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.
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