The Letters Of Mark Twain, Complete

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


If that rock came from a well-defined ledge, that particular vein must be
at least an inch wide, judging from this specimen, which is fully that
thick.

When I came in the other evening, hungry and tired and ill-natured, and
threw down my pick and shovel, Raish gave me your specimen--said Bagley
brought it, and asked me if it were cinnabar. I examined it by the
waning daylight, and took the specks of fine gold for sulphurets--wrote
you I did not think much of it--and posted the letter immediately.

But as soon as I looked at it in the broad light of day, I saw my
mistake. During the week, we have made three horns, got a blow-pipe, &c,
and yesterday, all prepared, we prospected the "Mountain House." I broke
the specimen in two, and found it full of fine gold inside. Then we
washed out one-fourth of it, and got a noble prospect. This we reduced
with the blow-pipe, and got about two cents (herewith enclosed) in pure
gold.

As the fragment prospected weighed rather less than an ounce, this would
give about $500 to the ton. We were eminently well satisfied.
Therefore, hold on to the "Mountain House," for it is a "big thing."
Touch it lightly, as far as money is concerned, though, for it is well to
reserve the code of justice in the matter of quartz ledges--that is,
consider them all (and their owners) guilty (of "shenanigan") until they
are proved innocent.

P. S.--Monday--Ratio and I have bought one-half of a segregated claim in
the original "Flyaway," for $100--$50 down. We haven't a cent in the
house. We two will work the ledge, and have full control, and pay all
expenses. If you can spare $100 conveniently, let me have it--or $50,
anyhow, considering that I own one fourth of this, it is of course more
valuable than one 1/7 of the "Mountain House," although not so rich ....


There is too much of a sameness in the letters of this period to use
all of them. There are always new claims, and work done, apparently
without system or continuance, hoping to uncover sudden boundless
affluence.

In the next letter and the one following it we get a hint of an
episode, or rather of two incidents which he combined into an
episode in Roughing It. The story as told in that book is an
account of what might have happened, rather than history. There was
never really any money in the "blind lead" of the Wide West claim,
except that which was sunk in it by unfortunate investors. Only
extracts from these letters are given. The other portions are
irrelevant and of slight value.


Extract from a letter to Orion Clemens, in Carson City:

1862.
Two or three of the old "Salina" company entered our hole on the Monitor
yesterday morning, before our men got there, and took possession, armed
with revolvers. And according to the d---d laws of this forever d---d
country, nothing but the District Court (and there ain't any) can touch
the matter, unless it assumes the shape of an infernal humbug which they
call "forcible entry and detainer," and in order to bring that about, you
must compel the jumpers to use personal violence toward you! We went up
and demanded possession, and they refused. Said they were in the hole,
armed and meant to die for it, if necessary.

I got in with them, and again demanded possession. They said I might
stay in it as long as I pleased, and work but they would do the same.
I asked one of our company to take my place in the hole, while I went to
consult a lawyer. He did so. The lawyer said it was no go. They must
offer some "force."

Our boys will try to be there first in the morning--in which case they
may get possession and keep it. Now you understand the shooting scrape
in which Gebhart was killed the other day. The Clemens Company--all of
us--hate to resort to arms in this matter, and it will not be done until
it becomes a forced hand--but I think that will be the end of it,
never-the-less.


The mine relocated in this letter was not the "Wide West," but it
furnished the proper incident. The only mention of the "Wide West"
is found in a letter written in July.


Extract from a letter to Orion Clemens, in Carson City:
1862
If I do not forget it, I will send you, per next mail, a pinch of decom.
(decomposed rock) which I pinched with thumb and finger from "Wide West"
ledge awhile ago. Raish and I have secured 200 out of a 400 ft. in it,
which perhaps (the ledge, I mean) is a spur from the W. W.--our shaft is
about 100 ft. from the W. W. shaft. In order to get in, we agreed to
sink 30 ft. We have sub-let to another man for 50 ft., and we pay for
powder and sharpening tools.


The "Wide West" claim was forfeited, but there is no evidence to
show that Clemens and his partners were ever, except in fiction,
"millionaires for ten days." The background, the local color, and
the possibilities are all real enough, but Mark Twain's aim in this,
as in most of his other reminiscent writing, was to arrange and
adapt his facts to the needs of a good story.

The letters of this summer (1862) most of them bear evidence of
waning confidence in mining as a source of fortune--the miner has
now little faith in his own judgment, and none at all in that of his
brother, who was without practical experience.


Letter to Orion Clemens, in Carson City:

ESMERALDA, Thursday.
MY DEAR BRO.,--Yours of the 17th, per express, just received. Part of it
pleased me exceedingly, and part of it didn't. Concerning the letter,
for instance: You have PROMISED me that you would leave all mining
matters, and everything involving an outlay of money, in my hands.

Sending a man fooling around the country after ledges, for God's sake!
when there are hundreds of feet of them under my nose here, begging for
owners, free of charge. I don't want any more feet, and I won't touch
another foot--so you see, Orion, as far as any ledges of Perry's are
concerned, (or any other except what I examine first with my own eyes,)
I freely yield my right to share ownership with you.

The balance of your letter, I say, pleases me exceedingly. Especially
that about the H. and D. being worth from $30 to $50 in Cal. It pleases
me because, if the ledges prove to be worthless, it will be a pleasant
reflection to know that others were beaten worse than ourselves. Raish
sold a man 30 feet, yesterday, at $20 a foot, although I was present at
the sale, and told the man the ground wasn't worth a d---n. He said he
had been hankering after a few feet in the H. and D. for a long time, and
he had got them at last, and he couldn't help thinking he had secured a
good thing. We went and looked at the ledges, and both of them
acknowledged that there was nothing in them but good "indications." Yet
the owners in the H. and D. will part with anything else sooner than
with feet in these ledges. Well, the work goes slowly--very slowly on,
in the tunnel, and we'll strike it some day. But--if we "strike it
rich,"--I've lost my guess, that's all. I expect that the way it got so
high in Cal. was, that Raish's brother, over there was offered $750.00
for 20 feet of it, and he refused .....

Couldn't go on the hill today. It snowed. It always snows here, I
expect.

Don't you suppose they have pretty much quit writing, at home?

When you receive your next 1/4 yr's salary, don't send any of it here
until after you have told me you have got it. Remember this. I am
afraid of that H. and D.

They have struck the ledge in the Live Yankee tunnel, and I told the
President, Mr. Allen, that it wasn't as good as the croppings. He said
that was true enough, but they would hang to it until it did prove rich.
He is much of a gentleman, that man Allen.

And ask Gaslerie why the devil he don't send along my commission as
Deputy Sheriff. The fact of my being in California, and out of his
country, wouldn't amount to a d---n with me, in the performance of my
official duties.

I have nothing to report, at present, except that I shall find out all I
want to know about this locality before I leave it.

How do the Records pay?
Yr. Bro.
SAM.


In one of the foregoing letters--the one dated May 11 there is a
reference to the writer's "Enterprise Letters." Sometimes, during
idle days in the camp, the miner had followed old literary impulses
and written an occasional burlesque sketch, which he had signed
"Josh," and sent to the Territorial Enterprise, at Virginia City.
--[One contribution was sent to a Keokuk paper, The Gate City, and a
letter written by Mrs. Jane Clemens at the time would indicate that
Mark Twain's mother did not always approve of her son's literary
efforts. She hopes that he will do better, and some time write
something "that his kin will be proud of."]--The rough, vigorous
humor of these had attracted some attention, and Orion, pleased with
any measure of success that might come to his brother, had allowed
the authorship of them to become known. When, in July, the
financial situation became desperate, the Esmeralda miner was moved
to turn to literature for relief. But we will let him present the
situation himself.


To Orion Clemens, in Carson City:

ESMERALDA, July 23d, 1862.
MY DEAR BRO.,--No, I don't own a foot in the "Johnson" ledge--I will tell
the story some day in a more intelligible manner than Tom has told it.
You needn't take the trouble to deny Tom's version, though. I own 25
feet (1-16) of the 1st east ex. on it--and Johnson himself has contracted
to find the ledge for 100 feet. Contract signed yesterday. But as the
ledge will be difficult to find he is allowed six months to find it in.
An eighteenth of the Ophir was a fortune to John D. Winters--and the
Ophir can't beat the Johnson any.....

My debts are greater than I thought for; I bought $25 worth of clothing,
and sent $25 to Higbie, in the cement diggings. I owe about $45 or $50,
and have got about $45 in my pocket. But how in the h--l I am going to
live on something over $100 until October or November, is singular. The
fact is, I must have something to do, and that shortly, too.....

Now write to the Sacramento Union folks, or to Marsh, and tell them I'll
write as many letters a week as they want, for $10 a week--my board must
be paid. Tell them I have corresponded with the N. Orleans Crescent, and
other papers--and the Enterprise. California is full of people who have
interests here, and it's d---d seldom they hear from this country.
I can't write a specimen letter--now, at any rate--I'd rather undertake
to write a Greek poem. Tell 'em the mail and express leave three times a
week, and it costs from 25 to 50 cents to send letters by the blasted
express. If they want letters from here, who'll run from morning till
night collecting materials cheaper. I'll write a short letter twice a
week, for the present, for the "Age," for $5 per week. Now it has been a
long time since I couldn't make my own living, and it shall be a long
time before I loaf another year.....

If I get the other 25 feet in the Johnson ex., I shan't care a d---n.
I'll be willing to curse awhile and wait. And if I can't move the bowels
of those hills this fall, I will come up and clerk for you until I get
money enough to go over the mountains for the winter.
Yr. Bro.
SAM.


The Territorial Enterprise at Virginia City was at this time owned
by Joseph T. Goodman, who had bought it on the eve of the great
Comstock silver-mining boom, and from a struggling, starving sheet
had converted it into one of the most important--certainly the most
picturesque-papers on the coast. The sketches which the Esmeralda
miner had written over the name of "Josh" fitted into it exactly,
and when a young man named Barstow, in the business office, urged
Goodman to invite "Josh" to join their staff, the Enterprise owner
readily fell in with the idea. Among a lot of mining matters of no
special interest, Clemens, July 30th, wrote his brother: "Barstow
has offered me the post as local reporter for the Enterprise at $25
a week, and I have written him that I will let him know next mail,
if possible."

In Roughing It we are told that the miner eagerly accepted the
proposition to come to Virginia City, but the letters tell a
different story. Mark Twain was never one to abandon any
undertaking easily. His unwillingness to surrender in a lost cause
would cost him more than one fortune in the years to come. A week
following the date of the foregoing he was still undecided.


To Orion Clemens, in Carson City:

ESMERALDA, Aug. 7, 1862.
MY DEAR BRO,--Barstow wrote that if I wanted the place I could have it.
I wrote him that I guessed I would take it, and asked him how long before
I must come up there. I have not heard from him since.

Now, I shall leave at mid-night tonight, alone and on foot for a walk of
60 or 70 miles through a totally uninhabited country, and it is barely
possible that mail facilities may prove infernally "slow" during the few
weeks I expect to spend out there. But do you write Barstow that I have
left here for a week or so, and in case he should want me he must write
me here, or let me know through you.

The Contractors say they will strike the Fresno next week. After fooling
with those assayers a week, they concluded not to buy "Mr. Flower" at
$50, although they would have given five times the sum for it four months
ago. So I have made out a deed for one half of all Johnny's ground and
acknowledged and left in judge F. K. Becktel's hands, and if judge Turner
wants it he must write to Becktel and pay him his Notary fee of $1.50.
I would have paid that fee myself, but I want money now as I leave town
tonight. However, if you think it isn't right, you can pay the fee to
judge Turner yourself.

Hang to your money now. I may want some when I get back.....

See that you keep out of debt--to anybody. Bully for B.! Write him that
I would write him myself, but I am to take a walk tonight and haven't
time. Tell him to bring his family out with him. He can rely upon what
I say--and I say the land has lost its ancient desolate appearance; the
rose and the oleander have taken the place of the departed sage-bush; a
rich black loam, garnished with moss, and flowers, and the greenest of
grass, smiles to Heaven from the vanished sand-plains; the "endless
snows" have all disappeared, and in their stead, or to repay us for their
loss, the mountains rear their billowy heads aloft, crowned with a
fadeless and eternal verdure; birds, and fountains, and trees-tropical
bees--everywhere!--and the poet dreamt of Nevada when he wrote:

"and Sharon waves, in solemn praise,
Her silent groves of palm."

and today the royal Raven listens in a dreamy stupor to the songs of
the thrush and the nightingale and the canary--and shudders when the
gaudy-plumaged birds of the distant South sweep by him to the orange
groves of Carson. Tell him he wouldn't recognize the d--d country.
He should bring his family by all means.

I intended to write home, but I haven't done it.
Yr. Bro.
SAM.


In this letter we realize that he had gone into the wilderness to
reflect--to get a perspective on the situation. He was a great
walker in those days, and sometimes with Higbie, sometimes alone,
made long excursions. One such is recorded in Roughing It, the trip
to Mono Lake. We have no means of knowing where his seventy-mile
tour led him now, but it is clear that he still had not reached a
decision on his return. Indeed, we gather that he is inclined to
keep up the battle among the barren Esmeralda hills.


Last mining letter; written to Mrs. Moffett, in St. Louis:

ESMERALDA, CAL., Aug. 15, 1862.
MY DEAR SISTER,-I mailed a letter to you and Ma this morning, but since
then I have received yours to Orion and me. Therefore, I must answer
right away, else I may leave town without doing it at all. What in
thunder are pilot's wages to me? which question, I beg humbly to observe,
is of a general nature, and not discharged particularly at you. But it
is singular, isn't it, that such a matter should interest Orion, when it
is of no earthly consequence to me? I never have once thought of
returning home to go on the river again, and I never expect to do any
more piloting at any price. My livelihood must be made in this country
--and if I have to wait longer than I expected, let it be so--I have no
fear of failure. You know I have extravagant hopes, for Orion tells you
everything which he ought to keep to himself--but it's his nature to do
that sort of thing, and I let him alone. I did think for awhile of going
home this fall--but when I found that that was and had been the cherished
intention and the darling aspiration every year, of these old care-worn
Californians for twelve weary years--I felt a little uncomfortable, but
I stole a march on Disappointment and said I would not go home this fall.
I will spend the winter in San Francisco, if possible. Do not tell any
one that I had any idea of piloting again at present--for it is all a
mistake. This country suits me, and--it shall suit me, whether or no....

Dan Twing and I and Dan's dog, "cabin" together--and will continue to do
so for awhile--until I leave for--

The mansion is 10x12, with a "domestic" roof. Yesterday it rained--the
first shower for five months. "Domestic," it appears to me, is not
water-proof. We went outside to keep from getting wet. Dan makes the
bed when it is his turn to do it--and when it is my turn, I don't, you
know. The dog is not a good hunter, and he isn't worth shucks to watch
--but he scratches up the dirt floor of the cabin, and catches flies, and
makes himself generally useful in the way of washing dishes. Dan gets up
first in the morning and makes a fire--and I get up last and sit by it,
while he cooks breakfast. We have a cold lunch at noon, and I cook
supper--very much against my will. However, one must have one good meal
a day, and if I were to live on Dan's abominable cookery, I should lose
my appetite, you know. Dan attended Dr. Chorpenning's funeral yesterday,
and he felt as though he ought to wear a white shirt--and we had a jolly
good time finding such an article. We turned over all our traps, and he
found one at last--but I shall always think it was suffering from yellow
fever. He also found an old black coat, greasy, and wrinkled to that
degree that it appeared to have been quilted at some time or other. In
this gorgeous costume he attended the funeral. And when he returned, his
own dog drove him away from the cabin, not recognizing him. This is
true.

You would not like to live in a country where flour was $40 a barrel?
Very well; then, I suppose you would not like to live here, where flour
was $100 a barrel when I first came here. And shortly afterwards, it
couldn't be had at any price--and for one month the people lived on
barley, beans and beef--and nothing beside. Oh, no--we didn't luxuriate
then! Perhaps not. But we said wise and severe things about the vanity
and wickedness of high living. We preached our doctrine and practised
it. Which course I respectfully recommend to the clergymen of St. Louis.

Where is Beack Jolly?--[a pilot]--and Bixby?
Your Brother
SAM.




IV

LETTERS 1863-64. "MARK TWAIN." COMSTOCK JOURNALISM. ARTEMUS WARD

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.