to continuous effort; neither the notes nor the article, attempted somewhat later, ever came to conclusion.