With Artemus Ward's encouragement, Clemens began to think of extending
his audience eastward. The New York Sunday Mercury published literary
matter. Ward had urged him to try this market, and promised to write
a special letter to the editors, introducing Mark Twain and his work.
Clemens prepared a sketch of the Comstock variety, scarcely refined
in character and full of personal allusion, a humor not suited to the
present-day reader. Its general subject was children; it contained
some absurd remedies, supposedly sent to his old pilot friend Zeb
Leavenworth, and was written as much for a joke on that good-natured
soul as for profit or reputation.
“I wrote it especially for Beck Jolly's use,” the author declares, in a
letter to his mother, “so he could pester Zeb with it.”
We cannot know to-day whether Zeb was pestered or not. A faded clipping
is all that remains of the incident. As literature the article, properly
enough, is lost to the world at large. It is only worth remembering as
his metropolitan beginning. Yet he must have thought rather highly of
it (his estimation of his own work was always unsafe), for in the letter
above quoted he adds:
I cannot write regularly for the Mercury, of course, I sha'n't have
time. But sometimes I throw off a pearl (there is no self-conceit
about that, I beg you to observe) which ought for the eternal
welfare of my race to have a more extensive circulation than is
afforded by a local daily paper.
And if Fitzhugh Ludlow (author of the 'Hasheesh Eater') comes your
way, treat him well. He published a high encomium upon Mark Twain
(the same being eminently just and truthful, I beseech you to
believe) in a San Francisco paper. Artemus Ward said that when my
gorgeous talents were publicly acknowledged by such high authority I
ought to appreciate them myself, leave sage-brush obscurity, and
journey to New York with him, as he wanted me to do. But I
preferred not to burst upon the New York public too suddenly and
brilliantly, so I concluded to remain here.
He was in Carson City when this was written, preparing for the opening
of the next legislature. He was beyond question now the most conspicuous
figure of the capital; also the most wholesomely respected, for his
influence had become very large. It was said that he could control more
votes than any legislative member, and with his friends, Simmons and
Clagget, could pass or defeat any bill offered. The Enterprise was a
powerful organ--to be courted and dreaded--and Mark Twain had become
its chief tribune. That he was fearless, merciless, and incorruptible,
without doubt had a salutary influence on that legislative session. He
reveled in his power; but it is not recorded that he ever abused it. He
got a bill passed, largely increasing Orion's official fees, but this
was a crying need and was so recognized. He made no secret promises,
none at all that he did not intend to fulfill. “Sam's word was as fixed
as fate,” Orion records, and it may be added that he was morally as
fearless.
The two Houses of the last territorial legislature of Nevada assembled
January 12, 1864.--[Nevada became a State October 31, 1864.]--A few days
later a “Third House” was organized--an institution quite in keeping
with the happy atmosphere of that day and locality, for it was a
burlesque organization, and Mark Twain was selected as its “Governor.”
The new House prepared to make a public occasion of this first session,
and its Governor was required to furnish a message. Then it was decided
to make it a church benefit. The letters exchanged concerning this
proposition still exist; they explain themselves:
CARSON CITY, January 23, 1864.
GOV. MARK TWAIN, Understanding from certain members of the Third
House of the territorial Legislature that that body will have
effected a permanent organization within a day or two, and be ready
for the reception of your Third Annual Message,--[ There had been
no former message. This was regarded as a great joke.]--we desire
to ask your permission, and that of the Third House, to turn the
affair to the benefit of the Church by charging toll-roads,
franchises, and other persons a dollar apiece for the privilege of
listening to your communication.
S. PIXLEY,
G. A. SEARS,
Trustees.
CARSON CITY, January 23, 1864.
GENTLEMEN,--Certainly. If the public can find anything in a grave
state paper worth paying a dollar for, I am willing they should pay
that amount, or any other; and although I am not a very dusty
Christian myself, I take an absorbing interest in religious affairs,
and would willingly inflict my annual message upon the Church itself
if it might derive benefit thereby. You can charge what you please;
I promise the public no amusement, but I do promise a reasonable
amount of instruction. I am responsible to the Third House only,
and I hope to be permitted to make it exceedingly warm for that
body, without caring whether the sympathies of the public and the
Church be enlisted in their favor, and against myself, or not.
Respectfully,
MARK TWAIN.
Mark Twain's reply is closely related to his later style in phrase and
thought. It might have been written by him at almost any subsequent
period. Perhaps his association with Artemus Ward had awakened a
new perception of the humorous idea--a humor of repression, of
understatement. He forgot this often enough, then and afterward, and
gave his riotous fancy free rein; but on the whole the simpler, less
florid form seemingly began to attract him more and more.
His address as Governor of the Third House has not been preserved, but
those who attended always afterward referred to it as the “greatest
effort of his life.” Perhaps for that audience and that time this
verdict was justified.
It was his first great public opportunity. On the stage about him sat
the membership of the Third House; the building itself was packed, the
aisles full. He knew he could let himself go in burlesque and satire,
and he did. He was unsparing in his ridicule of the Governor, the
officials in general, the legislative members, and of individual
citizens. From the beginning to the end of his address the audience was
in a storm of laughter and applause. With the exception of the
dinner speech made to the printers in Keokuk, it was his first public
utterance--the beginning of a lifelong series of triumphs.
Only one thing marred his success. Little Carrie Pixley, daughter of one
of the “trustees,” had promised to be present and sit in a box next the
stage. It was like him to be fond of the child, and he had promised to
send a carriage for her. Often during his address he glanced toward the
box; but it remained empty. When the affair was ended, he drove home
with her father to inquire the reason. They found the little girl, in
all her finery, weeping on the bed. Then he remembered he had forgotten
to send the carriage; and that was like him, too.
For his Third House address Judge A. W. (Sandy) Baldwin and Theodore
Winters presented him with a gold watch inscribed to “Governor Mark
Twain.” He was more in demand now than ever; no social occasion was
regarded as complete without him. His doings were related daily and his
sayings repeated on the streets. Most of these things have passed away
now, but a few are still recalled with smiles. Once, when conundrums
were being asked at a party, he was urged to make one.
“Well,” he sand, “why am I like the Pacific Ocean?”
Several guesses were made, but none satisfied him. Finally all gave it
up.
“Tell us, Mark, why are you like the Pacific Ocean?”
“I don't know,” he drawled. “I was just asking for information.”
At another time, when a young man insisted on singing a song of eternal
length, the chorus of which was, “I'm going home, I'm going home, I'm
going home tomorrow,” Mark Twain put his head in the window and said,
pleadingly:
“For God's sake go to-night.”
But he was also fond of quieter society. Sometimes, after the turmoil
of a legislative morning, he would drop in to Miss Keziah Clapp's school
and listen to the exercises, or would call on Colonel Curry--“old Curry,
old Abe Curry”--and if the colonel happened to be away, he would talk
with Mrs. Curry, a motherly soul (still alive at ninety-three, in
1910), and tell her of his Hannibal boyhood or his river and his mining
adventures, and keep her laughing until the tears ran.
He was a great pedestrian in those days. Sometimes he walked from
Virginia to Carson, stopping at Colonel Curry's as he came in for rest
and refreshment.
“Mrs. Curry,” he said once, “I have seen tireder men than I am,
and lazier men, but they were dead men.” He liked the home feeling
there--the peace and motherly interest. Deep down, he was lonely and
homesick; he was always so away from his own kindred.
Clemens returned now to Virginia City, and, like all other men who ever
met her, became briefly fascinated by the charms of Adah Isaacs Menken,
who was playing Mazeppa at the Virginia Opera House. All men--kings,
poets, priests, prize-fighters--fell under Menken's spell. Dan de Quille
and Mark Twain entered into a daily contest as to who could lavish the
most fervid praise on her in the Enterprise. The latter carried her
his literary work to criticize. He confesses this in one of his home
letters, perhaps with a sort of pride.
I took it over to show to Miss Menken the actress, Orpheus C. Ken's
wife. She is a literary cuss herself.
She has a beautiful white hand, but her handwriting is infamous; she
writes fast and her chirography is of the door-plate order--her letters
are immense. I gave her a conundrum, thus:
“My dear madam, why ought your hand to retain its present grace and
beauty always? Because you fool away devilish little of it on your
manuscript.”
But Menken was gone presently, and when he saw her again, somewhat
later, in San Francisco, his “madness” would have seemed to have been
allayed.
XLV. A COMSTOCK DUEL. The success--such as it was--of his occasional
contributions to the New York Sunday Mercury stirred Mark Twain's
ambition for a wider field of labor. Circumstance, always ready to meet
his wishes, offered assistance, though in an unexpected form.
Goodman, temporarily absent, had left Clemens in editorial charge. As in
that earlier day, when Orion had visited Tennessee and returned to find
his paper in a hot personal warfare with certain injured citizens, so
the Enterprise, under the same management, had stirred up trouble. It
was just at the time of the “Flour Sack Sanitary Fund,” the story of
which is related at length in 'Roughing It'. In the general hilarity of
this occasion, certain Enterprise paragraphs of criticism or ridicule
had incurred the displeasure of various individuals whose cause
naturally enough had been espoused by a rival paper, the Chronicle. Very
soon the original grievance, whatever it was, was lost sight of in the
fireworks and vitriol-throwing of personal recrimination between Mark
Twain and the Chronicle editor, then a Mr. Laird.
A point had been reached at length when only a call for bloodshed--a
challenge--could satisfy either the staff or the readers of the two
papers. Men were killed every week for milder things than the editors
had spoken each of the other. Joe Goodman himself, not so long before,
had fought a duel with a Union editor--Tom Fitch--and shot him in the
leg, so making of him a friend, and a lame man, for life. In Joe's
absence the prestige of the paper must be maintained.
Mark Twain himself has told in burlesque the story of his duel, keeping
somewhat nearer to the fact than was his custom in such writing, as may
be seen by comparing it with the account of his abettor and second--of
course, Steve Gillis. The account is from Mr. Gillis's own hand:
When Joe went away, he left Sam in editorial charge of the paper.
That was a dangerous thing to do. Nobody could ever tell what Sam
was going to write. Something he said stirred up Mr. Laird, of the
Chronicle, who wrote a reply of a very severe kind. He said some
things that we told Mark could only be wiped out with blood. Those
were the days when almost every man in Virginia City had fought with
pistols either impromptu or premeditated duels. I had been in
several, but then mine didn't count. Most of them were of the
impromptu kind. Mark hadn't had any yet, and we thought it about
time that his baptism took place.
He was not eager for it; he was averse to violence, but we finally
prevailed upon him to send Laird a challenge, and when Laird did not
send a reply at once we insisted on Mark sending him another
challenge, by which time he had made himself believe that he really
wanted to fight, as much as we wanted him to do. Laird concluded to
fight, at last. I helped Mark get up some of the letters, and a man
who would not fight after such letters did not belong in Virginia
City--in those days.
Laird's acceptance of Mark's challenge came along about midnight, I
think, after the papers had gone to press. The meeting was to take
place next morning at sunrise.
Of course I was selected as Mark's second, and at daybreak I had him
up and out for some lessons in pistol practice before meeting Laird.
I didn't have to wake him. He had not been asleep. We had been
talking since midnight over the duel that was coming. I had been
telling him of the different duels in which I had taken part, either
as principal or second, and how many men I had helped to kill and
bury, and how it was a good plan to make a will, even if one had not
much to leave. It always looked well, I told him, and seemed to be
a proper thing to do before going into a duel. So Mark made a will
with a sort of gloomy satisfaction, and as soon as it was light
enough to see, we went out to a little ravine near the meeting-
place, and I set up a board for him to shoot at. He would step out,
raise that big pistol, and when I would count three he would shut
his eyes and pull the trigger. Of course he didn't hit anything; he
did not come anywhere near hitting anything. Just then we heard
somebody shooting over in the next ravine. Sam said:
“What's that, Steve?”
“Why,” I said, “that's Laud. His seconds are practising him over
there.”
It didn't make my principal any more cheerful to hear that pistol go
off every few seconds over there. Just then I saw a little mud-hen
light on some sage-brush about thirty yards away.
“Mark,” I said, “let me have that pistol. I'll show you how to
shoot.”
He handed it to me, and I let go at the bird and shot its head off,
clean. About that time Laird and his second came over the ridge to
meet us. I saw them coming and handed Mark back the pistol. We
were looking at the bird when they came up.
“Who did that?” asked Laird's second.
“Sam,” I said.
“How far off was it?”
“Oh, about thirty yards.”
“Can he do it again?”
“Of course,” I said; “every time. He could do it twice that far.”
Laud's second turned to his principal.
“Laird,” he said, “you don't want to fight that man. It's just like
suicide. You'd better settle this thing, now.”
So there was a settlement. Laird took back all he had said; Mark
said he really had nothing against Laird--the discussion had been
purely journalistic and did not need to be settled in blood. He
said that both he and Laird were probably the victims of their
friends. I remember one of the things Laird said when his second
told him he had better not fight.
“Fight! H--l, no! I am not going to be murdered by that d--d
desperado.”
Sam had sent another challenge to a man named Cutler, who had been
somehow mixed up with the muss and had written Sam an insulting
letter; but Cutler was out of town at the time, and before he got
back we had received word from Jerry Driscoll, foreman of the Grand
jury, that the law just passed, making a duel a penitentiary offense
for both principal and second, was to be strictly enforced, and
unless we got out of town in a limited number of hours we would be
the first examples to test the new law.
We concluded to go, and when the stage left next morning for San
Francisco we were on the outside seat. Joe Goodman had returned by this
time and agreed to accompany us as far as Henness Pass. We were all in
good spirits and glad we were alive, so Joe did not stop when he got
to Henness Pass, but kept on. Now and then he would say, “Well, I had
better be going back pretty soon,” but he didn't go, and in the end he
did not go back at all, but went with us clear to San Francisco, and we
had a royal good time all the way. I never knew any series of duels to
close so happily.
So ended Mark Twain's career on the Comstock. He had come to it a weary
pilgrim, discouraged and unknown; he was leaving it with a new name and
fame--elate, triumphant, even if a fugitive.