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.