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.
All books are sourced from Project Gutenberg