That is Stoughter's house, I expect, that Cousin Jim has moved into.

This is just the country for Cousin Jim to live in. I don't believe it

would take him six months to make $100,000 here, if he had 3,000 dollars

to commence with. I suppose he can't leave his family though.

Tell Mrs. Benson I never intend to be a lawyer. I have been a slave

several times in my life, but I'll never be one again. I always intend

to be so situated (unless I marry,) that I can "pull up stakes" and clear

out whenever I feel like it.

We are very thankful to you, Pamela, for the papers you send. We have

received half a dozen or more, and, next to letters, they are the most

welcome visitors we have.

Write oftener, Pamela.

Yr. Brother

SAM.

The "Cousin Jim" mentioned in this letter is the original of the

character of Colonel Sellers. Whatever Mark Twain's later opinion of

Cousin Jim Lampton's financial genius may have been, he seems to have

respected it at this time.

More than three months pass until we have another letter, and in that

time the mining fever had become well seated. Mark Twain himself was

full of the Sellers optimism, and it was bound to overflow, fortify as he

would against it.

He met with little enough encouragement. With three companions, in

midwinter, he made a mining excursion to the much exploited Humboldt

region, returning empty-handed after a month or two of hard experience.

This is the trip picturesquely described in Chapters XXVII to XXXIII of

Roughing It.--[It is set down historically in Mark Twain 'A Biography.'

Harper & brothers.]--He, mentions the Humboldt in his next letter, but

does not confess his failure.

To Mrs. Jane Clemens and Mrs. Moffett, in St. Louis:

CARSON CITY, Feb. 8, 1862.

MY DEAR MOTHER AND SISTER,--By George Pamela, I begin to fear that I have

invoked a Spirit of some kind or other which I will find some difficulty

in laying. I wasn't much terrified by your growing inclinations, but

when you begin to call presentiments to your aid, I confess that I

"weaken." Mr. Moffett is right, as I said before--and I am not much

afraid of his going wrong. Men are easily dealt with--but when you get

the women started, you are in for it, you know. But I have decided on

two things, viz: Any of you, or all of you, may live in California, for

that is the Garden of Eden reproduced--but you shall never live in

Nevada; and secondly, none of you, save Mr. Moffett, shall ever cross the

Plains. If you were only going to Pike's Peak, a little matter of 700

miles from St. Jo, you might take the coach, and I wouldn't say a word.

But I consider it over 2,000 miles from St. Jo to Carson, and the first

6 or 800 miles is mere Fourth of July, compared to the balance of the

route. But Lord bless you, a man enjoys every foot of it. If you ever

come here or to California, it must be by sea. Mr. Moffett must come by

overland coach, though, by all means. He would consider it the jolliest

little trip he ever took in his life. Either June, July, or August are

the proper months to make the journey in. He could not suffer from heat,

and three or four heavy army blankets would make the cold nights

comfortable. If the coach were full of passengers, two good blankets

would probably be sufficient. If he comes, and brings plenty of money,

and fails to invest it to his entire satisfaction; I will prophesy no

more.

But I will tell you a few things which you wouldn't have found out if I

hadn't got myself into this scrape. I expect to return to St. Louis in

July--per steamer. I don't say that I will return then, or that I shall

be able to do it--but I expect to--you bet. I came down here from

Humboldt, in order to look after our Esmeralda interests, and my

sore-backed horse and the bad roads have prevented me from making the

journey. Yesterday one of my old Esmeralda friends, Bob Howland, arrived

here, and I have had a talk with him. He owns with me in the "Horatio

and Derby" ledge. He says our tunnel is in 52 feet, and a small stream

of water has been struck, which bids fair to become a "big thing" by the

time the ledge is reached--sufficient to supply a mill. Now, if you knew

anything of the value of water, here; you would perceive, at a glance

that if the water should amount to 50 or 100 inches, we wouldn't care

whether school kept or not. If the ledge should prove to be worthless,

we'd sell the water for money enough to give us quite a lift. But you

see, the ledge will not prove to be worthless. We have located, near by,

a fine site for a mill; and when we strike the ledge, you know, we'll

have a mill-site, water power, and pay-rock, all handy. Then we shan't

care whether we have capital or not. Mill-folks will build us a mill,

and wait for their pay. If nothing goes wrong, we'll strike the ledge in

June--and if we do, I'll be home in July, you know.

Pamela, don't you know that undemonstrated human calculations won't do

to bet on? Don't you know that I have only talked, as yet, but proved

nothing? Don't you know that I have expended money in this country but

have made none myself? Don't you know that I have never held in my hands

a gold or silver bar that belonged to me? Don't you know that it's all

talk and no cider so far? Don't you know that people who always feel

jolly, no matter where they are or what happens to them--who have the

organ of hope preposterously developed--who are endowed with an

uncongealable sanguine temperament--who never feel concerned about the

price of corn--and who cannot, by any possibility, discover any but the

bright side of a picture--are very apt to go to extremes, and exaggerate

with 40-horse microscopic power? Of course I never tried to raise these

suspicions in your mind, but then your knowledge of the fact that some

people's poor frail human nature is a sort of crazy institution anyhow,

ought to have suggested them to you. Now, if I hadn't thoughtlessly got

you into the notion of coming out here, and thereby got myself into a

scrape, I wouldn't have given you that highly-colored paragraph about the

mill, etc., because, you know, if that pretty little picture should fail,

and wash out, and go the Devil generally, it wouldn't cost me the loss of

an hour's sleep, but you fellows would be so much distressed on my

account as I could possibly be if "circumstances beyond my control" were

to prevent my being present at my own funeral. But--but--

"In the bright lexicon of youth,

There's no such word as Fail--"

and I'll prove it!

And look here. I came near forgetting it. Don't you say a word to me

about "trains" across the plains. Because I am down on that arrangement.

That sort of thing is "played out," you know. The Overland Coach or the

Mail Steamer is the thing.

You want to know something about the route between California and Nevada

Territory? Suppose you take my word for it, that it is exceedingly

jolly. Or take, for a winter view, J. Ross Brown's picture, in Harper's

Monthly, of pack mules tumbling fifteen hundred feet down the side of a

mountain. Why bless you, there's scenery on that route. You can stand

on some of those noble peaks and see Jerusalem and the Holy Land. And

you can start a boulder, and send it tearing up the earth and crashing

over trees-down-down-down-to the very devil, Madam. And you would

probably stand up there and look, and stare and wonder at the

magnificence spread out before you till you starved to death, if let

alone. But you should take someone along to keep you moving.

Since you want to know, I will inform you that an eight-stamp water mill,

put up and ready for business would cost about $10,000 to $12,000. Then,

the water to run it with would cost from $1,000 to $30,000--and even

more, according to the location. What I mean by that, is, that water

powers in THIS vicinity, are immensely valuable. So, also, in Esmeralda.

But Humboldt is a new country, and things don't cost so much there yet.

I saw a good water power sold there for $750.00. But here is the way the

thing is managed. A man with a good water power on Carson river will

lean his axe up against a tree (provided you find him chopping cord-wood

at $4 a day,) and taking his chalk pipe out of his mouth to afford him an

opportunity to answer your questions, will look you coolly in the face

and tell you his little property is worth forty or fifty thousand

dollars! But you can easily fix him. You tell him that you'll build a

quartz mill on his property, and make him a fourth or a third, or half

owner in said mill in consideration of the privilege of using said

property--and that will bring him to his milk in a jiffy. So he spits on

his hands, and goes in again with his axe, until the mill is finished,

when lo! out pops the quondam wood-chopper, arrayed in purple and fine

linen, and prepared to deal in bank-stock, or bet on the races, or take

government loans, with an air, as to the amount, of the most don't care

a-d---dest unconcern that you can conceive of. By George, if I just had

a thousand dollars--I'd be all right! Now there's the "Horatio," for

instance. There are five or six shareholders in it, and I know I could

buy half of their interests at, say $20 per foot, now that flour is worth

$50 per barrel and they are pressed for money. But I am hard up myself,

and can't buy--and in June they'll strike the ledge and then "good-bye

canary." I can't get it for love or money. Twenty dollars a foot!

Think of it. For ground that is proven to be rich. Twenty dollars,

Madam--and we wouldn't part with a foot of our 75 for five times the sum.

So it will be in Humboldt next summer. The boys will get pushed and sell

ground for a song that is worth a fortune. But I am at the helm, now.

I have convinced Orion that he hasn't business talent enough to carry on

a peanut stand, and he has solemnly promised me that he will meddle no

more with mining, or other matters not connected with the Secretary's

office. So, you see, if mines are to be bought or sold, or tunnels run,

or shafts sunk, parties have to come to me--and me only. I'm the "firm,"

you know.

"How long does it take one of those infernal trains to go through?"

Well, anywhere between three and five months.

Tell Margaret that if you ever come to live in California, that you can

promise her a home for a hundred years, and a bully one--but she wouldn't

like the country. Some people are malicious enough to think that if the

devil were set at liberty and told to confine himself to Nevada

Territory, that he would come here--and look sadly around, awhile, and

then get homesick and go back to hell again. But I hardly believe it,

you know. I am saying, mind you, that Margaret wouldn't like the

country, perhaps--nor the devil either, for that matter, or any other man

but I like it. When it rains here, it never lets up till it has done all

the raining it has got to do--and after that, there's a dry spell, you

bet. Why, I have had my whiskers and moustaches so full of alkali dust

that you'd have thought I worked in a starch factory and boarded in a

flour barrel.

Since we have been here there has not been a fire--although the houses

are built of wood. They "holler" fire sometimes, though, but I am always

too late to see the smoke before the fire is out, if they ever have any.

Now they raised a yell here in front of the office a moment ago. I put

away my papers, and locked up everything of value, and changed my boots,

and pulled off my coat, and went and got a bucket of water, and came back

to see what the matter was, remarking to myself, "I guess I'll be on hand

this time, any way." But I met a friend on the pavement, and he said,

"Where you been? Fire's out half an hour ago."

Ma says Axtele was above "suspition"--but I have searched through

Webster's Unabridged, and can't find the word. However, it's of no

consequence--I hope he got down safely. I knew Axtele and his wife as

well as I know Dan Haines. Mrs. A. once tried to embarrass me in the

presence of company by asking me to name her baby, when she was well

aware that I didn't know the sex of that Phenomenon. But I told her to

call it Frances, and spell it to suit herself. That was about nine years

ago, and Axtele had no property, and could hardly support his family by

his earnings. He was a pious cuss, though. Member of Margaret Sexton's

Church.

And Ma says "it looks like a man can't hold public office and be honest."

Why, certainly not, Madam. A man can't hold public office and be honest.

Lord bless you, it is a common practice with Orion to go about town

stealing little things that happen to be lying around loose. And I don't

remember having heard him speak the truth since we have been in Nevada.

He even tries to prevail upon me to do these things, Ma, but I wasn't

brought up in that way, you know. You showed the public what you could

do in that line when you raised me, Madam. But then you ought to have

raised me first, so that Orion could have had the benefit of my example.

Do you know that he stole all the stamps out of an 8 stamp quartz mill

one night, and brought them home under his over-coat and hid them in the

back room?

Yrs. etc.,

SAM

A little later he had headed for the Esmeralda Hills. Some time in

February he was established there in a camp with a young man by the

name of Horatio Phillips (Raish). Later he camped with Bob Howland,

who, as City Marshal of Aurora, became known as the most fearless

man in the Territory, and, still later, with Calvin H. Higbie (Cal),

to whom 'Roughing It' would one day be dedicated. His own funds

were exhausted by this time, and Orion, with his rather slender

salary, became the financial partner of the firm.

It was a comfortless life there in the Esmeralda camp. Snow covered

everything. There was nothing to do, and apparently nothing to

report; for there are no letters until April. Then the first one is

dated Carson City, where he seems to be making a brief sojourn. It

is a rather heavy attempt to be light-hearted; its playfulness

suggests that of a dancing bear.

To Mrs. Jane Clemens, in St. Louis:

CARSON CITY, April 2, 1862.

MY DEAR MOTHER,--Yours of March 2nd has just been received. I see I am

in for it again--with Annie. But she ought to know that I was always

stupid. She used to try to teach me lessons from the Bible, but I never

could understand them. Doesn't she remember telling me the story of

Moses, one Sunday, last Spring, and how hard she tried to explain it and

simplify it so that I could understand it--but I couldn't? And how she

said it was strange that while her ma and her grandma and her uncle Orion

could understand anything in the world, I was so dull that I couldn't

understand the "ea-siest thing?" And doesn't she remember that finally a

light broke in upon me and I said it was all right--that I knew old Moses

himself--and that he kept a clothing store in Market Street? And then

she went to her ma and said she didn't know what would become of her

uncle Sam he was too dull to learn anything--ever! And I'm just as dull

yet. Now I have no doubt her letter was spelled right, and was correct

in all particulars--but then I had to read it according to my lights; and

they being inferior, she ought to overlook the mistakes I make specially,

as it is not my fault that I wasn't born with good sense. I am sure she

will detect an encouraging ray of intelligence in that last argument.....

I am waiting here, trying to rent a better office for Orion. I have got

the refusal after next week of a room on first floor of a fire-proof

brick-rent, eighteen hundred dollars a year. Don't know yet whether we

can get it or not. If it is not rented before the week is up, we can.

I was sorry to hear that Dick was killed. I gave him his first lesson in

the musket drill. We had half a dozen muskets in our office when it was

over Isbell's Music Rooms.

I hope I am wearing the last white shirt that will embellish my person

for many a day--for I do hope that I shall be out of Carson long before

this reaches you.

Love to all.

Very Respectfully

SAM.

The "Annie" in this letter was his sister Pamela's little daughter;

long years after, she would be the wife of Charles L. Webster, Mark

Twain's publishing partner. "Dick" the reader may remember as Dick

Hingham, of the Keokuk printing-office; he was killed in charging

the works at Fort Donelson.

Clemens was back in Esmeralda when the next letter was written, and

we begin now to get pictures of that cheerless mining-camp, and to

know something of the alternate hopes and discouragements of the

hunt for gold--the miner one day soaring on wings of hope, on the

next becoming excited, irritable, profane. The names of new mines

appear constantly and vanish almost at a touch, suggesting the

fairy-like evanescence of their riches.

But a few of the letters here will best speak for themselves; not

all of them are needed. It is perhaps unnecessary to say that there

is no intentional humor in these documents.

To Orion Clemens, in Carson City:

ESMERALDA, 13th April, 1862.

MY DEAR BROTHER,--Wasson got here night before last "from the wars."

Tell Lockhart he is not wounded and not killed--is altogether unhurt.

He says the whites left their stone fort before he and Lieut. Noble got

there. A large amount of provisions and ammunition, which they left

behind them, fell into the hands of the Indians. They had a pitched

battle with the savages some fifty miles from the fort, in which Scott

(sheriff) and another man was killed. This was the day before the

soldiers came up with them. I mean Noble's men, and those under Cols.

Evans and Mayfield, from Los Angeles. Evans assumed the chief command

--and next morning the forces were divided into three parties, and

marched against the enemy. Col. Mayfield was killed, and Sergeant

Gillespie, also Noble's colonel was wounded. The California troops went

back home, and Noble remained, to help drive the stock over here. And,

as Cousin Sally Dillard says, this is all I know about the fight.

Work not yet begun on the H. and Derby--haven't seen it yet. It is still

in the snow. Shall begin on it within 3 or 4 weeks--strike the ledge in

July. Guess it is good--worth from $30 to $50 a foot in California.

Why didn't you send the "Live Yankee" deed-the very one I wanted? Have

made no inquiries about it, much. Don't intend to until I get the deed.

Send it along--by mail--d---n the Express--have to pay three times for

all express matter; once in Carson and twice here. I don't expect to

take the saddle-bags out of the express office. I paid twenty-five cts.

for the Express deeds.

Man named Gebhart shot here yesterday while trying to defend a claim on

Last Chance Hill. Expect he will die.

These mills here are not worth a d---n-except Clayton's--and it is not in

full working trim yet.

Send me $40 or $50--by mail--immediately.

The Red Bird is probably good--can't work on the tunnel on account of

snow. The "Pugh" I have thrown away--shan't re-locate it. It is nothing

but bed-rock croppings--too much work to find the ledge, if there is one.

Shan't record the "Farnum" until I know more about it--perhaps not at

all.

"Governor" under the snow.

"Douglas" and "Red Bird" are both recorded.

I have had opportunities to get into several ledges, but refused all but

three--expect to back out of two of them.

Stir yourself as much as possible, and lay up $100 or $15,000, subject to

my call. I go to work to-morrow, with pick and shovel. Something's got

to come, by G--, before I let go, here.

Col. Youngs says you must rent Kinkead's room by all means--Government

would rather pay $150 a month for your office than $75 for Gen. North's.

Says you are playing your hand very badly, for either the Government's

good opinion or anybody's else, in keeping your office in a shanty. Says

put Gov. Nye in your place and he would have a stylish office, and no

objections would ever be made, either. When old Col. Youngs talks this

way, I think it time to get a fine office. I wish you would take that

office, and fit it up handsomely, so that I can omit telling people that

by this time you are handsomely located, when I know it is no such thing.

I am living with "Ratio Phillips." Send him one of those black

portfolios--by the stage, and put a couple of pen-holders and a dozen

steel pens in it.

If you should have occasion to dispose of the long desk before I return,

don't forget to break open the middle drawer and take out my things.

Envelop my black cloth coat in a newspaper and hang it in the back room.

Don't buy anything while I am here--but save up some money for me. Don't

send any money home. I shall have your next quarter's salary spent

before you get it, I think. I mean to make or break here within the next

two or three months.

Yrs.

SAM

The "wars" mentioned in the opening paragraph of this letter were

incident to the trouble concerning the boundary line between California

and Nevada. The trouble continued for some time, with occasional

bloodshed. The next letter is an exultant one. There were few enough of

this sort. We cannot pretend to keep track of the multiplicity of mines

and shares which lure the gold-hunters, pecking away at the flinty

ledges, usually in the snow. It has been necessary to abbreviate this

letter, for much of it has lost all importance with the years, and is

merely confusing. Hope is still high in the writer's heart, and

confidence in his associates still unshaken. Later he was to lose faith

in "Raish," whether with justice or not we cannot know now.

To Orion Clowns, in Carson City:

ESMERALDA, May 11, 1862.

MY DEAR BRO.,--TO use a French expression I have "got my d--d satisfy" at

last. Two years' time will make us capitalists, in spite of anything.

Therefore, we need fret and fume, and worry and doubt no more, but just

lie still and put up with privations for six months. Perhaps three

months will "let us out." Then, if Government refuses to pay the rent on

your new office we can do it ourselves. We have got to wait six weeks,

anyhow, for a dividend, maybe longer--but that it will come there is no

shadow of a doubt, I have got the thing sifted down to a dead moral

certainty. I own one-eighth of the new "Monitor Ledge, Clemens Company,"

and money can't buy a foot of it; because I know it to contain our

fortune. The ledge is six feet wide, and one needs no glass to see gold

and silver in it. Phillips and I own one half of a segregated claim in

the "Flyaway" discovery, and good interests in two extensions on it.

We put men to work on our part of the discovery yesterday, and last night

they brought us some fine specimens. Rock taken from ten feet below the

surface on the other part of the discovery, has yielded $150.00 to the

ton in the mill and we are at work 300 feet from their shaft.

May 12--Yours by the mail received last night. "Eighteen hundred feet in

the C. T. Rice's Company!" Well, I am glad you did not accept of the 200

feet. Tell Rice to give it to some poor man.

But hereafter, when anybody holds up a glittering prospect before you,

just argue in this wise, viz: That, if all spare change be devoted to

working the "Monitor" and "Flyaway," 12 months, or 24 at furthest, will

find all our earthly wishes satisfied, so far as money is concerned--and

the more "feet" we have, the more anxiety we must bear--therefore, why

not say "No--d---n your 'prospects,' I wait on a sure thing--and a man

is less than a man, if he can't wait 2 years for a fortune?" When you

and I came out here, we did not expect '63 or '64 to find us rich men

--and if that proposition had been made, we would have accepted it

gladly. Now, it is made.

Well, I am willing, now, that "Neary's tunnel," or anybody else's tunnel

shall succeed. Some of them may beat us a few months, but we shall be on

hand in the fullness of time, as sure as fate. I would hate to swap

chances with any member of the "tribe"--in fact, I am so lost to all

sense and reason as to be capable of refusing to trade "Flyaway" (with

but 200 feet in the Company of four,) foot for foot for that splendid

"Lady Washington," with its lists of capitalist proprietors, and its

35,000 feet of Priceless ground.

I wouldn't mind being in some of those Clear Creek claims, if I lived in

Carson and we could spare the money. But I have struck my tent in

Esmeralda, and I care for no mines but those which I can superintend

myself. I am a citizen here now, and I am satisfied--although R. and I

are strapped and we haven't three days' rations in the house.

Raish is looking anxiously for money and so am I. Send me whatever you

can spare conveniently--I want it to work the Flyaway with. My fourth of

that claim only cost me $50, (which isn't paid yet, though,) and I

suppose I could sell it here in town for ten times that amount today, but

I shall probably hold onto it till the cows come home. I shall work the

"Monitor" and the other claims with my own hands. I prospected of a

pound of "M," yesterday, and Raish reduced it with the blow-pipe, and got

about ten or twelve cents in gold and silver, besides the other half of

it which we spilt on the floor and didn't get. The specimen came from

the croppings, but was a choice one, and showed much free gold to the

naked eye.

Well, I like the corner up-stairs office amazingly--provided, it has one

fine, large front room superbly carpeted, for the safe and a $150 desk,

or such a matter--one handsome room amidships, less handsomely gotten up,

perhaps, for records and consultations, and one good-sized bedroom and

adjoining it a kitchen, neither of which latter can be entered by anybody

but yourself--and finally, when one of the ledges begins to pay, the

whole to be kept in parlor order by two likely contrabands at big wages,

the same to be free of expense to the Government. You want the entire

second story--no less room than you would have had in Harris and Co's.

Make them fix for you before the 1st of July-for maybe you might want to

"come out strong" on the 4th, you know.

No, the Post Office is all right and kept by a gentleman but W. F.

Express isn't. They charge 25 cts to express a letter from here, but I

believe they have quit charging twice for letters that arrive prepaid.

The "Flyaway" specimen I sent you, (taken by myself from DeKay's shaft,

300 feet from where we are going to sink) cannot be called "choice,"

exactly--say something above medium, to be on the safe side. But I have

seen exceedingly choice chunks from that shaft. My intention at first in

sending the Antelope specimen was that you might see that it resembles

the Monitor--but, come to think, a man can tell absolutely nothing about

that without seeing both ledges themselves. I tried to break a handsome

chunk from a huge piece of my darling Monitor which we brought from the

croppings yesterday, but it all splintered up, and I send you the scraps.

I call that "choice"--any d---d fool would. Don't ask if it has been

assayed, for it hasn't. It don't need it. It is amply able to speak for

itself. It is six feet wide on top, and traversed through and through

with veins whose color proclaims their worth. What the devil does a man

want with any more feet when he owns in the Flyaway and the invincible

bomb-proof Monitor?

If I had anything more to say I have forgotten what it was, unless,

perhaps, that I want a sum of money--anywhere from $20 to $150, as soon

as possible.

Raish sends regards. He or I, one will drop a line to the "Age"

occasionally. I suppose you saw my letters in the "Enterprise."

Yr. BRO,

SAM

P. S. I suppose Pamela never will regain her health, but she could

improve it by coming to California--provided the trip didn't kill her.

You see Bixby is on the flag-ship. He always was the best pilot on the

Mississippi, and deserves his "posish." They have done a reckless thing,

though, in putting Sam Bowen on the "Swan"--for if a bomb-shell happens

to come his way, he will infallibly jump overboard.

Send me another package of those envelopes, per Bagley's coat pocket.

We see how anxious he was for his brother to make a good official

showing. If a niggardly Government refused to provide decent

quarters--no matter; the miners, with gold pouring in, would

themselves pay for a suite "superbly carpeted," and all kept in

order by "two likely contrabands"--that is to say, negroes. Samuel

Clemens in those days believed in expansion and impressive

surroundings. His brother, though also mining mad, was rather

inclined to be penny wise in the matter of office luxury--not a bad

idea, as it turned out.

Orion, by the way, was acquiring "feet" on his own account, and in

one instance, at least, seems to have won his brother's

commendation.

The 'Enterprise' letters mentioned we shall presently hear of again.

To Orion Clemens, in Carson City:

ESMERALDA, Sunday, May--, 1862.

MY DEAR BROTHER,--Well, if you haven't "struck it rich--" that is, if the

piece of rock you sent me came from a bona fide ledge--and it looks as if

it did. If that is a ledge, and you own 200 feet in it, why, it's a big

thing--and I have nothing more to say. If you have actually made

something by helping to pay somebody's prospecting expenses it is a

wonder of the first magnitude, and deserves to rank as such.

If that rock came from a well-defined ledge, that particular vein must be

at least an inch wide, judging from this specimen, which is fully that

thick.

When I came in the other evening, hungry and tired and ill-natured, and

threw down my pick and shovel, Raish gave me your specimen--said Bagley

brought it, and asked me if it were cinnabar. I examined it by the

waning daylight, and took the specks of fine gold for sulphurets--wrote

you I did not think much of it--and posted the letter immediately.

But as soon as I looked at it in the broad light of day, I saw my

mistake. During the week, we have made three horns, got a blow-pipe, &c,

and yesterday, all prepared, we prospected the "Mountain House." I broke

the specimen in two, and found it full of fine gold inside. Then we

washed out one-fourth of it, and got a noble prospect. This we reduced

with the blow-pipe, and got about two cents (herewith enclosed) in pure

gold.

As the fragment prospected weighed rather less than an ounce, this would

give about $500 to the ton. We were eminently well satisfied.

Therefore, hold on to the "Mountain House," for it is a "big thing."

Touch it lightly, as far as money is concerned, though, for it is well to

reserve the code of justice in the matter of quartz ledges--that is,

consider them all (and their owners) guilty (of "shenanigan") until they

are proved innocent.

P. S.--Monday--Ratio and I have bought one-half of a segregated claim in

the original "Flyaway," for $100--$50 down. We haven't a cent in the

house. We two will work the ledge, and have full control, and pay all

expenses. If you can spare $100 conveniently, let me have it--or $50,

anyhow, considering that I own one fourth of this, it is of course more

valuable than one 1/7 of the "Mountain House," although not so rich ....

There is too much of a sameness in the letters of this period to use

all of them. There are always new claims, and work done, apparently

without system or continuance, hoping to uncover sudden boundless

affluence.

In the next letter and the one following it we get a hint of an

episode, or rather of two incidents which he combined into an

episode in Roughing It. The story as told in that book is an

account of what might have happened, rather than history. There was

never really any money in the "blind lead" of the Wide West claim,

except that which was sunk in it by unfortunate investors. Only

extracts from these letters are given. The other portions are

irrelevant and of slight value.

Extract from a letter to Orion Clemens, in Carson City:

1862.

Two or three of the old "Salina" company entered our hole on the Monitor

yesterday morning, before our men got there, and took possession, armed

with revolvers. And according to the d---d laws of this forever d---d

country, nothing but the District Court (and there ain't any) can touch

the matter, unless it assumes the shape of an infernal humbug which they

call "forcible entry and detainer," and in order to bring that about, you

must compel the jumpers to use personal violence toward you! We went up

and demanded possession, and they refused. Said they were in the hole,

armed and meant to die for it, if necessary.

I got in with them, and again demanded possession. They said I might

stay in it as long as I pleased, and work but they would do the same.

I asked one of our company to take my place in the hole, while I went to

consult a lawyer. He did so. The lawyer said it was no go. They must

offer some "force."

Our boys will try to be there first in the morning--in which case they

may get possession and keep it. Now you understand the shooting scrape

in which Gebhart was killed the other day. The Clemens Company--all of

us--hate to resort to arms in this matter, and it will not be done until

it becomes a forced hand--but I think that will be the end of it,

never-the-less.

The mine relocated in this letter was not the "Wide West," but it

furnished the proper incident. The only mention of the "Wide West"

is found in a letter written in July.

Extract from a letter to Orion Clemens, in Carson City:

1862

If I do not forget it, I will send you, per next mail, a pinch of decom.

(decomposed rock) which I pinched with thumb and finger from "Wide West"

ledge awhile ago. Raish and I have secured 200 out of a 400 ft. in it,

which perhaps (the ledge, I mean) is a spur from the W. W.--our shaft is

about 100 ft. from the W. W. shaft. In order to get in, we agreed to

sink 30 ft. We have sub-let to another man for 50 ft., and we pay for

powder and sharpening tools.

The "Wide West" claim was forfeited, but there is no evidence to

show that Clemens and his partners were ever, except in fiction,

"millionaires for ten days." The background, the local color, and

the possibilities are all real enough, but Mark Twain's aim in this,

as in most of his other reminiscent writing, was to arrange and

adapt his facts to the needs of a good story.

The letters of this summer (1862) most of them bear evidence of

waning confidence in mining as a source of fortune--the miner has

now little faith in his own judgment, and none at all in that of his

brother, who was without practical experience.

Letter to Orion Clemens, in Carson City:

ESMERALDA, Thursday.

MY DEAR BRO.,--Yours of the 17th, per express, just received. Part of it

pleased me exceedingly, and part of it didn't. Concerning the letter,

for instance: You have PROMISED me that you would leave all mining

matters, and everything involving an outlay of money, in my hands.

Sending a man fooling around the country after ledges, for God's sake!

when there are hundreds of feet of them under my nose here, begging for

owners, free of charge. I don't want any more feet, and I won't touch

another foot--so you see, Orion, as far as any ledges of Perry's are

concerned, (or any other except what I examine first with my own eyes,)

I freely yield my right to share ownership with you.

The balance of your letter, I say, pleases me exceedingly. Especially

that about the H. and D. being worth from $30 to $50 in Cal. It pleases

me because, if the ledges prove to be worthless, it will be a pleasant

reflection to know that others were beaten worse than ourselves. Raish

sold a man 30 feet, yesterday, at $20 a foot, although I was present at

the sale, and told the man the ground wasn't worth a d---n. He said he

had been hankering after a few feet in the H. and D. for a long time, and

he had got them at last, and he couldn't help thinking he had secured a

good thing. We went and looked at the ledges, and both of them

acknowledged that there was nothing in them but good "indications." Yet

the owners in the H. and D. will part with anything else sooner than

with feet in these ledges. Well, the work goes slowly--very slowly on,

in the tunnel, and we'll strike it some day. But--if we "strike it

rich,"--I've lost my guess, that's all. I expect that the way it got so

high in Cal. was, that Raish's brother, over there was offered $750.00

for 20 feet of it, and he refused .....

Couldn't go on the hill today. It snowed. It always snows here, I

expect.

Don't you suppose they have pretty much quit writing, at home?

When you receive your next 1/4 yr's salary, don't send any of it here

until after you have told me you have got it. Remember this. I am

afraid of that H. and D.

They have struck the ledge in the Live Yankee tunnel, and I told the

President, Mr. Allen, that it wasn't as good as the croppings. He said

that was true enough, but they would hang to it until it did prove rich.

He is much of a gentleman, that man Allen.

And ask Gaslerie why the devil he don't send along my commission as

Deputy Sheriff. The fact of my being in California, and out of his

country, wouldn't amount to a d---n with me, in the performance of my

official duties.

I have nothing to report, at present, except that I shall find out all I

want to know about this locality before I leave it.

How do the Records pay?

Yr. Bro.

SAM.

In one of the foregoing letters--the one dated May 11 there is a

reference to the writer's "Enterprise Letters." Sometimes, during

idle days in the camp, the miner had followed old literary impulses

and written an occasional burlesque sketch, which he had signed

"Josh," and sent to the Territorial Enterprise, at Virginia City.

--[One contribution was sent to a Keokuk paper, The Gate City, and a

letter written by Mrs. Jane Clemens at the time would indicate that

Mark Twain's mother did not always approve of her son's literary

efforts. She hopes that he will do better, and some time write

something "that his kin will be proud of."]--The rough, vigorous

humor of these had attracted some attention, and Orion, pleased with

any measure of success that might come to his brother, had allowed

the authorship of them to become known. When, in July, the

financial situation became desperate, the Esmeralda miner was moved

to turn to literature for relief. But we will let him present the

situation himself.

To Orion Clemens, in Carson City:

ESMERALDA, July 23d, 1862.

MY DEAR BRO.,--No, I don't own a foot in the "Johnson" ledge--I will tell

the story some day in a more intelligible manner than Tom has told it.

You needn't take the trouble to deny Tom's version, though. I own 25

feet (1-16) of the 1st east ex. on it--and Johnson himself has contracted

to find the ledge for 100 feet. Contract signed yesterday. But as the

ledge will be difficult to find he is allowed six months to find it in.

An eighteenth of the Ophir was a fortune to John D. Winters--and the

Ophir can't beat the Johnson any.....

My debts are greater than I thought for; I bought $25 worth of clothing,

and sent $25 to Higbie, in the cement diggings. I owe about $45 or $50,

and have got about $45 in my pocket. But how in the h--l I am going to

live on something over $100 until October or November, is singular. The

fact is, I must have something to do, and that shortly, too.....

Now write to the Sacramento Union folks, or to Marsh, and tell them I'll

write as many letters a week as they want, for $10 a week--my board must

be paid. Tell them I have corresponded with the N. Orleans Crescent, and

other papers--and the Enterprise. California is full of people who have

interests here, and it's d---d seldom they hear from this country.

I can't write a specimen letter--now, at any rate--I'd rather undertake

to write a Greek poem. Tell 'em the mail and express leave three times a

week, and it costs from 25 to 50 cents to send letters by the blasted

express. If they want letters from here, who'll run from morning till

night collecting materials cheaper. I'll write a short letter twice a

week, for the present, for the "Age," for $5 per week. Now it has been a

long time since I couldn't make my own living, and it shall be a long

time before I loaf another year.....

If I get the other 25 feet in the Johnson ex., I shan't care a d---n.

I'll be willing to curse awhile and wait. And if I can't move the bowels

of those hills this fall, I will come up and clerk for you until I get

money enough to go over the mountains for the winter.

Yr. Bro.

SAM.

The Territorial Enterprise at Virginia City was at this time owned

by Joseph T. Goodman, who had bought it on the eve of the great

Comstock silver-mining boom, and from a struggling, starving sheet

had converted it into one of the most important--certainly the most

picturesque-papers on the coast. The sketches which the Esmeralda

miner had written over the name of "Josh" fitted into it exactly,

and when a young man named Barstow, in the business office, urged

Goodman to invite "Josh" to join their staff, the Enterprise owner

readily fell in with the idea. Among a lot of mining matters of no

special interest, Clemens, July 30th, wrote his brother: "Barstow

has offered me the post as local reporter for the Enterprise at $25

a week, and I have written him that I will let him know next mail,

if possible."

In Roughing It we are told that the miner eagerly accepted the

proposition to come to Virginia City, but the letters tell a

different story. Mark Twain was never one to abandon any

undertaking easily. His unwillingness to surrender in a lost cause

would cost him more than one fortune in the years to come. A week

following the date of the foregoing he was still undecided.

To Orion Clemens, in Carson City:

ESMERALDA, Aug. 7, 1862.

MY DEAR BRO,--Barstow wrote that if I wanted the place I could have it.

I wrote him that I guessed I would take it, and asked him how long before

I must come up there. I have not heard from him since.

Now, I shall leave at mid-night tonight, alone and on foot for a walk of

60 or 70 miles through a totally uninhabited country, and it is barely

possible that mail facilities may prove infernally "slow" during the few

weeks I expect to spend out there. But do you write Barstow that I have

left here for a week or so, and in case he should want me he must write

me here, or let me know through you.

The Contractors say they will strike the Fresno next week. After fooling

with those assayers a week, they concluded not to buy "Mr. Flower" at

$50, although they would have given five times the sum for it four months

ago. So I have made out a deed for one half of all Johnny's ground and

acknowledged and left in judge F. K. Becktel's hands, and if judge Turner

wants it he must write to Becktel and pay him his Notary fee of $1.50.

I would have paid that fee myself, but I want money now as I leave town

tonight. However, if you think it isn't right, you can pay the fee to

judge Turner yourself.

Hang to your money now. I may want some when I get back.....

See that you keep out of debt-to anybody. Bully for B.! Write him that

I would write him myself, but I am to take a walk tonight and haven't

time. Tell him to bring his family out with him. He can rely upon what

I say--and I say the land has lost its ancient desolate appearance; the

rose and the oleander have taken the place of the departed sage-bush; a

rich black loam, garnished with moss, and flowers, and the greenest of

grass, smiles to Heaven from the vanished sand-plains; the "endless

snows" have all disappeared, and in their stead, or to repay us for their

loss, the mountains rear their billowy heads aloft, crowned with a

fadeless and eternal verdure; birds, and fountains, and trees-tropical

bees--everywhere!--and the poet dreamt of Nevada when he wrote:

"and Sharon waves, in solemn praise,

Her silent groves of palm."

and today the royal Raven listens in a dreamy stupor to the songs of

the thrush and the nightingale and the canary--and shudders when the

gaudy-plumaged birds of the distant South sweep by him to the orange

groves of Carson. Tell him he wouldn't recognize the d--d country.

He should bring his family by all means.

I intended to write home, but I haven't done it.

Yr. Bro.

SAM.

In this letter we realize that he had gone into the wilderness to

reflect--to get a perspective on the situation. He was a great

walker in those days, and sometimes with Higbie, sometimes alone,

made long excursions. One such is recorded in Roughing It, the trip

to Mono Lake. We have no means of knowing where his seventy-mile

tour led him now, but it is clear that he still had not reached a

decision on his return. Indeed, we gather that he is inclined to

keep up the battle among the barren Esmeralda hills.

Last mining letter; written to Mrs. Moffett, in St. Louis:

ESMERALDA, CAL., Aug. 15, 1862.

MY DEAR SISTER,-I mailed a letter to you and Ma this morning, but since

then I have received yours to Orion and me. Therefore, I must answer

right away, else I may leave town without doing it at all. What in

thunder are pilot's wages to me? which question, I beg humbly to observe,

is of a general nature, and not discharged particularly at you. But it

is singular, isn't it, that such a matter should interest Orion, when it

is of no earthly consequence to me? I never have once thought of

returning home to go on the river again, and I never expect to do any

more piloting at any price. My livelihood must be made in this country

--and if I have to wait longer than I expected, let it be so--I have no

fear of failure. You know I have extravagant hopes, for Orion tells you

everything which he ought to keep to himself--but it's his nature to do

that sort of thing, and I let him alone. I did think for awhile of going

home this fall--but when I found that that was and had been the cherished

intention and the darling aspiration every year, of these old care-worn

Californians for twelve weary years--I felt a little uncomfortable, but

I stole a march on Disappointment and said I would not go home this fall.

I will spend the winter in San Francisco, if possible. Do not tell any

one that I had any idea of piloting again at present--for it is all a

mistake. This country suits me, and--it shall suit me, whether or no....

Dan Twing and I and Dan's dog, "cabin" together--and will continue to do

so for awhile--until I leave for--

The mansion is 10x12, with a "domestic" roof. Yesterday it rained--the

first shower for five months. "Domestic," it appears to me, is not

water-proof. We went outside to keep from getting wet. Dan makes the

bed when it is his turn to do it--and when it is my turn, I don't, you

know. The dog is not a good hunter, and he isn't worth shucks to watch

--but he scratches up the dirt floor of the cabin, and catches flies, and

makes himself generally useful in the way of washing dishes. Dan gets up

first in the morning and makes a fire--and I get up last and sit by it,

while he cooks breakfast. We have a cold lunch at noon, and I cook

supper--very much against my will. However, one must have one good meal

a day, and if I were to live on Dan's abominable cookery, I should lose

my appetite, you know. Dan attended Dr. Chorpenning's funeral yesterday,

and he felt as though he ought to wear a white shirt--and we had a jolly

good time finding such an article. We turned over all our traps, and he

found one at last--but I shall always think it was suffering from yellow

fever. He also found an old black coat, greasy, and wrinkled to that

degree that it appeared to have been quilted at some time or other. In

this gorgeous costume he attended the funeral. And when he returned, his

own dog drove him away from the cabin, not recognizing him. This is

true.

You would not like to live in a country where flour was $40 a barrel?

Very well; then, I suppose you would not like to live here, where flour

was $100 a barrel when I first came here. And shortly afterwards, it

couldn't be had at any price--and for one month the people lived on

barley, beans and beef--and nothing beside. Oh, no--we didn't luxuriate

then! Perhaps not. But we said wise and severe things about the vanity

and wickedness of high living. We preached our doctrine and practised

it. Which course I respectfully recommend to the clergymen of St. Louis.

Where is Beack Jolly?--[a pilot]--and Bixby?

Your Brother

SAM.

IV

LETTERS 1863-64. "MARK TWAIN." COMSTOCK JOURNALISM. ARTEMUS WARD

There is a long hiatus in the correspondence here. For a space of many

months there is but one letter to continue the story. Others were

written, of course, but for some reason they have not survived. It was

about the end of August (1862) when the miner finally abandoned the

struggle, and with his pack on his shoulders walked the one and thirty

miles over the mountains to Virginia City, arriving dusty, lame, and

travel-stained to claim at last his rightful inheritance. At the

Enterprise office he was welcomed, and in a brief time entered into his

own. Goodman, the proprietor, himself a man of great ability, had

surrounded himself with a group of gay-hearted fellows, whose fresh, wild

way of writing delighted the Comstock pioneers far more than any sober

presentation of mere news. Samuel Clemens fitted exactly into this

group. By the end of the year he had become a leader of it. When he

asked to be allowed to report the coming Carson legislature, Goodman

consented, realizing that while Clemens knew nothing of parliamentary

procedure, he would at least make the letters picturesque.

It was in the midst of this work that he adopted the name which he was to

make famous throughout the world. The story of its adoption has been

fully told elsewhere and need not be repeated here.--[See Mark Twain: A

Biography, by the same author; Chapter XL.]

"Mark Twain" was first signed to a Carson letter, February 2, 1863, and

from that time was attached to all of Samuel Clemens's work. The letters

had already been widely copied, and the name now which gave them

personality quickly obtained vogue. It was attached to himself as well

as to the letters; heretofore he had been called Sam or Clemens, now he

became almost universally Mark Twain and Mark.

This early period of Mark Twain's journalism is full of delicious

history, but we are permitted here to retell only such of it as will

supply connection to the infrequent letters. He wrote home briefly in

February, but the letter contained nothing worth preserving. Then two

months later he gives us at least a hint of his employment.

To Mrs. Jane Clemens and Mrs. Moffett, in St. Louis:

VIRGINIA, April 11, 1863.

MY DEAR MOTHER AND SISTER,--It is very late at night, and I am writing

in my room, which is not quite as large or as nice as the one I had at

home. My board, washing and lodging cost me seventy-five dollars a

month.

I have just received your letter, Ma, from Carson--the one in which you

doubt my veracity about the statements I made in a letter to you. That's

right. I don't recollect what the statements were, but I suppose they

were mining statistics. I have just finished writing up my report for

the morning paper, and giving the Unreliable a column of advice about how

to conduct himself in church, and now I will tell you a few more lies,

while my hand is in. For instance, some of the boys made me a present of

fifty feet in the East India G. and S. M. Company ten days ago. I was

offered ninety-five dollars a foot for it, yesterday, in gold. I refused

it--not because I think the claim is worth a cent for I don't but because

I had a curiosity to see how high it would go, before people find out how

worthless it is. Besides, what if one mining claim does fool me? I have

got plenty more. I am not in a particular hurry to get rich. I suppose

I couldn't well help getting rich here some time or other, whether I

wanted to or not. You folks do not believe in Nevada, and I am glad you

don't. Just keep on thinking so.

I was at the Gould and Curry mine, the other day, and they had two or

three tons of choice rock piled up, which was valued at $20,000 a ton.

I gathered up a hat-full of chunks, on account of their beauty as

specimens--they don't let everybody supply themselves so liberally. I

send Mr. Moffett a little specimen of it for his cabinet. If you don't

know what the white stuff on it is, I must inform you that it is purer

silver than the minted coin. There is about as much gold in it as there

is silver, but it is not visible. I will explain to you some day how to

detect it.

Pamela, you wouldn't do for a local reporter--because you don't

appreciate the interest that attaches to names. An item is of no use

unless it speaks of some person, and not then, unless that person's name

is distinctly mentioned. The most interesting letter one can write, to

an absent friend, is one that treats of persons he has been acquainted

with rather than the public events of the day. Now you speak of a young

lady who wrote to Hollie Benson that she had seen me; and you didn't

mention her name. It was just a mere chance that I ever guessed who she

was--but I did, finally, though I don't remember her name, now. I was

introduced to her in San Francisco by Hon. A. B. Paul, and saw her

afterwards in Gold Hill. They were a very pleasant lot of girls--she and

her sisters.

P. S. I have just heard five pistol shots down street--as such things

are in my line, I will go and see about it.

P. S. No 2--5 A.M.--The pistol did its work well--one man--a Jackson

County Missourian, shot two of my friends, (police officers,) through the

heart--both died within three minutes. Murderer's name is John Campbell.

The "Unreliable" of this letter was a rival reporter on whom Mark

Twain had conferred this name during the legislative session. His

real name was Rice, and he had undertaken to criticize Clemens's

reports. The brisk reply that Rice's letters concealed with a show

of parliamentary knowledge a "festering mass of misstatements the

author of whom should be properly termed the 'Unreliable," fixed

that name upon him for life. This burlesque warfare delighted the

frontier and it did not interfere with friendship. Clemens and Rice

were constant associates, though continually firing squibs at each

other in their respective papers--a form of personal journalism much

in vogue on the Comstock.

In the next letter we find these two journalistic "blades" enjoying

themselves together in the coast metropolis. This letter is labeled

"No. 2," meaning, probably, the second from San Francisco, but No. 1

has disappeared, and even No, 2 is incomplete.

To Mrs. Jane Clemens and Mrs. Moffett, in St. Louis:

No. 2--($20.00 Enclosed)

LICK HOUSE, S. F., June 1, '63.

MY DEAR MOTHER AND SISTER,--The Unreliable and myself are still here,

and still enjoying ourselves. I suppose I know at least a thousand

people here--a, great many of them citizens of San Francisco, but the

majority belonging in Washoe--and when I go down Montgomery street,

shaking hands with Tom, Dick and Harry, it is just like being in Main

street in Hannibal and meeting the old familiar faces. I do hate to go

back to Washoe. We fag ourselves completely out every day, and go to

sleep without rocking, every night. We dine out and we lunch out, and we

eat, drink and are happy--as it were. After breakfast, I don't often see

the hotel again until midnight--or after. I am going to the Dickens

mighty fast. I know a regular village of families here in the house, but

I never have time to call on them. Thunder! we'll know a little more

about this town, before we leave, than some of the people who live in it.

We take trips across the Bay to Oakland, and down to San Leandro, and

Alameda, and those places; and we go out to the Willows, and Hayes Park,

and Fort Point, and up to Benicia; and yesterday we were invited out on a

yachting excursion, and had a sail in the fastest yacht on the Pacific

Coast. Rice says: "Oh, no--we are not having any fun, Mark--Oh, no, I

reckon not--it's somebody else--it's probably the 'gentleman in the

wagon'!" (popular slang phrase.) When I invite Rice to the Lick House to

dinner, the proprietors send us champagne and claret, and then we do put

on the most disgusting airs. Rice says our calibre is too light--we

can't stand it to be noticed!

I rode down with a gentleman to the Ocean House, the other day, to see

the sea horses, and also to listen to the roar of the surf, and watch the

ships drifting about, here, and there, and far away at sea. When I stood

on the beach and let the surf wet my feet, I recollected doing the same

thing on the shores of the Atlantic--and then I had a proper appreciation

of the vastness of this country--for I had traveled from ocean to ocean

across it.

(Remainder missing.)

Not far from Virginia City there are some warm springs that

constantly send up jets of steam through fissures in the

mountainside. The place was a health resort, and Clemens, always

subject to bronchial colds, now and again retired there for a cure.

A letter written in the late summer--a gay, youthful document

--belongs to one of these periods of convalescence.

To Mrs. Jane Clemens and Mrs. Moffett, in St. Louis:

No. 12--$20 enclosed.

STEAMBOAT SPRINGS, August 19, '63.

MY DEAR MOTHER AND SISTER,--Ma, you have given my vanity a deadly thrust.

Behold, I am prone to boast of having the widest reputation, as a local

editor, of any man on the Pacific coast, and you gravely come forward and

tell me "if I work hard and attend closely to my business, I may aspire

to a place on a big San Francisco daily, some day." There's a comment on

human vanity for you! Why, blast it, I was under the impression that I

could get such a situation as that any time I asked for it. But I don't

want it. No paper in the United States can afford to pay me what my

place on the "Enterprise" is worth. If I were not naturally a lazy,

idle, good-for-nothing vagabond, I could make it pay me $20,000 a year.

But I don't suppose I shall ever be any account. I lead an easy life,

though, and I don't care a cent whether school keeps or not. Everybody

knows me, and I fare like a prince wherever I go, be it on this side of

the mountains or the other. And I am proud to say I am the most

conceited ass in the Territory.

You think that picture looks old? Well, I can't help it--in reality I am

not as old as I was when I was eighteen.

I took a desperate cold more than a week ago, and I seduced Wilson (a

Missouri boy, reporter of the Daily Union,) from his labors, and we went

over to Lake Bigler. But I failed to cure my cold. I found the "Lake

House" crowded with the wealth and fashion of Virginia, and I could not

resist the temptation to take a hand in all the fun going. Those

Virginians--men and women both--are a stirring set, and I found if I went

with them on all their eternal excursions, I should bring the consumption

home with me--so I left, day before yesterday, and came back into the

Territory again. A lot of them had purchased a site for a town on the

Lake shore, and they gave me a lot. When you come out, I'll build you a

house on it. The Lake seems more supernaturally beautiful now, than

ever. It is the masterpiece of the Creation.

The hotel here at the Springs is not so much crowded as usual, and I am

having a very comfortable time of it. The hot, white steam puffs up out

of fissures in the earth like the jets that come from a steam-boat's

'scape pipes, and it makes a boiling, surging noise like a steam-boat,

too-hence the name. We put eggs in a handkerchief and dip them in the

springs--they "soft boil" in 2 Minutes, and boil as hard as a rock in

4 minutes. These fissures extend more than a quarter of a mile, and the

long line of steam columns looks very pretty. A large bath house is

built over one of the springs, and we go in it and steam ourselves as

long as we can stand it, and then come out and take a cold shower bath.

You get baths, board and lodging, all for $25 a week--cheaper than living

in Virginia without baths.....

Yrs aft

MARK.

It was now the autumn of 1863. Mark Twain was twenty-eight years

old. On the Coast he had established a reputation as a gaily

original newspaper writer. Thus far, however, he had absolutely no

literary standing, nor is there any evidence that he had literary

ambitions; his work was unformed, uncultivated--all of which seems

strange, now, when we realize that somewhere behind lay the

substance of immortality. Rudyard Kipling at twenty-eight had done

his greatest work.

Even Joseph Goodman, who had a fine literary perception and a deep

knowledge of men, intimately associated with Mark Twain as he was,

received at this time no hint of his greater powers. Another man on

the staff of the Enterprise, William Wright, who called himself "Dan

de Quille," a graceful humorist, gave far more promise, Goodman

thought, of future distinction.

It was Artemus Ward who first suspected the value of Mark Twain's

gifts, and urged him to some more important use of them. Artemus in

the course of a transcontinental lecture tour, stopped in Virginia

City, and naturally found congenial society on the Enterprise staff.

He had intended remaining but a few days, but lingered three weeks,

a period of continuous celebration, closing only with the holiday

season. During one night of final festivities, Ward slipped away

and gave a performance on his own account. His letter to Mark

Twain, from Austin, Nevada, written a day or two later, is most

characteristic.

Artemus Ward's letter to Mark Twain:

AUSTIN, Jan. 1, '64.

MY DEAREST LOVE,--I arrived here yesterday a.m. at 2 o'clock. It is a

wild, untamable place, full of lionhearted boys. I speak tonight. See

small bills.

Why did you not go with me and save me that night?--I mean the night I

left you after that dinner party. I went and got drunker, beating, I may

say, Alexander the Great, in his most drinkinist days, and I blackened my

face at the Melodeon, and made a gibbering, idiotic speech. God-dam it!

I suppose the Union will have it. But let it go. I shall always

remember Virginia as a bright spot in my existence, as all others must or

rather cannot be, as it were.

Love to Jo. Goodman and Dan. I shall write soon, a powerfully convincing

note to my friends of "The Mercury." Your notice, by the way, did much

good here, as it doubtlessly will elsewhere. The miscreants of the Union

will be batted in the snout if they ever dare pollute this rapidly rising

city with their loathsome presence.

Some of the finest intellects in the world have been blunted by liquor.

Do not, sir--do not flatter yourself that you are the only

chastely-humorous writer onto the Pacific slopes.

Good-bye, old boy--and God bless you! The matter of which I spoke to you

so earnestly shall be just as earnestly attended to--and again with very

many warm regards for Jo. and Dan., and regards to many of the good

friends we met.

I am Faithfully, gratefully yours,

ARTEMUS WARD.

The Union which Ward mentions was the rival Virginia. City paper;

the Mercury was the New York Sunday Mercury, to which he had urged

Mark Twain to contribute. Ward wrote a second letter, after a siege

of illness at Salt Lake City. He was a frail creature, and three

years later, in London, died of consumption. His genius and

encouragement undoubtedly exerted an influence upon Mark Twain.

Ward's second letter here follows.

Artemus Ward to S. L. Clemens:

SALT LAKE CITY, Jan. 21, '64.

MY DEAR MARK,--I have been dangerously ill for the past two weeks here,

of congestive fever. Very grave fears were for a time entertained of my

recovery, but happily the malady is gone, though leaving me very, very

weak. I hope to be able to resume my journey in a week or so. I think

I shall speak in the Theater here, which is one of the finest

establishments of the kind in America.

The Saints have been wonderfully kind to me, I could not have been better

or more tenderly nursed at home--God bless them!

I am still exceedingly weak--can't write any more. Love to Jo and Dan,

and all the rest. Write me at St. Louis.

Always yours,

ARTEMUS WARD.

If one could only have Mark Twain's letters in reply to these! but

they have vanished and are probably long since dust. A letter which

he wrote to his mother assures us that he undertook to follow Ward's

advice. He was not ready, however, for serious literary effort.

The article, sent to the Mercury, was distinctly of the Comstock

variety; it was accepted, but it apparently made no impression, and

he did not follow it up.

For one thing, he was just then too busy reporting the Legislature

at Carson City and responding to social demands. From having been a

scarcely considered unit during the early days of his arrival in

Carson Mark Twain had attained a high degree of importance in the

little Nevada capital. In the Legislature he was a power; as

correspondent for the Enterprise he was feared and respected as well

as admired. His humor, his satire, and his fearlessness were

dreaded weapons.

Also, he was of extraordinary popularity. Orion's wife, with her

little daughter, Jennie, had come out from the States. The Governor

of Nevada had no household in Carson City, and was generally absent.

Orion Clemens reigned in his stead, and indeed was usually addressed

as "Governor" Clemens. His home became the social center of the

capital, and his brilliant brother its chief ornament. From the

roughest of miners of a year before he had become, once more, almost

a dandy in dress, and no occasion was complete without him. When

the two Houses of the Legislature assembled, in January, 1864, a

burlesque Third House was organized and proposed to hold a session,

as a church benefit. After very brief consideration it was decided

to select Mark Twain to preside at this Third House assembly under

the title of "Governor," and a letter of invitation was addressed to

him. His reply to it follows:

To S. Pixley and 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 that 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.

There is a quality in this letter more suggestive of the later Mark

Twain than anything that has preceded it. His Third House address,

unfortunately, has not been preserved, but those who heard it

regarded it as a classic. It probably abounded in humor of the

frontier sort-unsparing ridicule of the Governor, the Legislature,

and individual citizens. It was all taken in good part, of course,

and as a recognition of his success he received a gold watch, with

the case properly inscribed to "The Governor of the Third House."

This was really his first public appearance in a field in which he

was destined to achieve very great fame.

V

LETTERS 1864-66. SAN FRANCISCO AND HAWAII

Life on the Comstock came to an end for Mark Twain in May, 1864. It

was the time of The Flour Sack Sanitary Fund, the story of which he

has told in Roughing It. He does not, however, refer to the

troubles which this special fund brought upon himself. Coming into

the Enterprise office one night, after a gay day of "Fund"

celebration, Clemens wrote, for next day's paper, a paragraph

intended to be merely playful, but which proved highly offending to

certain ladies concerned with the flour-sack enterprise. No files

of the paper exist today, so we cannot judge of the quality of humor

that stirred up trouble.

The trouble, however, was genuine enough, Virginia's rival paper

seized upon the chance to humiliate its enemy, and presently words

were passed back and forth until nothing was left to write but a

challenge. The story of this duel, which did not come off, has been

quite fully told elsewhere, both by Mark Twain and the present

writer; but the following letter--a revelation of his inner feelings

in the matter of his offense--has never before been published.

To Mrs. Cutler, in Carson City:

VIRGINIA, May 23rd, 1864.

MRS. W. K. CUTLER:

MADAM,--I address a lady in every sense of the term. Mrs. Clemens has

informed me of everything that has occurred in Carson in connection with

that unfortunate item of mine about the Sanitary Funds accruing from the

ball, and from what I can understand, you are almost the only lady in

your city who has understood the circumstances under which my fault was

committed, or who has shown any disposition to be lenient with me. Had

the note of the ladies been properly worded, I would have published an

ample apology instantly--and possibly I might even have done so anyhow,

had that note arrived at any other time--but it came at a moment when I

was in the midst of what ought to have been a deadly quarrel with the

publishers of the Union, and I could not come out and make public

apologies to any one at such a time. It is bad policy to do it even now

(as challenges have already passed between myself and a proprietor of the

Union, and the matter is still in abeyance,) but I suppose I had better

say a word or two to show the ladies that I did not wilfully and

maliciously do them a wrong.

But my chief object, Mrs. Cutler, in writing you this note (and you will

pardon the liberty I have taken,) was to thank you very kindly and

sincerely for the consideration you have shown me in this matter, and for

your continued friendship for Mollie while others are disposed to

withdraw theirs on account of a fault for which I alone am responsible.

Very truly yours,

SAM. L. CLEMENS.

The matter did not end with the failure of the duel. A very strict

law had just been passed, making it a felony even to send or accept

a challenge. Clemens, on the whole, rather tired of Virginia City

and Carson, thought it a good time to go across the mountains to San

Francisco. With Steve Gillis, a printer, of whom he was very fond

--an inveterate joker, who had been more than half responsible for

the proposed duel, and was to have served as his second--he took the

stage one morning, and in due time was in the California metropolis,

at work on the Morning Call.

Clemens had been several times in San Francisco, and loved the

place. We have no letter of that summer, the first being dated

several months after his arrival. He was still working on the Call

when it was written, and contributing literary articles to the

Californian, of which Bret Harte, unknown to fame, was editor.

Harte had his office just above the rooms of the Call, and he and

Clemens were good friends. San Francisco had a real literary group

that, for a time at least, centered around the offices of the Golden

Era. In a letter that follows Clemens would seem to have scorned

this publication, but he was a frequent contributor to it at one

period. Joaquin Miller was of this band of literary pioneers; also

Prentice Mulford, Charles Warren Stoddard, Fitzhugh Ludlow, and

Orpheus C. Kerr.

To Mrs. Jane Clemens and Mrs. Moffett, in St. Louis:

Sept. 25, 1864.

MY DEAR MOTHER AND SISTER,--You can see by my picture that this superb

climate agrees with me. And it ought, after living where I was never out

of sight of snow peaks twenty-four hours during three years. Here we

have neither snow nor cold weather; fires are never lighted, and yet

summer clothes are never worn--you wear spring clothing the year round.

Steve Gillis, who has been my comrade for two years, and who came down

here with me, is to be married, in a week or two, to a very pretty girl

worth $130,000 in her own right--and then I shall be alone again, until

they build a house, which they will do shortly.

We have been here only four months, yet we have changed our lodgings five

times, and our hotel twice. We are very comfortably fixed where we are,

now, and have no fault to find with the rooms or with the people--we are

the only lodgers in a well-to-do private family, with one grown daughter

and a piano in the parlor adjoining our room. But I need a change, and

must move again. I have taken rooms further down the street. I shall

stay in this little quiet street, because it is full of gardens and

shrubbery, and there are none but dwelling houses in it.

I am taking life easy, now, and I mean to keep it up for awhile. I don't

work at night any more. I told the "Call" folks to pay me $25 a week and

let me work only in daylight. So I get up at ten every morning, and quit

work at five or six in the afternoon. You ask if I work for greenbacks?

Hardly. What do you suppose I could do with greenbacks here?

I have engaged to write for the new literary paper--the "Californian"

--same pay I used to receive on the "Golden Era"--one article a week,

fifty dollars a month. I quit the "Era," long ago. It wasn't high-toned

enough. The "Californian" circulates among the highest class of the

community, and is the best weekly literary paper in the United States

--and I suppose I ought to know.

I work as I always did--by fits and starts. I wrote two articles last

night for the Californian, so that lets me out for two weeks. That would

be about seventy-five dollars, in greenbacks, wouldn't it?

Been down to San Jose (generally pronounced Sannozay--emphasis on last

syllable)--today fifty miles from here, by railroad. Town of 6,000

inhabitants, buried in flowers and shrubbery. The climate is finer than

ours here, because it is not so close to the ocean, and is protected from

the winds by the coast range.

I had an invitation today, to go down on an excursion to San Luis Obispo,

and from thence to the city of Mexico, to be gone six or eight weeks, or

possibly longer, but I could not accept, on account of my contract to act

as chief mourner or groomsman at Steve's wedding.

I have triumphed. They refused me and other reporters some information

at a branch of the Coroner's office--Massey's undertaker establishment,

a few weeks ago. I published the wickedest article on them I ever wrote

in my life, and you can rest assured we got all the information we wanted

after that.

By the new census, San Francisco has a population of 130,000. They don't

count the hordes of Chinamen.

Yrs aftly,

SAM.

I send a picture for Annie, and one for Aunt Ella--that is, if she will

have it.

Relations with the Call ceased before the end of the year, though

not in the manner described in Roughing It. Mark Twain loved to

make fiction of his mishaps, and to show himself always in a bad

light. As a matter of fact, he left the Call with great

willingness, and began immediately contributing a daily letter to

the Enterprise, which brought him a satisfactory financial return.

In the biographical sketch with which this volume opens, and more

extendedly elsewhere, has been told the story of the trouble growing

out of the Enterprise letters, and of Mark Twain's sojourn with

James Gillis in the Tuolumne Hills. Also how, in the frowsy hotel

at Angel's Camp, he heard the frog anecdote that would become the

corner-stone of his fame. There are no letters of this period--only

some note-book entries. It is probable that he did not write home,

believing, no doubt, that he had very little to say.

For more than a year there is not a line that has survived. Yet it

had been an important year; the jumping frog story, published in New

York, had been reprinted East and West, and laughed over in at least

a million homes. Fame had not come to him, but it was on the way.

Yet his outlook seems not to have been a hopeful one.

To Mrs. Jane Clemens and Mrs. Moffett, in St. Louis:

SAN FRANCISCO, Jan. 20, 1866.

MY DEAR MOTHER AND SISTER,--I do not know what to write; my life is so

uneventful. I wish I was back there piloting up and down the river

again. Verily, all is vanity and little worth--save piloting.

To think that, after writing many an article a man might be excused for

thinking tolerably good, those New York people should single out a

villainous backwoods sketch to compliment me on! "Jim Smiley and His

Jumping Frog"--a squib which would never have been written but to please

Artemus Ward, and then it reached New York too late to appear in his

book.

But no matter. His book was a wretchedly poor one, generally speaking,

and it could be no credit to either of us to appear between its covers.

This paragraph is from the New York correspondence of the San Francisco

Alta:

(Clipping pasted in.)

"Mark Twain's story in the Saturday Press of November 18th, called

'Jim Smiley and His Jumping Frog,' has set all New York in a roar,

and he may be said to have made his mark. I have been asked fifty

times about it and its author, and the papers are copying it far and

near. It is voted the best thing of the day. Cannot the

Californian afford to keep Mark all to itself? It should not let

him scintillate so widely without first being filtered through the

California press."

The New York publishing house of Carleton & Co. gave the sketch to the

Saturday Press when they found it was too late for the book.

Though I am generally placed at the head of my breed of scribblers in

this part of the country, the place properly belongs to Bret Harte,

I think, though he denies it, along with the rest. He wants me to club a

lot of old sketches together with a lot of his, and publish a book.

I wouldn't do it, only he agrees to take all the trouble. But I want to

know whether we are going to make anything out of it, first. However, he

has written to a New York publisher, and if we are offered a bargain that

will pay for a month's labor we will go to work and prepare the volume

for the press.

Yours affy,

SAM.

Bret Harte and Clemens had by this time quit the Californian,

expecting to contribute to Eastern periodicals. Clemens, however,

was not yet through with Coast journalism. There was much interest

just at this time in the Sandwich Islands, and he was selected by

the foremost Sacramento paper to spy out the islands and report

aspects and conditions there. His letters home were still

infrequent, but this was something worth writing.

To Mrs. Jane Clemens and Mrs. Moffett, in St. Louis:

SAN FRANCISCO, March 5th, 1866.

MY DEAR MOTHER AND SISTER,--I start to do Sandwich Islands day after

tomorrow, (I suppose Annie is geographer enough by this time to find them

on the map), in the steamer "Ajax." We shall arrive there in about

twelve days. My friends seem determined that I shall not lack

acquaintances, for I only decided today to go, and they have already sent

me letters of introduction to everybody down there worth knowing. I am

to remain there a month and ransack the islands, the great cataracts and

the volcanoes completely, and write twenty or thirty letters to the

Sacramento Union--for which they pay me as much money as I would get if I

staid at home.

If I come back here I expect to start straight across the continent by

way of the Columbia river, the Pend d'Oreille Lakes, through Montana and

down the Missouri river,--only 200 miles of land travel from San

Francisco to New Orleans.

Goodbye for the present.

Yours,

SAM.

His home letters from the islands are numerous enough; everything

there being so new and so delightful that he found joy in telling of

it; also, he was still young enough to air his triumphs a little,

especially when he has dined with the Grand Chamberlain and is going

to visit the King!

The languorous life of the islands exactly suited Mask Twain. All

his life he remembered them--always planning to return, some day, to

stay there until he died. In one of his note-books he wrote: "Went

with Mr. Dam to his cool, vine-shaded home; no care-worn or eager,

anxious faces in this land of happy contentment. God, what a

contrast with California and the Washoe!"

And again:

"Oh, Islands there are on the face of the deep

Where the leaves never fade and the skies never weep."

The letters tell the story of his sojourn, which stretched itself

into nearly five months.

To Mrs. Jane Clemens and Mrs. Moffett, in St. Louis:

HONOLULU, SANDWICH ISLANDS, April 3, 1866.

MY DEAR MOTHER AND SISTER,--I have been here two or three weeks, and like

the beautiful tropical climate better and better. I have ridden on

horseback all over this island (Oahu) in the meantime, and have visited

all the ancient battle-fields and other places of interest. I have got a

lot of human bones which I took from one of these battle-fields--I guess

I will bring you some of them. I went with the American Minister and

took dinner this evening with the King's Grand Chamberlain, who is

related to the royal family, and although darker than a mulatto, he has

an excellent English education and in manners is an accomplished

gentleman. The dinner was as ceremonious as any I ever attended in

California--five regular courses, and five kinds of wine and one of

brandy. He is to call for me in the morning with his carriage, and we

will visit the King at the palace--both are good Masons--the King is a

Royal Arch Mason. After dinner tonight they called in the "singing

girls," and we had some beautiful music; sung in the native tongue.

The steamer I came here in sails tomorrow, and as soon as she is gone I

shall sail for the other islands of the group and visit the great

volcano--the grand wonder of the world. Be gone two months.

Yrs.

SAM.

To Mrs. Jane Clemens and Mrs. Moffett, in St. Louis:

WAILUKU SUGAR PLANTATION,

ISLAND OF MAUI, H. I., May 4,1866.

MY DEAR MOTHER AND SISTER,--11 O'clock at night.--This is the

infernalist darkest country, when the moon don't shine; I stumbled and

fell over my horse's lariat a minute ago and hurt my leg, so I must stay

here tonight.

I got the same leg hurt last week; I said I hadn't got hold of a spirited

horse since I had been on the island, and one of the proprietors loaned

me a big vicious colt; he was altogether too spirited; I went to tighten

the cinch before mounting him, when he let out with his left leg (?) and

kicked me across a ten-acre lot. A native rubbed and doctored me so well

that I was able to stand on my feet in half an hour. It was then half

after four and I had an appointment to go seven miles and get a girl and

take her to a card party at five.

I have been clattering around among the plantations for three weeks, now,

and next week I am going to visit the extinct crater of Mount Haleakala

--the largest in the world; it is ten miles to the foot of the mountain;

it rises 10,000 feet above the valley; the crater is 29 miles in

circumference and 1,000 feet deep. Seen from the summit, the city

of St. Louis would look like a picture in the bottom of it.

As soon as I get back from Haleakala (pronounced Hally-ekka-lah) I will

sail for Honolulu again and thence to the Island of Hawaii (pronounced

Hah-wy-ye,) to see the greatest active volcano in the world--that of

Kilauea (pronounced Kee-low-way-ah)--and from thence back to San

Francisco--and then, doubtless, to the States. I have been on this trip

two months, and it will probably be two more before I get back to

California.

Yrs affy

SAM.

He was having a glorious time--one of the most happy, carefree

adventures of his career. No form of travel or undertaking could

discountenance Mark Twain at thirty.

To Mrs. Orion Clemens, in Carson City:

HONOLULU, May 22, 1866.

MY DEAR SISTER,--I have just got back from a sea voyage--from the

beautiful island of Maui, I have spent five weeks there, riding backwards

and forwards among the sugar plantations--looking up the splendid scenery

and visiting the lofty crater of Haleakala. It has been a perfect

jubilee to me in the way of pleasure.

I have not written a single line, and have not once thought of business,

or care or human toil or trouble or sorrow or weariness. Few such months

come in a lifetime.

I set sail again, a week hence, for the island of Hawaii, to see the

great active volcano of Kilauea. I shall not get back here for four or

five weeks, and shall not reach San Francisco before the latter part of

July.

So it is no use to wait for me to go home. Go on yourselves.

If I were in the east now, I could stop the publication of a piratical

book which has stolen some of my sketches.

It is late-good-bye, Mollie,

Yr Bro

SAM.

To Mrs. Jane Clemens and Mrs. Moffett, in St. Louis:

HONOLULU, SANDWICH ISLANDS, June 21,1866.

MY DEAR MOTHER AND SISTER,--I have just got back from a hard trip through

the Island of Hawaii, begun on the 26th of May and finished on the 18th

of June--only six or seven days at sea--all the balance horse-back, and

the hardest mountain road in the world. I staid at the volcano about a

week and witnessed the greatest eruption that has occurred for years.

I lived well there. They charge $4 a day for board, and a dollar or two

extra for guides and horses. I had a pretty good time. They didn't

charge me anything. I have got back sick--went to bed as soon as I

arrived here--shall not be strong again for several days yet. I rushed

too fast. I ought to have taken five or six weeks on that trip.

A week hence I start for the Island of Kauai, to be gone three weeks and

then I go back to California.

The Crown Princess is dead and thousands of natives cry and wail and

dance and dance for the dead, around the King's Palace all night and

every night. They will keep it up for a month and then she will be

buried.

Hon. Anson Burlingame, U. S. Minister to China, and Gen. Van Valkenburgh,

Minister to Japan, with their families and suites, have just arrived here

en route. They were going to do me the honor to call on me this morning,

and that accounts for my being out of bed now. You know what condition

my room is always in when you are not around--so I climbed out of bed and

dressed and shaved pretty quick and went up to the residence of the

American Minister and called on them. Mr. Burlingame told me a good deal

about Hon. Jere Clemens and that Virginia Clemens who was wounded in a

duel. He was in Congress years with both of them. Mr. B. sent for his

son, to introduce him--said he could tell that frog story of mine as well

as anybody. I told him I was glad to hear it for I never tried to tell

it myself without making a botch of it. At his request I have loaned Mr.

Burlingame pretty much everything I ever wrote. I guess he will be an

almighty wise man by the time he wades through that lot.

If the New United States Minister to the Sandwich Islands (Hon. Edwin

McCook,) were only here now, so that I could get his views on this new

condition of Sandwich Island politics, I would sail for California at

once. But he will not arrive for two weeks yet and so I am going to

spend that interval on the island of Kauai.

I stopped three days with Hon. Mr. Cony, Deputy Marshal of the Kingdom,

at Hilo, Hawaii, last week and by a funny circumstance he knew everybody

that I ever knew in Hannibal and Palmyra. We used to sit up all night

talking and then sleep all day. He lives like a Prince. Confound that

Island! I had a streak of fat and a streak of lean all over it--got lost

several times and had to sleep in huts with the natives and live like a

dog.

Of course I couldn't speak fifty words of the language. Take it

altogether, though, it was a mighty hard trip.

Yours Affect.

SAM.

Burlingame and Van Valkenburgh were on their way to their posts,

and their coming to the islands just at this time proved a most

important circumstance to Mark Twain. We shall come to this

presently, in a summary of the newspaper letters written to the

Union. June 27th he wrote to his mother and sister a letter, only a

fragment of which survives, in which he tells of the arrival in

Honolulu of the survivors of the ship Hornet, burned on the line,

and of his securing the first news report of the lost vessel.

Part of a letter to Mrs. Jane Clemens and Mrs. Moffett, in St. Louis:

HONOLULU, June 27, 1866 .

. . . with a gill of water a day to each man. I got the whole story

from the third mate and two of the sailors. If my account gets to the

Sacramento Union first, it will be published first all over the United

States, France, England, Russia and Germany--all over the world; I may

say. You will see it. Mr. Burlingame went with me all the time, and

helped me question the men--throwing away invitations to dinner with the

princes and foreign dignitaries, and neglecting all sorts of things to

accommodate me. You know how I appreciate that kind of thing--especially

from such a man, who is acknowledged to have no superior in the

diplomatic circles of the world, and obtained from China concessions in

favor of America which were refused to Sir Frederick Bruce and Envoys of

France and Russia until procured for them by Burlingame himself--which

service was duly acknowledged by those dignitaries. He hunted me up as

soon as he came here, and has done me a hundred favors since, and says if

I will come to China in the first trip of the great mail steamer next

January and make his house in Pekin my home, he will afford me facilities

that few men can have there for seeing and learning. He will give me

letters to the chiefs of the great Mail Steamship Company which will be

of service to me in this matter. I expect to do all this, but I expect

to go to the States first--and from China to the Paris World's Fair.

Don't show this letter.

Yours affly

SAM.

P. S. The crown Princess of this Kingdom will be buried tomorrow with

great ceremony--after that I sail in two weeks for California.

This concludes Mark Twain's personal letters from the islands.

Of his descriptive news letters there were about twenty, and they

were regarded by the readers of the Union as distinctly notable.

Re-reading those old letters to-day it is not altogether easy to

understand why. They were set in fine nonpareil type, for one

thing, which present-day eyes simply refuse at any price, and the

reward, by present-day standards, is not especially tempting.

The letters began in the Union with the issue of April the 16th,

1866. The first--of date March 18th--tells of the writer's arrival

at Honolulu. The humor in it is not always of a high order; it

would hardly pass for humor today at all. That the same man who

wrote the Hawaiian letters in 1866 (he was then over thirty years

old) could, two years later, have written that marvelous book, the

Innocents Abroad, is a phenomenon in literary development.

The Hawaiian letters, however, do show the transition stage between

the rough elemental humor of the Comstock and the refined and subtle

style which flowered in the Innocents Abroad. Certainly Mark

Twain's genius was finding itself, and his association with the

refined and cultured personality of Anson Burlingame undoubtedly

aided in that discovery. Burlingame pointed out his faults to him,

and directed him to a better way. No more than that was needed at

such a time to bring about a transformation.

The Sandwich Islands letters, however, must have been precisely

adapted to their audience--a little more refined than the log

Comstock, a little less subtle than the Atlantic public--and they

added materially to his Coast prestige. But let us consider a

sample extract from the first Sandwich Islands letter:

Our little band of passengers were as well and thoughtfully cared for by

the friends they left weeping upon the wharf, as ever were any similar

body of pilgrims. The traveling outfit conferred upon me began with a

naval uniform, continued with a case of wine, a small assortment of

medicinal liquors and brandy, several boxes of cigars, a bunch of

matches, a fine-toothed comb, and a cake of soap, and ended with a pair

of socks. (N. B. I gave the soap to Brown, who bit into it, and then.

shook his head and said that, as a general thing, he liked to prospect

curious, foreign dishes, and find out what they were made of, but he

couldn't go that, and threw it overboard.)

It is nearly impossible to imagine humor in this extract, yet it is

a fair sample of the entire letter.

He improves in his next, at least, in description, and gives us a

picture of the crater. In this letter, also, he writes well and

seriously, in a prophetic strain, of the great trade that is to be

established between San Francisco and Hawaii, and argues for a line

of steamers between the ports, in order that the islands might be

populated by Americans, by which course European trade in that

direction could be superseded. But the humor in this letter, such

as it is, would scarcely provoke a smile to-day.

As the letters continue, he still urges the fostering of the island

trade by the United States, finds himself impressed by the work of

the missionaries, who have converted cannibals to Christians, and

gives picturesque bits of the life and scenery.

Hawaii was then dominated chiefly by French and English; though the

American interests were by no means small.

Extract from letter No. 4:

Cap. Fitch said "There's the king. That's him in the buggy. I know him

as far as I can see him."

I had never seen a king, and I naturally took out a note-book and put him

down: "Tall, slender, dark, full-bearded; green frock-coat, with lapels

and collar bordered with gold band an inch wide; plug hat, broad gold

band around it; royal costume looks too much like livery; this man is not

as fleshy as I thought he was."

I had just got these notes when Cap. Fitch discovered that he'd got hold

of the wrong king, or rather, that he'd got hold of the king's driver,

or a carriage driver of one of the nobility. The king wasn't present at

all. It was a great disappointment to me. I heard afterwards that the

comfortable, easy-going king, Kamehameha V., had been seen sitting on a

barrel on the wharf, the day before, fishing. But there was no

consolation in that. That did not restore me my lost king.

This has something of the flavor of the man we were to know later;

the quaint, gentle resignation to disappointment which is one of the

finest touches in his humor.

Further on he says: "I had not shaved since I left San Francisco.

As soon as I got ashore I hunted up a striped pole, and shortly

found one. I always had a yearning to be a king. This may never

be, I suppose, but, at any rate, it will always be a satisfaction to

me to know that, if I am not a king, I am the next thing to it.

I have been shaved by the king's barber."

Honolulu was a place of cats. He saw cats of every shade and

variety. He says: "I saw cats--tomcats, Mary-Ann cats, bobtailed

cats, blind cats, one-eyed cats, wall-eyed cats, cross-eyed cats,

gray cats, black cats, white cats, yellow cats, striped cats,

spotted cats, tame cats, wild cats, singed cats, individual cats,

groups of cats, platoons of cats, companies of cats, armies of cats,

multitudes of cats, millions of cats, and all of them sleek, fat,

and lazy, and sound asleep." Which illustrates another

characteristic of the humor we were to know later--the humor of

grotesque exaggeration, in which he was always strong.

He found the islands during his periods of inaction conducive to

indolence. "If I were not so fond of looking into the rich mass of

green leaves," he says, "that swathe the stately tamarind right

before my door, I would idle less, and write more, I think."

The Union made good use of his letters. Sometimes it printed them

on the front page. Evidently they were popular from the beginning.

The Union was a fine, handsome paper--beautiful in its minute

typography, and in its press-work; more beautiful than most papers

of to-day, with their machine-set type, their vulgar illustrations,

and their chain-lightning presses. A few more extracts:

"The only cigars here are those trifling, insipid, tasteless,

flavorless things they call Manilas--ten for twenty-five cents--and

it would take a thousand of them to be worth half the money. After

you have smoked about thirty-five dollars' worth of them in the

forenoon, you feel nothing but a desperate yearning to go out

somewhere and take a smoke."

"Captains and ministers form about half the population. The third

fourth is composed of Kanakas and mercantile foreigners and their

families. The final fourth is made up of high officers of the

Hawaiian government, and there are just about enough cats to go

round."

In No. 6, April the 2d, he says: "An excursion to Diamond Head, and

the king's cocoanut grove, was planned to-day, at 4.30 P. M., the

party to consist of half a dozen gentlemen and three ladies. They

all started at the appointed hour except myself. Somebody remarked

that it was twenty minutes past five o'clock, and that woke me up.

It was a fortunate circumstance that Cap. Phillips was there with

his 'turn-out,' as he calls his top buggy that Cap. Cook brought

here in 1778, and a horse that was here when Cap. Cook came."

This bit has something the savor of his subsequent work, but, as a

rule, the humor compares poorly with that which was to come later.

In No. 7 he speaks of the natives singing American songs--not always

to his comfort. "Marching Through Georgia" was one of their

favorite airs. He says: "If it had been all the same to Gen.

Sherman, I wish he had gone around by the way of the Gulf of Mexico,

instead of marching through Georgia."

Letters Nos. 8, 9, and 10 were not of special importance. In No. 10

he gives some advice to San Francisco as to the treatment of

whalers. He says:

"If I were going to advise San Francisco as to the best strategy to

employ in order to secure the whaling trade, I should say, 'Cripple

your facilities for "pulling" sea captains on any pretence that

sailors can trump up, and show the whaler a little more

consideration when he is in port.'"

In No. 11, May 24th, he tells of a trip to the Kalehi Valley, and

through historic points. At one place he looked from a precipice

over which old Kamehameha I. drove the army of Oahu, three-quarters

of a century before.

The vegetation and glory of the tropics attracted him. "In one open

spot a vine of a species unknown had taken possession of two tall

dead stumps, and wound around and about them, and swung out from

their tops, and twined their meeting tendrils together into a

faultless arch. Man, with all his art, could not improve upon its

symmetry."

He saw Sam Brannan's palace, "The Bungalow," built by one Shillaber

of San Francisco at a cost of from thirty to forty thousand dollars.

In its day it had outshone its regal neighbor, the palace of the

king, but had fallen to decay after passing into Brannan's hands,

and had become a picturesque Theban ruin by the time of Mark Twain's

visit.

In No. 12, June 20th (written May 23d), he tells of the Hawaiian

Legislature, and of his trip to the island of Maui, where, as he

says, he never spent so pleasant a month before, or bade any place

good-by so regretfully.

In No. 13 he continues the Legislature, and gives this picture of

Minister Harris: "He is six feet high, bony and rather slender;

long, ungainly arms; stands so straight he leans back a little; has

small side whiskers; his head long, up and down; he has no command

of language or ideas; oratory all show and pretence; a big washing

and a small hang-out; weak, insipid, and a damn fool in general."

In No. 14, June 22d, published July 16th, he tells of the death and

burial ceremonies of the Princess Victoria K. K., and, what was to

be of more importance to him, of the arrival of Anson Burlingame,

U. S. Minister to China, and Gen. Van Valkenburgh, U. S. Minister to

Japan. They were to stay ten or fourteen days, he said, but an

effort would be made to have them stay over July 4th.

Speaking of Burlingame: "Burlingame is a man who could be esteemed,

respected, and popular anywhere, no matter whether he was among

Christians or cannibals." Then, in the same letter, comes the great

incident. "A letter arrived here yesterday, giving a meagre account

of the arrival, on the Island of Hawaii, of nineteen poor, starving

wretches, who had been buffeting a stormy sea, in an open boat, for

forty-three days. Their ship, the Hornet, from New York, with a

quantity of kerosene on board had taken fire and burned in Lat. 2d.

north, and Long. 35d. west. When they had been entirely out of

provisions for a day or two, and the cravings of hunger become

insufferable, they yielded to the ship-wrecked mariner's fearful and

awful alternative, and solemnly drew lots to determine who of their

number should die, to furnish food for his comrades; and then the

morning mists lifted, and they saw land. They are being cared for

at Sanpahoe (Not yet corroborated)."

The Hornet disaster was fully told in his letter of June 27th. The

survivors were brought to Honolulu, and with the assistance of the

Burlingame party, Clemens, laid up with saddle boils, was carried on

a stretcher to the hospital, where, aided by Burlingame, he

interviewed the shipwrecked men, securing material for the most

important piece of serious writing he had thus far performed.

Letter No. 15 to the Union--of date June 25th--occupied the most of

the first page in the issue of July 19. It was a detailed account

of the sufferings of officers and crew, as given by the third

officer and members of the crew.

From letter No. 15:

In the postscript of a letter which I wrote two or three days ago, and

sent by the ship "Live Yankee," I gave you the substance of a letter

received here from Hilo, by Walker Allen and Co., informing them that a

boat, containing fifteen men in a helpless and starving condition, had

drifted ashore at Sanpahoe, Island of Hawaii, and that they had belonged

to the clipper ship "Hornet"--Cap. Mitchell, master--had been afloat

since the burning of that vessel, about one hundred miles north of the

equator, on the third of May--forty-three days.

The Third Mate, and ten of the seamen have arrived here, and are now in

the hospital. Cap. Mitchell, one seaman named Antonio Passene, and two

passengers, Samuel and Henry Ferguson, of New York City, eighteen and

twenty-eight years, are still at Hilo, but are expected here within the

week. In the Captain's modest epitome of the terrible romance you detect

the fine old hero through it. It reads like Grant.

Here follows the whole terrible narrative, which has since been

published in more substantial form, and has been recognized as

literature. It occupied three and a half columns on the front page

of the Union, and, of course, constituted a great beat for that

paper--a fact which they appreciated to the extent of one hundred

dollars the column upon the writer's return from the islands.

In letters Nos. 14. and 15. he gives further particulars of the

month of mourning for the princess, and funeral ceremonials. He

refers to Burlingame, who was still in the islands. The remaining

letters are unimportant.

The Hawaiian episode in Mark Twain's life was one of those spots

that seemed to him always filled with sunlight. From beginning to

end it had been a long luminous dream; in the next letter, written

on the homeward-bound ship, becalmed under a cloudless sky, we

realize the fitting end of the experience.

To Mrs. Jane Clemens and Mrs. Moffett, in St. Louis:

ON BOARD SHIP Smyrniote,

AT SEA, July 30, 1866.

DEAR MOTHER AND SISTER,--I write, now, because I must go hard at work as

soon as I get to San Francisco, and then I shall have no time for other

things--though truth to say I have nothing now to write which will be

calculated to interest you much. We left the, Sandwich Islands eight or

ten days--or twelve days ago--I don't know which, I have been so hard at

work until today (at least part of each day,) that the time has slipped

away almost unnoticed. The first few days we came at a whooping gait

being in the latitude of the "North-east trades," but we soon ran out of

them. We used them as long as they lasted-hundred of miles--and came

dead straight north until exactly abreast of San Francisco precisely

straight west of the city in a bee-line--but a long bee-line, as we were

about two thousand miles at sea-consequently, we are not a hundred yards

nearer San Francisco than you are. And here we lie becalmed on a glassy

sea--we do not move an inch-we throw banana and orange peel overboard and

it lies still on the water by the vessel's side. Sometimes the ocean is

as dead level as the Mississippi river, and glitters glassily as if

polished--but usually, of course, no matter how calm the weather is, we

roll and surge over the grand ground-swell. We amuse ourselves tying

pieces of tin to the ship's log and sinking them to see how far we can

distinguish them under water--86 feet was the deepest we could see a

small piece of tin, but a white plate would show about as far down as the

steeple of Dr. Bullard's church would reach, I guess. The sea is very

dark and blue here.

Ever since we got becalmed--five days--I have been copying the diary of

one of the young Fergusons (the two boys who starved and suffered, with

thirteen others, in an open boat at sea for forty-three days, lately,

after their ship, the "Hornet," was burned on the equator.) Both these

boys, and Captain Mitchell, are passengers with us. I am copying the

diary to publish in Harper's Magazine, if I have time to fix it up

properly when I get to San Francisco.

I suppose, from present appearances,--light winds and calms,--that we

shall be two or three weeks at sea, yet--and I hope so--I am in no hurry

to go to work.

Sunday Morning, Aug. 6.

This is rather slow. We still drift, drift, drift along--at intervals a

spanking breeze and then--drift again--hardly move for half a day. But I

enjoy it. We have such snowy moonlight, and such gorgeous sunsets.

And the ship is so easy--even in a gale she rolls very little, compared

to other vessels--and in this calm we could dance on deck, if we chose.

You can walk a crack, so steady is she. Very different from the Ajax.

My trunk used to get loose in the stateroom and rip and tear around the

place as if it had life in it, and I always had to take my clothes off in

bed because I could not stand up and do it.

There is a ship in sight--the first object we have seen since we left

Honolulu. We are still 1300 or 1400 miles from land and so anything like

this that varies the vast solitude of the ocean makes all hands

light-hearted and cheerful. We think the ship is the "Comet," which left

Honolulu several hours before we did. She is about twelve miles away,

and so we cannot see her hull, but the sailors think it is the Comet

because of some peculiarity about her fore-top-gallant sails. We have

watched her all the forenoon.

Afternoon We had preaching on the quarter-deck by Rev. Mr. Rising, of

Virginia City, old friend of mine. Spread a flag on the booby-hatch,

which made a very good pulpit, and then ranged the chairs on either side

against the bulwarks; last Sunday we had the shadow of the mainsail, but

today we were on the opposite tack, close hauled, and had the sun. I am

leader of the choir on this ship, and a sorry lead it is. I hope they

will have a better opinion of our music in Heaven than I have down here.

If they don't a thunderbolt will come down and knock the vessel endways.

The other ship is the Comet--she is right abreast three miles away,

sailing on our course--both of us in a dead calm. With the glasses we

can see what we take to be men and women on her decks. I am well

acquainted with nearly all her passengers, and being so close seems right

sociable.

Monday 7--I had just gone to bed a little after midnight when the 2d mate

came and roused up the captain and said "The Comet has come round and is

standing away on the other tack." I went up immediately, and so did all

our passengers, without waiting to dress-men, women and children. There

was a perceptible breeze. Pretty soon the other ship swept down upon us

with all her sails set, and made a fine show in the luminous starlight.

She passed within a hundred yards of us, so we could faintly see persons

on her decks. We had two minutes' chat with each other, through the

medium of hoarse shouting, and then she bore away to windward.

In the morning she was only a little black peg standing out of the glassy

sea in the distant horizon--an almost invisible mark in the bright sky.

Dead calm. So the ships have stood, all day long--have not moved 100

yards.

Aug. 8--The calm continues. Magnificent weather. The gentlemen have all

turned boys. They play boyish games on the poop and quarter-deck. For

instance: They lay a knife on the fife-rail of the mainmast--stand off

three steps, shut one eye, walk up and strike at it with the fore-finger;

(seldom hit it;) also they lay a knife on the deck and walk seven or

eight steps with eyes close shut, and try to find it. They kneel--place

elbows against knees--extend hands in front along the deck--place knife

against end of fingers--then clasp hands behind back and bend forward and

try to pick up the knife with their teeth and rise up from knees without

rolling over or losing their balance. They tie a string to the shrouds

--stand with back against it walk three steps (eyes shut)--turn around

three times and go and put finger on the string; only a military man can

do it. If you want to know how perfectly ridiculous a grown man looks

performing such absurdities in the presence of ladies, get one to try it.

Afternoon--The calm is no more. There are three vessels in sight. It is

so sociable to have them hovering about us on this broad waste of water.

It is sunny and pleasant, but blowing hard. Every rag about the ship is

spread to the breeze and she is speeding over the sea like a bird. There

is a large brig right astern of us with all her canvas set and chasing us

at her best. She came up fast while the winds were light, but now it is

hard to tell whether she gains or not. We can see the people on the

forecastle with the glass. The race is exciting. I am sorry to know

that we shall soon have to quit the vessel and go ashore if she keeps up

this speed.

Friday, Aug. 10--We have breezes and calms alternately. The brig is two

miles to three astern, and just stays there. We sail directly east--this

brings the brig, with all her canvas set, almost in the eye of the sun,

when it sets--beautiful. She looks sharply cut and black as a coal,

against a background of fire and in the midst of a sea of blood.

San Francisco, Aug. 20.--We never saw the Comet again till the 13th, in

the morning, three miles away. At three o'clock that afternoon, 25 days

out from Honolulu, both ships entered the Golden Gate of San Francisco

side by side, and 300 yards apart. There was a gale blowing, and both

vessels clapped on every stitch of canvas and swept up through the

channel and past the fortresses at a magnificent gait.

I have been up to Sacramento and squared accounts with the Union. They

paid me a great deal more than they promised me.

Yrs aff

SAM.

VI.

LETTERS 1866-67. THE LECTURER. SUCCESS ON THE COAST. IN NEW YORK.

THE GREAT OCEAN EXCURSION

It was August 13th when he reached San Francisco and wrote in his

note-book, "Home again. No--not home again--in prison again, and

all the wild sense of freedom gone. City seems so cramped and so

dreary with toil and care and business anxieties. God help me, I

wish I were at sea again!"

The transition from the dreamland of a becalmed sailing-vessel to

the dull, cheerless realities of his old life, and the uncertainties

of his future, depressed him--filled him with forebodings. At one

moment he felt himself on the verge of suicide--the world seemed so

little worth while.

He wished to make a trip around the world, a project that required

money. He contemplated making a book of his island letters and

experiences, and the acceptance by Harper's Magazine of the revised

version of the Hornet Shipwreck story encouraged this thought.

Friends urged him to embody in a lecture the picturesque aspect of

Hawaiian life. The thought frightened him, but it also appealed to

him strongly. He believed he could entertain an audience, once he

got started on the right track. As Governor of the Third House at

Carson City he had kept the audience in hand. Men in whom he had

the utmost confidence insisted that he follow up the lecture idea

and engage the largest house in the city for his purpose. The

possibility of failure appalled him, but he finally agreed to the

plan.

In Roughing It, and elsewhere, has been told the story of this

venture--the tale of its splendid success. He was no longer

concerned, now, as to his immediate future. The lecture field was

profitable. His audience laughed and shouted. He was learning the

flavor of real success and exulting in it. With Dennis McCarthy,

formerly one of the partners in the Enterprise, as manager, he made

a tour of California and Nevada.

To Mrs. Jane Clemens and others, in St. Louis:

VIRGINIA CITY, Nov. 1, 1866.

ALL THE FOLKS, AFFECTIONATE GREETING,--You know the flush time's are

past, and it has long been impossible to more than half fill the Theatre

here, with any sort of attraction, but they filled it for me, night

before last--full--dollar all over the house.

I was mighty dubious about Carson, but the enclosed call and some

telegrams set that all right--I lecture there tomorrow night.

They offer a full house and no expense in Dayton--go there next. Sandy

Baldwin says I have made the most sweeping success of any man he knows

of.

I have lectured in San Francisco, Sacramento, Marysville, Grass Valley,

Nevada, You Bet, Red Dog and Virginia. I am going to talk in Carson,

Gold Hill, Silver City, Dayton, Washoe, San Francisco again, and again

here if I have time to re-hash the lecture.

Then I am bound for New York--lecture on the Steamer, maybe.

I'll leave toward 1st December--but I'll telegraph you.

Love to all.

Yrs.

MARK.

His lecture tour continued from October until December, a period of

picturesque incident, the story of which has been recorded elsewhere.

--[See Mark Twain: A Biography, by the same author]--It paid him well;

he could go home now, without shame. Indeed, from his next letter, full

of the boyish elation which always to his last years was the complement

of his success, we gather that he is going home with special honors

--introductions from ministers and the like to distinguished personages

of the East.

To Mrs. Jane Clemens and family, in St. Louis:

SAN F., Dec. 4, 1866.

MY DEAR FOLKS,--I have written to Annie and Sammy and Katie some time

ago--also, to the balance of you.

I called on Rev. Dr. Wadsworth last night with the City College man,

but he wasn't at home. I was sorry, because I wanted to make his

acquaintance. I am thick as thieves with the Rev. Stebbings, and I am

laying for the Rev. Scudder and the Rev. Dr. Stone. I am running on

preachers, now, altogether. I find them gay. Stebbings is a regular

brick. I am taking letters of introduction to Henry Ward Beecher, Rev.

Dr. Tyng, and other eminent parsons in the east. Whenever anybody offers

me a letter to a preacher, now I snaffle it on the spot. I shall make

Rev. Dr. Bellows trot out the fast nags of the cloth for me when I get to

New York. Bellows is an able, upright and eloquent man--a man of

imperial intellect and matchless power--he is Christian in the truest

sense of the term and is unquestionably a brick....

Gen. Drum has arrived in Philadelphia and established his head-quarters

there, as Adjutant Genl. to Maj. Gen. Meade. Col. Leonard has received a

letter from him in which he offers me a complimentary benefit if I will

come there. I am much obliged, really, but I am afraid I shan't lecture

much in the States.

The China Mail Steamer is getting ready and everybody says I am throwing

away a fortune in not going in her. I firmly believe it myself.

I sail for the States in the Opposition steamer of the 5th inst.,

positively and without reserve. My room is already secured for me, and

is the choicest in the ship. I know all the officers.

Yrs. Affy

MARK.

We get no hint of his plans, and perhaps he had none. If his

purpose was to lecture in the East, he was in no hurry to begin.

Arriving in New York, after an adventurous voyage, he met a number

of old Californians--men who believed in him--and urged him to

lecture. He also received offers of newspaper engagements, and from

Charles Henry Webb, who had published the Californian, which Bret

Harte had edited, came the proposal to collect his published

sketches, including the jumping Frog story, in book form. Webb

himself was in New York, and offered the sketches to several

publishers, including Canton, who had once refused the Frog story by

omitting it from Artemus Ward's book. It seems curious that Canton

should make a second mistake and refuse it again, but publishers

were wary in those days, and even the newspaper success of the Frog

story did not tempt him to venture it as the title tale of a book.

Webb finally declared he would publish the book himself, and

Clemens, after a few weeks of New York, joined his mother and family

in St. Louis and gave himself up to a considerable period of

visiting, lecturing meantime in both Hannibal and Keokuk.

Fate had great matters in preparation for him. The Quaker City

Mediterranean excursion, the first great ocean picnic, was announced

that spring, and Mark Twain realized that it offered a possible

opportunity for him to see something of the world. He wrote at once

to the proprietors of the Alta-California and proposed that they

send him as their correspondent. To his delight his proposition was

accepted, the Alta agreeing to the twelve hundred dollars passage

money, and twenty dollars each for letters.

The Quaker City was not to sail until the 8th of June, but the Alta

wished some preliminary letters from New York. Furthermore, Webb

had the Frog book in press, and would issue it May 1st. Clemens,

therefore, returned to New York in April, and now once more being

urged by the Californians to lecture, he did not refuse. Frank

Fuller, formerly Governor of Utah, took the matter in hand and

engaged Cooper Union for the venture. He timed it for May 6th,

which would be a few days after the appearance of Webb's book.

Clemens was even more frightened at the prospect of this lecture

than he had been in San Francisco, and with more reason, for in New

York his friends were not many, and competition for public favor was

very great. There are two letters written May 1st, one to his

people, and one to Bret Harte, in San Francisco; that give us the

situation.

MARK TWAIN'S LETTERS 1867-1875

ARRANGED WITH COMMENT BY ALBERT BIGELOW PAINE

VOLUME II.

To Bret Harte, in San Francisco:

WESTMINSTER HOTEL, May 1, 1867.

DEAR BRET,--I take my pen in hand to inform you that I am well and hope

these few lines will find you enjoying the same God's blessing.

The book is out, and is handsome. It is full of damnable errors of

grammar and deadly inconsistencies of spelling in the Frog sketch because

I was away and did not read the proofs; but be a friend and say nothing

about these things. When my hurry is over, I will send you an autograph

copy to pisen the children with.

I am to lecture in Cooper Institute next Monday night. Pray for me.

We sail for the Holy Land June 8. Try to write me (to this hotel,) and

it will be forwarded to Paris, where we remain 10 or 15 days.

Regards and best wishes to Mrs. Bret and the family.

Truly Yr Friend

MARK.

To Mrs. Jane Clemens and family, in St. Louis:

WESTMINSTER HOTEL, May 1, 1867.

DEAR FOLKS,--Don't expect me to write for a while. My hands are full of

business on account of my lecture for the 6th inst., and everything looks

shady, at least, if not dark. I have got a good agent--but now after we

have hired Cooper Institute and gone to an expense in one way or another

of $500, it comes out that I have got to play against Speaker Colfax at

Irving Hall, Ristori, and also the double troupe of Japanese jugglers,

the latter opening at the great Academy of Music--and with all this

against me I have taken the largest house in New York and cannot back

water. Let her slide! If nobody else cares I don't.

I'll send the book soon. I am awfully hurried now, but not worried.

Yrs.

SAM.

The Cooper Union lecture proved a failure, and a success. When it became

evident to Fuller that the venture was not going to pay, he sent out a

flood of complimentaries to the school-teachers of New York City and the

surrounding districts. No one seems to have declined them. Clemens

lectured to a jammed house and acquired much reputation. Lecture

proposals came from several directions, but he could not accept them now.

He wrote home that he was eighteen Alta letters behind and had refused

everything. Thos. Nast, the cartoonist, then in his first fame, propped

a joint tour, Clemens to lecture while he, Nast, would illustrate with

"lightning" sketches; but even this could not be considered now. In a

little while he would sail, and the days were overfull. A letter written

a week before he sailed is full of the hurry and strain of these last

days.

To Mrs. Jane Clemens and family, in St. Louis:

WESTMINSTER HOTEL, NEW YORK, June 1, 1867.

DEAR FOLKS,--I know I ought to write oftener (just got your last,) and

more fully, but I cannot overcome my repugnance to telling what I am

doing or what I expect to do or propose to do. Then, what have I left to

write about? Manifestly nothing.

It isn't any use for me to talk about the voyage, because I can have no

faith in that voyage till the ship is under way. How do I know she will

ever sail? My passage is paid, and if the ship sails, I sail in her--but

I make no calculations, have bought no cigars, no sea-going clothing

--have made no preparation whatever--shall not pack my trunk till the

morning we sail. Yet my hands are full of what I am going to do the day

before we sail--and what isn't done that day will go undone.

All I do know or feel, is, that I am wild with impatience to move--move

--move! Half a dozen times I have wished I had sailed long ago in some

ship that wasn't going to keep me chained here to chafe for lagging ages

while she got ready to go. Curse the endless delays! They always kill

me--they make me neglect every duty and then I have a conscience that

tears me like a wild beast. I wish I never had to stop anywhere a month.

I do more mean things, the moment I get a chance to fold my hands and sit

down than ever I can get forgiveness for.

Yes, we are to meet at Mr. Beach's next Thursday night, and I suppose we

shall have to be gotten up regardless of expense, in swallow-tails, white

kids and everything en regle.

I am resigned to Rev. Mr. Hutchinson's or anybody else's supervision.

I don't mind it. I am fixed. I have got a splendid, immoral,

tobacco-smoking, wine-drinking, godless room-mate who is as good and true

and right-minded a man as ever lived--a man whose blameless conduct and

example will always be an eloquent sermon to all who shall come within

their influence. But send on the professional preachers--there are none

I like better to converse with. If they're not narrow minded and bigoted

they make good companions.

I asked them to send the N. Y. Weekly to you--no charge. I am not going

to write for it. Like all other, papers that pay one splendidly it

circulates among stupid people and the 'canaille.' I have made no

arrangement with any New York paper--I will see about that Monday or

Tuesday.

Love to all

Good bye,

Yrs affy

SAM.

The "immoral" room-mate whose conduct was to be an "eloquent

example" was Dan Slote, immortalized in the Innocents as "Dan"

--a favorite on the ship, and later beloved by countless readers.

There is one more letter, written the night before the Quaker City

sailed-a letter which in a sense marks the close of the first great

period of his life--the period of aimless wandering--adventure

--youth.