_ 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. _