This is the last personal letter written during that famous first
sea-gipsying, and reading it our regret grows that he did not put
something of his Spanish excursion into his book. He never returned
to Spain, and he never wrote of it. Only the barest mention of
“seven beautiful days” is found in The Innocents Abroad.
VIII. LETTERS 1867-68. WASHINGTON AND SAN FRANCISCO. THE PROPOSED BOOK
OF TRAVEL. A NEW LECTURE.
From Mark Twain's home letters we get several important side-lights
on this first famous book. We learn, for in stance, that it was he
who drafted the ship address to the Emperor--the opening lines of
which became so wearisome when repeated by the sailors.
Furthermore, we learn something of the scope and extent of his
newspaper correspondence, which must have kept him furiously busy,
done as it was in the midst of super-heated and continuous
sight-seeing. He wrote fifty three letters to the Alta-California,
six to the New York Tribune, and at least two to the New York
Herald more than sixty, all told, of an average, length of three to
four thousand words each. Mark Twain always claimed to be a lazy
man, and certainly he was likely to avoid an undertaking not suited
to his gifts, but he had energy in abundance for work in his chosen
field. To have piled up a correspondence of that size in the time,
and under the circumstances already noted, quality considered, may
be counted a record in the history of travel letters.
They made him famous. Arriving in New York, November 19, 1867, Mark
Twain found himself no longer unknown to the metropolis, or to any
portion of America. Papers East and West had copied his Alta and
Tribune letters and carried his name into every corner of the States
and Territories. He had preached a new gospel in travel literature,
the gospel of frankness and sincerity that Americans could
understand. Also his literary powers had awakened at last. His
work was no longer trivial, crude, and showy; it was full of
dignity, beauty, and power; his humor was finer, worthier. The
difference in quality between the Quaker City letters and those
written from the Sandwich Islands only a year before can scarcely be
measured.
He did not remain in New York, but went down to Washington, where he
had arranged for a private secretaryship with Senator William M.
Stewart,--[The “Bill” Stewart mentioned in the preceding chapter.]
whom he had known in Nevada. Such a position he believed would make
but little demand upon his time, and would afford him an insight
into Washington life, which he could make valuable in the shape of
newspaper correspondence.
But fate had other plans for him. He presently received the
following letter: