He talked astronomy a great deal...

Twain loved astronomy. "He was always thrown into a sort of ecstasy by the unthinkable distance of space, the supreme drama of the universe. The fact that Alpha Centauri was twenty-five trillions of miles away -- two hundred and fifty thousand times the distance of our own remote sun and that our solar system was traveling, as a whole, toward the bright star Vega...." ABP From his hilltop home Twain had an unobstructed view of the sky. I can imagine him sitting by the loggia with one of his small cigars staring into the Milky Way stretched out before him.

James