The Letters Of Mark Twain, Complete

M >> Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) >> The Letters Of Mark Twain, Complete


Pamela, don't you know that undemonstrated human calculations won't do
to bet on? Don't you know that I have only talked, as yet, but proved
nothing? Don't you know that I have expended money in this country but
have made none myself? Don't you know that I have never held in my hands
a gold or silver bar that belonged to me? Don't you know that it's all
talk and no cider so far? Don't you know that people who always feel
jolly, no matter where they are or what happens to them--who have the
organ of hope preposterously developed--who are endowed with an
uncongealable sanguine temperament--who never feel concerned about the
price of corn--and who cannot, by any possibility, discover any but the
bright side of a picture--are very apt to go to extremes, and exaggerate
with 40-horse microscopic power? Of course I never tried to raise these
suspicions in your mind, but then your knowledge of the fact that some
people's poor frail human nature is a sort of crazy institution anyhow,
ought to have suggested them to you. Now, if I hadn't thoughtlessly got
you into the notion of coming out here, and thereby got myself into a
scrape, I wouldn't have given you that highly-colored paragraph about the
mill, etc., because, you know, if that pretty little picture should fail,
and wash out, and go the Devil generally, it wouldn't cost me the loss of
an hour's sleep, but you fellows would be so much distressed on my
account as I could possibly be if "circumstances beyond my control" were
to prevent my being present at my own funeral. But--but--

"In the bright lexicon of youth,
There's no such word as Fail--"
and I'll prove it!

And look here. I came near forgetting it. Don't you say a word to me
about "trains" across the plains. Because I am down on that arrangement.
That sort of thing is "played out," you know. The Overland Coach or the
Mail Steamer is the thing.

You want to know something about the route between California and Nevada
Territory? Suppose you take my word for it, that it is exceedingly
jolly. Or take, for a winter view, J. Ross Brown's picture, in Harper's
Monthly, of pack mules tumbling fifteen hundred feet down the side of a
mountain. Why bless you, there's scenery on that route. You can stand
on some of those noble peaks and see Jerusalem and the Holy Land. And
you can start a boulder, and send it tearing up the earth and crashing
over trees-down-down-down-to the very devil, Madam. And you would
probably stand up there and look, and stare and wonder at the
magnificence spread out before you till you starved to death, if let
alone. But you should take someone along to keep you moving.

Since you want to know, I will inform you that an eight-stamp water mill,
put up and ready for business would cost about $10,000 to $12,000. Then,
the water to run it with would cost from $1,000 to $30,000--and even
more, according to the location. What I mean by that, is, that water
powers in THIS vicinity, are immensely valuable. So, also, in Esmeralda.
But Humboldt is a new country, and things don't cost so much there yet.
I saw a good water power sold there for $750.00. But here is the way the
thing is managed. A man with a good water power on Carson river will
lean his axe up against a tree (provided you find him chopping cord-wood
at $4 a day,) and taking his chalk pipe out of his mouth to afford him an
opportunity to answer your questions, will look you coolly in the face
and tell you his little property is worth forty or fifty thousand
dollars! But you can easily fix him. You tell him that you'll build a
quartz mill on his property, and make him a fourth or a third, or half
owner in said mill in consideration of the privilege of using said
property--and that will bring him to his milk in a jiffy. So he spits on
his hands, and goes in again with his axe, until the mill is finished,
when lo! out pops the quondam wood-chopper, arrayed in purple and fine
linen, and prepared to deal in bank-stock, or bet on the races, or take
government loans, with an air, as to the amount, of the most don't care
a-d---dest unconcern that you can conceive of. By George, if I just had
a thousand dollars--I'd be all right! Now there's the "Horatio," for
instance. There are five or six shareholders in it, and I know I could
buy half of their interests at, say $20 per foot, now that flour is worth
$50 per barrel and they are pressed for money. But I am hard up myself,
and can't buy--and in June they'll strike the ledge and then "good-bye
canary." I can't get it for love or money. Twenty dollars a foot!
Think of it. For ground that is proven to be rich. Twenty dollars,
Madam--and we wouldn't part with a foot of our 75 for five times the sum.
So it will be in Humboldt next summer. The boys will get pushed and sell
ground for a song that is worth a fortune. But I am at the helm, now.
I have convinced Orion that he hasn't business talent enough to carry on
a peanut stand, and he has solemnly promised me that he will meddle no
more with mining, or other matters not connected with the Secretary's
office. So, you see, if mines are to be bought or sold, or tunnels run,
or shafts sunk, parties have to come to me--and me only. I'm the "firm,"
you know.

"How long does it take one of those infernal trains to go through?"
Well, anywhere between three and five months.

Tell Margaret that if you ever come to live in California, that you can
promise her a home for a hundred years, and a bully one--but she wouldn't
like the country. Some people are malicious enough to think that if the
devil were set at liberty and told to confine himself to Nevada
Territory, that he would come here--and look sadly around, awhile, and
then get homesick and go back to hell again. But I hardly believe it,
you know. I am saying, mind you, that Margaret wouldn't like the
country, perhaps--nor the devil either, for that matter, or any other man
but I like it. When it rains here, it never lets up till it has done all
the raining it has got to do--and after that, there's a dry spell, you
bet. Why, I have had my whiskers and moustaches so full of alkali dust
that you'd have thought I worked in a starch factory and boarded in a
flour barrel.

Since we have been here there has not been a fire--although the houses
are built of wood. They "holler" fire sometimes, though, but I am always
too late to see the smoke before the fire is out, if they ever have any.
Now they raised a yell here in front of the office a moment ago. I put
away my papers, and locked up everything of value, and changed my boots,
and pulled off my coat, and went and got a bucket of water, and came back
to see what the matter was, remarking to myself, "I guess I'll be on hand
this time, any way." But I met a friend on the pavement, and he said,
"Where you been? Fire's out half an hour ago."

Ma says Axtele was above "suspition"--but I have searched through
Webster's Unabridged, and can't find the word. However, it's of no
consequence--I hope he got down safely. I knew Axtele and his wife as
well as I know Dan Haines. Mrs. A. once tried to embarrass me in the
presence of company by asking me to name her baby, when she was well
aware that I didn't know the sex of that Phenomenon. But I told her to
call it Frances, and spell it to suit herself. That was about nine years
ago, and Axtele had no property, and could hardly support his family by
his earnings. He was a pious cuss, though. Member of Margaret Sexton's
Church.

And Ma says "it looks like a man can't hold public office and be honest."
Why, certainly not, Madam. A man can't hold public office and be honest.
Lord bless you, it is a common practice with Orion to go about town
stealing little things that happen to be lying around loose. And I don't
remember having heard him speak the truth since we have been in Nevada.
He even tries to prevail upon me to do these things, Ma, but I wasn't
brought up in that way, you know. You showed the public what you could
do in that line when you raised me, Madam. But then you ought to have
raised me first, so that Orion could have had the benefit of my example.
Do you know that he stole all the stamps out of an 8 stamp quartz mill
one night, and brought them home under his over-coat and hid them in the
back room?
Yrs. etc.,
SAM


A little later he had headed for the Esmeralda Hills. Some time in
February he was established there in a camp with a young man by the
name of Horatio Phillips (Raish). Later he camped with Bob Howland,
who, as City Marshal of Aurora, became known as the most fearless
man in the Territory, and, still later, with Calvin H. Higbie (Cal),
to whom 'Roughing It' would one day be dedicated. His own funds
were exhausted by this time, and Orion, with his rather slender
salary, became the financial partner of the firm.

It was a comfortless life there in the Esmeralda camp. Snow covered
everything. There was nothing to do, and apparently nothing to
report; for there are no letters until April. Then the first one is
dated Carson City, where he seems to be making a brief sojourn. It
is a rather heavy attempt to be light-hearted; its playfulness
suggests that of a dancing bear.


To Mrs. Jane Clemens, in St. Louis:

CARSON CITY, April 2, 1862.
MY DEAR MOTHER,--Yours of March 2nd has just been received. I see I am
in for it again--with Annie. But she ought to know that I was always
stupid. She used to try to teach me lessons from the Bible, but I never
could understand them. Doesn't she remember telling me the story of
Moses, one Sunday, last Spring, and how hard she tried to explain it and
simplify it so that I could understand it--but I couldn't? And how she
said it was strange that while her ma and her grandma and her uncle Orion
could understand anything in the world, I was so dull that I couldn't
understand the "ea-siest thing?" And doesn't she remember that finally a
light broke in upon me and I said it was all right--that I knew old Moses
himself--and that he kept a clothing store in Market Street? And then
she went to her ma and said she didn't know what would become of her
uncle Sam he was too dull to learn anything--ever! And I'm just as dull
yet. Now I have no doubt her letter was spelled right, and was correct
in all particulars--but then I had to read it according to my lights; and
they being inferior, she ought to overlook the mistakes I make specially,
as it is not my fault that I wasn't born with good sense. I am sure she
will detect an encouraging ray of intelligence in that last argument.....

I am waiting here, trying to rent a better office for Orion. I have got
the refusal after next week of a room on first floor of a fire-proof
brick-rent, eighteen hundred dollars a year. Don't know yet whether we
can get it or not. If it is not rented before the week is up, we can.

I was sorry to hear that Dick was killed. I gave him his first lesson in
the musket drill. We had half a dozen muskets in our office when it was
over Isbell's Music Rooms.

I hope I am wearing the last white shirt that will embellish my person
for many a day--for I do hope that I shall be out of Carson long before
this reaches you.
Love to all.
Very Respectfully
SAM.


The "Annie" in this letter was his sister Pamela's little daughter;
long years after, she would be the wife of Charles L. Webster, Mark
Twain's publishing partner. "Dick" the reader may remember as Dick
Hingham, of the Keokuk printing-office; he was killed in charging
the works at Fort Donelson.

Clemens was back in Esmeralda when the next letter was written, and
we begin now to get pictures of that cheerless mining-camp, and to
know something of the alternate hopes and discouragements of the
hunt for gold--the miner one day soaring on wings of hope, on the
next becoming excited, irritable, profane. The names of new mines
appear constantly and vanish almost at a touch, suggesting the
fairy-like evanescence of their riches.

But a few of the letters here will best speak for themselves; not
all of them are needed. It is perhaps unnecessary to say that there
is no intentional humor in these documents.


To Orion Clemens, in Carson City:

ESMERALDA, 13th April, 1862.
MY DEAR BROTHER,--Wasson got here night before last "from the wars."
Tell Lockhart he is not wounded and not killed--is altogether unhurt.
He says the whites left their stone fort before he and Lieut. Noble got
there. A large amount of provisions and ammunition, which they left
behind them, fell into the hands of the Indians. They had a pitched
battle with the savages some fifty miles from the fort, in which Scott
(sheriff) and another man was killed. This was the day before the
soldiers came up with them. I mean Noble's men, and those under Cols.
Evans and Mayfield, from Los Angeles. Evans assumed the chief command
--and next morning the forces were divided into three parties, and
marched against the enemy. Col. Mayfield was killed, and Sergeant
Gillespie, also Noble's colonel was wounded. The California troops went
back home, and Noble remained, to help drive the stock over here. And,
as Cousin Sally Dillard says, this is all I know about the fight.

Work not yet begun on the H. and Derby--haven't seen it yet. It is still
in the snow. Shall begin on it within 3 or 4 weeks--strike the ledge in
July. Guess it is good--worth from $30 to $50 a foot in California.

Why didn't you send the "Live Yankee" deed-the very one I wanted? Have
made no inquiries about it, much. Don't intend to until I get the deed.
Send it along--by mail--d---n the Express--have to pay three times for
all express matter; once in Carson and twice here. I don't expect to
take the saddle-bags out of the express office. I paid twenty-five cts.
for the Express deeds.

Man named Gebhart shot here yesterday while trying to defend a claim on
Last Chance Hill. Expect he will die.

These mills here are not worth a d---n-except Clayton's--and it is not in
full working trim yet.

Send me $40 or $50--by mail--immediately.

The Red Bird is probably good--can't work on the tunnel on account of
snow. The "Pugh" I have thrown away--shan't re-locate it. It is nothing
but bed-rock croppings--too much work to find the ledge, if there is one.
Shan't record the "Farnum" until I know more about it--perhaps not at
all.

"Governor" under the snow.

"Douglas" and "Red Bird" are both recorded.

I have had opportunities to get into several ledges, but refused all but
three--expect to back out of two of them.

Stir yourself as much as possible, and lay up $100 or $15,000, subject to
my call. I go to work to-morrow, with pick and shovel. Something's got
to come, by G--, before I let go, here.

Col. Youngs says you must rent Kinkead's room by all means--Government
would rather pay $150 a month for your office than $75 for Gen. North's.
Says you are playing your hand very badly, for either the Government's
good opinion or anybody's else, in keeping your office in a shanty. Says
put Gov. Nye in your place and he would have a stylish office, and no
objections would ever be made, either. When old Col. Youngs talks this
way, I think it time to get a fine office. I wish you would take that
office, and fit it up handsomely, so that I can omit telling people that
by this time you are handsomely located, when I know it is no such thing.

I am living with "Ratio Phillips." Send him one of those black
portfolios--by the stage, and put a couple of pen-holders and a dozen
steel pens in it.

If you should have occasion to dispose of the long desk before I return,
don't forget to break open the middle drawer and take out my things.
Envelop my black cloth coat in a newspaper and hang it in the back room.

Don't buy anything while I am here--but save up some money for me. Don't
send any money home. I shall have your next quarter's salary spent
before you get it, I think. I mean to make or break here within the next
two or three months.
Yrs.
SAM


The "wars" mentioned in the opening paragraph of this letter were
incident to the trouble concerning the boundary line between California
and Nevada. The trouble continued for some time, with occasional
bloodshed. The next letter is an exultant one. There were few enough of
this sort. We cannot pretend to keep track of the multiplicity of mines
and shares which lure the gold-hunters, pecking away at the flinty
ledges, usually in the snow. It has been necessary to abbreviate this
letter, for much of it has lost all importance with the years, and is
merely confusing. Hope is still high in the writer's heart, and
confidence in his associates still unshaken. Later he was to lose faith
in "Raish," whether with justice or not we cannot know now.


To Orion Clowns, in Carson City:

ESMERALDA, May 11, 1862.
MY DEAR BRO.,--TO use a French expression I have "got my d--d satisfy" at
last. Two years' time will make us capitalists, in spite of anything.
Therefore, we need fret and fume, and worry and doubt no more, but just
lie still and put up with privations for six months. Perhaps three
months will "let us out." Then, if Government refuses to pay the rent on
your new office we can do it ourselves. We have got to wait six weeks,
anyhow, for a dividend, maybe longer--but that it will come there is no
shadow of a doubt, I have got the thing sifted down to a dead moral
certainty. I own one-eighth of the new "Monitor Ledge, Clemens Company,"
and money can't buy a foot of it; because I know it to contain our
fortune. The ledge is six feet wide, and one needs no glass to see gold
and silver in it. Phillips and I own one half of a segregated claim in
the "Flyaway" discovery, and good interests in two extensions on it.
We put men to work on our part of the discovery yesterday, and last night
they brought us some fine specimens. Rock taken from ten feet below the
surface on the other part of the discovery, has yielded $150.00 to the
ton in the mill and we are at work 300 feet from their shaft.

May 12--Yours by the mail received last night. "Eighteen hundred feet in
the C. T. Rice's Company!" Well, I am glad you did not accept of the 200
feet. Tell Rice to give it to some poor man.

But hereafter, when anybody holds up a glittering prospect before you,
just argue in this wise, viz: That, if all spare change be devoted to
working the "Monitor" and "Flyaway," 12 months, or 24 at furthest, will
find all our earthly wishes satisfied, so far as money is concerned--and
the more "feet" we have, the more anxiety we must bear--therefore, why
not say "No--d---n your 'prospects,' I wait on a sure thing--and a man
is less than a man, if he can't wait 2 years for a fortune?" When you
and I came out here, we did not expect '63 or '64 to find us rich men
--and if that proposition had been made, we would have accepted it
gladly. Now, it is made.

Well, I am willing, now, that "Neary's tunnel," or anybody else's tunnel
shall succeed. Some of them may beat us a few months, but we shall be on
hand in the fullness of time, as sure as fate. I would hate to swap
chances with any member of the "tribe"--in fact, I am so lost to all
sense and reason as to be capable of refusing to trade "Flyaway" (with
but 200 feet in the Company of four,) foot for foot for that splendid
"Lady Washington," with its lists of capitalist proprietors, and its
35,000 feet of Priceless ground.

I wouldn't mind being in some of those Clear Creek claims, if I lived in
Carson and we could spare the money. But I have struck my tent in
Esmeralda, and I care for no mines but those which I can superintend
myself. I am a citizen here now, and I am satisfied--although R. and I
are strapped and we haven't three days' rations in the house.

Raish is looking anxiously for money and so am I. Send me whatever you
can spare conveniently--I want it to work the Flyaway with. My fourth of
that claim only cost me $50, (which isn't paid yet, though,) and I
suppose I could sell it here in town for ten times that amount today, but
I shall probably hold onto it till the cows come home. I shall work the
"Monitor" and the other claims with my own hands. I prospected of a
pound of "M," yesterday, and Raish reduced it with the blow-pipe, and got
about ten or twelve cents in gold and silver, besides the other half of
it which we spilt on the floor and didn't get. The specimen came from
the croppings, but was a choice one, and showed much free gold to the
naked eye.

Well, I like the corner up-stairs office amazingly--provided, it has one
fine, large front room superbly carpeted, for the safe and a $150 desk,
or such a matter--one handsome room amidships, less handsomely gotten up,
perhaps, for records and consultations, and one good-sized bedroom and
adjoining it a kitchen, neither of which latter can be entered by anybody
but yourself--and finally, when one of the ledges begins to pay, the
whole to be kept in parlor order by two likely contrabands at big wages,
the same to be free of expense to the Government. You want the entire
second story--no less room than you would have had in Harris and Co's.
Make them fix for you before the 1st of July-for maybe you might want to
"come out strong" on the 4th, you know.

No, the Post Office is all right and kept by a gentleman but W. F.
Express isn't. They charge 25 cts to express a letter from here, but I
believe they have quit charging twice for letters that arrive prepaid.

The "Flyaway" specimen I sent you, (taken by myself from DeKay's shaft,
300 feet from where we are going to sink) cannot be called "choice,"
exactly--say something above medium, to be on the safe side. But I have
seen exceedingly choice chunks from that shaft. My intention at first in
sending the Antelope specimen was that you might see that it resembles
the Monitor--but, come to think, a man can tell absolutely nothing about
that without seeing both ledges themselves. I tried to break a handsome
chunk from a huge piece of my darling Monitor which we brought from the
croppings yesterday, but it all splintered up, and I send you the scraps.
I call that "choice"--any d---d fool would. Don't ask if it has been
assayed, for it hasn't. It don't need it. It is amply able to speak for
itself. It is six feet wide on top, and traversed through and through
with veins whose color proclaims their worth. What the devil does a man
want with any more feet when he owns in the Flyaway and the invincible
bomb-proof Monitor?

If I had anything more to say I have forgotten what it was, unless,
perhaps, that I want a sum of money--anywhere from $20 to $150, as soon
as possible.

Raish sends regards. He or I, one will drop a line to the "Age"
occasionally. I suppose you saw my letters in the "Enterprise."
Yr. BRO,
SAM

P. S. I suppose Pamela never will regain her health, but she could
improve it by coming to California--provided the trip didn't kill her.

You see Bixby is on the flag-ship. He always was the best pilot on the
Mississippi, and deserves his "posish." They have done a reckless thing,
though, in putting Sam Bowen on the "Swan"--for if a bomb-shell happens
to come his way, he will infallibly jump overboard.

Send me another package of those envelopes, per Bagley's coat pocket.


We see how anxious he was for his brother to make a good official
showing. If a niggardly Government refused to provide decent
quarters--no matter; the miners, with gold pouring in, would
themselves pay for a suite "superbly carpeted," and all kept in
order by "two likely contrabands"--that is to say, negroes. Samuel
Clemens in those days believed in expansion and impressive
surroundings. His brother, though also mining mad, was rather
inclined to be penny wise in the matter of office luxury--not a bad
idea, as it turned out.

Orion, by the way, was acquiring "feet" on his own account, and in
one instance, at least, seems to have won his brother's
commendation.

The 'Enterprise' letters mentioned we shall presently hear of again.


To Orion Clemens, in Carson City:

ESMERALDA, Sunday, May--, 1862.
MY DEAR BROTHER,--Well, if you haven't "struck it rich--" that is, if the
piece of rock you sent me came from a bona fide ledge--and it looks as if
it did. If that is a ledge, and you own 200 feet in it, why, it's a big
thing--and I have nothing more to say. If you have actually made
something by helping to pay somebody's prospecting expenses it is a
wonder of the first magnitude, and deserves to rank as such.