August 18, 2025 • 36 mins
Delve into the intriguing life of Mark Twain through the eyes of Will Clemens, who, despite not being related to the famed author, became an acquaintance and penned what may be the first comprehensive biography of Twain. Published on July 1, 1892, as No. 1 in The Pacific Library, this 200-page work was available for just 25¢ and garnered enough attention to be republished in 1894 by a Chicago publisher. In this insightful sketch, Clemens draws heavily on previously published works by other authors, offering a unique perspective on Twains literary legacy. (summary by John Greenman)
Mark as Played
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
This is chapter three of Mark Twain, His Life and Work,
a biographical sketch. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain.
Mark Twain His Life and Work, A Biographical Sketch by
William M. Clemens, Chapter three in Nevada and California read
by John Greenman. Chapter three in Nevada and California. At
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the outbreak of the Civil War, Mark Twain was a
regularly employed pilot on the river steamboat Alonzo Childs. He
remained at the wheel until the craft was converted into
a Confederate ram. The opening of the war. Having put
an end to profitable piloting, young Clemens, at the age
of twenty four years, returned to Hannibal and enlisted as
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a three months volunteer in the Confederate Army under General Price.
In a magazine article printed some years since, he related
his experience as a soldier in a paper entitled the
Private History of a Campaign that Failed. The following is
his account of the organization of the company. I was
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visiting in the small town where my boyhood had been spent, Hannibal,
Marion County. Several of us got together in a secret
place by night and formed ourselves into a military company.
One Tom Lyman, a young fellow of a good deal
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of spirit but of no military experience, was made captain.
I was made second lieutenant. We had no first lieutenant.
I do not know why. It was long ago there
were fifteen of us. By the advice of an innocent
connected with the organization, we called ourselves the Marian Rangers.
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I do not remember that any one found fault with
a name. I did not. I thought it sounded quite well.
The young fellow who proposed this title was perhaps a
fair sample of the kind of stuff we were made of.
He was young, ignorant, good natured, well meaning, trivial, full
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of romance, and given to reading chivalric novels and singing
forlorn love ditties. He had some pathetic, little nickel plated
aristocratic instincts and tested his name, which was Dunlap. To
tested it, partly because it was nearly as common in
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that region as Smith, but mainly because it had a
Plebeian sound to his ear. So he tried to ennoble
it by writing it in this way d Unlap. That
contented his eye, but left his ear unsatisfied. For people
gave the new name the same old pronunciation, emphasis on
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the front end of it. He proved useful to us
in his way. He named our camps for us, and
he generally struck a name that was no slouch, as
the boys said. Having been a pilot and therefore knowing
the channel and being familiar with the points where steamboats
would have to hug the shore, Lieutenant Clemens was detailed
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to special duty on the river. He was captured and paroled.
Being captured a second time, he was sent to Saint
Louis and imprisoned in a tobacco warehouse. He got to
thinking the matter over the possibility of being sent to
Grant's army, by which he was first captured, to be exchanged,
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and by which, if recognized, he would certainly be shot
for a violation of his parole. He finally succeeded in
making his escape and started westward. President Lincoln had appointed
James W. Nye as governor of Nevada, and Orion Clemens,
an older brother of Samuel, was selected as territorial secretary
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by the President. Sam joined his brother at Carson City
in the capacity of private secretary, but fearing that the
influence of his brother would not be sufficient to save
him if he should be recognized by passing officers or
soldiers of the Union Army. He did not remain long
in Carson, but pushed on to an out of the
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way mining camp called Aurora, where he remained until he
fancied the storm had blown over. While in Aurora, he
wrote a series of letters to the Virginia City Enterprise,
which subsequently resulted in his obtaining an editorial position upon
that journal. Nevada at that time was swarming with adventurers.
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Bankrupt tradesmen were flocking there from other territories called ssh
Graduates tired of grubbing for Greek roots, went there to
grub for gold and silver. Murderers and thieves escaped from justice.
Gamblers and the outcasts from the cities joined the throng,
and society became very lively in the mining towns of
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the territory. The fashionable ornaments of the day consisted of
an eight inch revolver, an Arkansas toothpick, and jack boots.
In the mining regions, Mark Twain passed through diverse experiences.
He worked at day's wages in a courts mill, and
was explorer and prospector. Many of his sketches afterward incorporated
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in the Jumping Frog and Roughing. It were published at
that time in local or eastern journals. Once for the
space of a few moments, he owned the famous comstock
load and was worth millions. He found out all this
after he had sold the claim. During the winter of
eighteen sixty one sixty two, he returned to Carson City.
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For a time, there was little doing at the territorial capital,
and in the rear of Governor NY's private office was
a comfortable room where Clemens and the other attaches of
the offices whiled away the winter days at cards and storytelling.
In the spring of eighteen sixty two he accepted the
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local editorship of the Virginia City Enterprise, and upon that
paper utilized for the first time his pseudonym of Mark Twain.
He perpetrated many broad and practical jokes through his paper.
His sharp pen caused a man named Willis, then city
editor of the Virginia Union, to hunting up his record.
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This resulted in Clemens sending Willis a challenge to mortal combat.
Willis would not accept, for he said he would not
meet anyone on the field of honor except man of honor.
His best Man then challenged Clemens, but he too declined
on the same ground given by Willis. At that time,
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dueling had just been made popular by a meeting between
Tom Fitch, the silver Tungued Orator, and Joseph T. Goodman,
editor of the Enterprise. But the matter was dropped, and Mark,
Twain and Willis never met upon the field of honor.
About the year eighteen sixty three, says Robert Fulford, I
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was a printer on the Virginia City Enterprise, and Mark
was on the local staff. Mark and I roomed together
across the divide in a place known as Gold Hill,
about a mile from Virginia City. He was a droll,
dry sort of a fellow, delighted in practical jokes, and
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the boys had to be constantly on the alert for
fear of some new scheme he would spring upon them.
A club of goodfellows was organized in Virginia City by
Mark Twain, Dan de Quill, Frank May, Louis Aldrich, and
others under the name of the Visigoths, and they carried
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their practical jokes to such an extent that they gained
a somewhat unfavorable reputation. While in Virginia City. Some miners
came down from Calaveras and told Mark Twain about the
miners there loading a frog up with shot. And it
was a fact. In those days the men in the
camps would bet about anything, and one day they got
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to betting about how far some frogs could jump. They
conceived the idea of filling one of the rival frogs
with shot, and did it, and the frog couldn't jump.
Mark wrote out the story for the Enterprise, and in
this way the jumping frog of Calaveras first saw the
light of day. Many interesting anecdotes are told of the
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humorist's life in Virginia City, and he tells one himself
of how the funniest thing he ever wrote came to
an untimely end and was lost to the world through
the interference of an editorial compositor. In Nevada. At that time,
it was the custom of the proprietor of every new
saloon to send a basket of his choicest wines to
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the newspaper office, and for the editor to return the
compliment by giving a glowing account of the brilliancy of
the affair. A basket of unusually choice wine had been
sent to the office One day from a saloon of
a very aristocratic order that was to be opened, Mark
was to write up the opening. He wrote a few
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lines in the best of English, and then it began
to be badly mixed. And as he represented bottle after
bottle as having been sampled, approved, and emptied, he drifted
into worse and worse confusion, until finally the article was
all tangled up, as might be supposed of a man
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who had drank a basket of mixed wines. When the
paper came out, Mark could not find his cherished article,
but instead found a short paragraph setting forth in the
most commonplace way that a basket of wines had been
received from mister Blank, and that they were very fine,
et cetera. Mark was mad and found that one of
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the printers was responsible. The fellow said he could not
make head or tail of the copy, and thought mister
Clemmons must have been drunk when he wrote it, so
he tore it up and substituted the paragraph. The humorist
mourned long for the loss of the article, which he
could not reproduce, and to this day believes that it
was the most brilliant of any of his productions even
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before or since. During this period in his career, Mark
gave to the world many of these short, humorous sketches
that made him famous. He had already acquired a name
on the Pacific coast, and his newspaper articles were beginning
to attract attention east of the Rocky Mountains. Among these
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sketches were the Undertaker's Chat, the Petrified Man, and the
Marvelous Bloody Massacre. Some of the quaintest and brightest things
which have appeared under his name originally enlivened the pages
of The Enterprise with its Crimson catalog of murders, duels,
and Judge Lynch executions. In eighteen sixty three, the Gould
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and Curry mine on the Comstock paid dividends amounting to
one hundred dollars to one hundred fifty dollars a share.
Whenever a dividend was declared, the San Francisco Bulletin, after
announcing the fact, would add, wonder if this dividend was cooked?
A certain San Francisco capitalist, being in Virginia City one
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day after one of these monthly queries, told the cause
of them. It is a fact that one mining company
had hired money and declared a dividend. This was the
Dana mine, which never had a foot of war. But
the dividends raised the price of the stock to a
respectable figure, at which the owners thereof disposed of their stock.
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This San Francisco capitalist stated that this swindle had caught
the proprietors of that journal somewhat heavily. But he added,
if the bulletin wants to find a company nearer home
which is borrowing money to pay dividends, I can give
you an instance in point, the Spring Valley Water Company
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has hired money to pay its two last dividends, and
all the big fish are getting out and letting the
little fish in. Perhaps that might attract that journal's indignation. Also,
Twain and another writer employed on the enterprise counciled together
on the improbability of a plain notice of the fact
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of the Spring Valley Water companies hiring money to pay dividends,
made as it must be in a country journal, would
attract any notice whatever in the metropolitan press. Accordingly, in
order to overcome the difficulty surrounding the country location, the
matter was held under advisement for one day, much to
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the disgust of the San Francisco capitalist. On the second day,
Mark announced that he had surmounted the country difficulty, and
sure enough he had. Accordingly. In the local columns of
the Enterprise the next morning appeared an account of a
terrible tragedy that had been committed in the Great Pine
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Forest between Empire City and dutch Nix the day before.
The story went on to state that a man named Hopkins,
who resided there and who had owned millions in the comstock,
had been induced to sell out his entire mining interests
by a relative of his, who was one of the
editors of the bulletin, by the same advice. He had
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invested every dollar in the Spring Valley Water Company, and
on learning that its two last dividends had been paid
with borrowed money, he became so violently insane that he
murdered his wife and thirteen children, under the impression that
they would come to immediate want. The next day, Mark
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published a card in which he took it all back,
except the way the money had been procured to pay
the dividends, and adding that it took a fearful tragedy
to get any truth into a San Francisco newspaper. Anyhow, J. H. Stebbens,
an old time printer, relates the following incident of Twain's
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life in Virginia City. Clemens was local on the enterprise,
and I was a printer on the same paper. Clemens
was writing humorous sketches, but his fame as a humorist
was young. Yet he was an inveterate smoker and smoked
the foulst smelling pipe in Virginia City. By any odds.
Clemens's office was just off the composing room, and although
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printers as a rule are not squeamish about pipes and things,
this pipe was breeding a revolution. It smelled so infernally
bad that we always spoke of it as the remains.
There were numerous plots suggested to get the remains out
of the way, but we hesitated about putting them into execution.
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When we learned that it was a pipe of considerable
value and one that he cherished on account of its
association or something. It was clear, however, that something had
to be done, and we finally concluded to present Clemens
with a new pipe. We had suffered so much from
the old pipe of a thousand smells that we felt
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justified in making him the victim of a joke if
we could, And so we scoured the town and bought
the cheapest pipe we could find that would pass after
night for a good one. I think it cost thirty cents.
One night, after we had the paper up, we all
filed solemnly out into the local room and presented Clemmens
with the pipe. We threw as much ceremony into the
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presentation as possible. One of the boys made an address
that was really affecting. He talked about the toilers in
the profession of journalism, their long nights of labor, when
all the rest of the world was wrapped in peaceful slumber.
Then he worked in some of the poetry about tobacco
and the solace it afforded the tired brain. He spoke
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of the warm friendship that existed between the local department
and the composing room, and hoped nothing would ever occur
to sever their silken ties. And he handed him the
twenty five cent Fraud wiped his fingers through his eyes
and sat down. Clemens was knocked completely out for a time,
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but he pulled himself together and returned his thanks in
a very feeling manner. He said, the pretty gift from
his co workers on the paper touched him deeply, and
he would retain it long as a souvenir of pleasant days.
The old pipe had long been a friend and companion.
It had been a comforter in lonely hours. But this
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handsome gift from friends he loved made the parting easy,
and as a climax to his remarks, he threw the
ill smelling old timer out of the window. We accepted
his invitation to go downstairs with him, and, knowing the
miserable swindle we had perpetrated every dollar he spent, gave
us a pang. The very next night, while Clemens was
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smoking his new pipe, the bowl of the cussed thing
split open from stem to stern. We heard him growling
to himself and looking out of a hole in the
wall through which he shoved copy. We saw him brushing
the ashes off his desk and clothes, and swearing softly
in a very picturesque manner. He didn't say a word
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to us about the pipe or its fate, and you
bet we said nothing to him. It was evident, however,
that he had done some thinking, for he appeared at
the office next night, complacently smoking the remains he had
gone down into the back yard and hunted it up.
From Virginia City, Mark Twain drifted, as a matter of course,
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to San Francisco, the harbor of all adventurers on the coast.
He was in a chronic state of impecuniosity when he
arrived at the Golden Gate. He had furnished some correspondence
to the Morning Call from Nevada and to the office
of that newspaper. He immediately betook himself. He wanted work
and money. He wore a ragged felt hat, a soldier's
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blue overcoat, and pantaloons which had formed a passing acquaintance
with the tops of his boots. George Barnes, who was
at that time editor of The Call, told him to
go to work the next day and gave him an
order on the business office for money enough to make
himself look respectable. The next day Twain took possession of
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his chair, and for six weary months Barnes tried to
get some work out of him. At the end of
that time, in his good natured way, he tried to
let Mark down and out easily and politely by saying
to him, Mark, don't you think you are wasting your time?
And talents and doing local work. What do you mean,
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said Mark, Why, I think with your style and talent
you could make more money writing for first class magazines
than in such work as you are doing. Now. That
means that you don't want me any more, I suppose,
And he put his feet on the desk and smiled
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blandly at Barnes. Well, I think you are better fitted
for that class of work. The fact is you have
come to the conclusion that I am not the kind
of man you want. Well, if you will have it,
said Barnes, you are not. You are the laziest, most shiftless,
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good for nothing specimen I ever saw around a newspaper office.
I have tried for six months to get some work
out of you and failed, and I have come to
the conclusion that it is useless to keep you any longer.
Barnes replied Twain in his most placid manner. You are
not as smart a man as I thought you were.
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You have been six months in finding that out, and
I knew the day I came to work. Give us
an order on the office for three days pay, and
I get one of the printers employed upon the call
at the time furnishes the following reminiscence. One evening, Clemens
came into our room where we were shining our boots.
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What's up, boys, he asked. We're going to the theater,
but it's not seven yet. You've plenty of time, said Clemens,
sitting down on the corner of the bed, I want
to tell you a good story, and he proceeded to
entertain us with an account of his latest practical joke.
This reminded him of a personal experience on a steamboat,
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which in turn led to a graphic description of his
life on the Mississippi. He talked on without pause, holding
our closest interest by his artful blending of humor, pathos,
vivid description, and thrilling incident, until it breaking off. Suddenly,
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he said with a laugh, Well, boys, if you're going
to the theater, it's time you were off. We drew
our watches. It was eleven o'clock. His love for practical joking,
while living in California, called forth the following from a
San Francisco paper some years ago. There have been moments
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in the lives of various, kind hearted and respectable citizens
of California and Nevada when if Mark Twain were before
them as members of a vigilance committee for any mild
crime such as mule stealing or arson. It is to
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be feared his shrift would have been short. What a
dramatic picture the idea conjures up, to be sure, Mark
before those honest men, infuriated by his practical jokes, trying
to show them what an innocent creature he was when
it came to mules, or how the only policy of
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fire insurance he held had lapsed, how void of guile
he was in any direction, and all with that inimitable
drawl that perplexed countenance, and the peculiar scraping back of
the left foot like a boy speaking his first piece
at school. It is but fair to say that the
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fund that Mark mixed up for citizens in those days
was not altogether appreciated in the midst of it. For
some one touched too sharply serge a bat a marie
a liquid, and Mark had another denouncer joined to the
wounded throng. I think I may justly claim to having
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kept Mark Twain in the realms of literature, said General
John MacComb to the writer not long ago. In eighteen
sixty four, Mark Twain was City editor of the Morning Call.
In those days, the city editor of a San Francisco
newspaper had something else to do then sit at his desk,
make out details and read copy. Mark used generally to
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look out for the late police news, would report a
lecture or anything that came to hand. I think the
local staff then considered of himself and one reporter. Things
did not go exactly to Mark's liking. He detested police
reporting and would not go to the city hall any
oftener than he was obliged to. He was out of
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his sphere, he thought, and as a consequence, used to
be dissatisfied with the world in general and newspaper work
in particular. One morning I met him at the corner
of Clay and Montgomery Streets. We stopped, shook hands, and
he said, Mac, I've done my last newspaper work. I
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am going back east. What do you mean, I asked, Well,
he replied, I've been trying to get out of this
work a long while. Some time since I made application
through some friends at Washington for an appointment as government
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pilot on the Mississippi River. I have just received notification
that my application was successful. The salary is three hundred
dollars per month, and it is not hard work. I
was a great deal surprised and disappointed. Clemens and I
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had become warm friends, and I had conceived a high
regard for his literary ability. Although I could see he
was more or less hampered by his surroundings. I determined
to do what I could to cause him to reconsider
his determination. With this object in view, I said to him, Sam,
you are making the mistake of your life. There is
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a better place for you than a Mississippi steamboat. You
have a style of writing that is fresh and original
and is bound to be popular. If you don't like
the treadmill work of a newspaper man, strike up higher,
write sketches, write a book. You'll find a market for
your stuff, and in time you'll be appreciated and get
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more money than you can standing alongside the wheel of
a steamboat. There's nothing in this pilot business either. You
say you were to get three hundred dollars a month,
that's in green backs. You remember, now, three hundred dollars
in green backs won't go a great way, as you know.
Then again, the war will be over in a little while,
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and where'll you be? You will be thrown out of
government employ and you'll have to fight for work with
a lot of older and more experienced men. Can you succeed?
What will happen? He'll be a river pilot all the
rest of your days. And you know what that is. No, Sam,
don't you drop your pen. Now, stick to it, and
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it will make your fortune. He listened very attentively to
what I had to say, and I saw that I
had made an impression. He said he would think it over,
shook my hand, and passed on down Clay Street. The
next day he came into my office and the first
thing he said was, now, Mac, I've taken your advice.
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I thought it all over last night, and finally I
wrote to Washington declining the appointment, and so I'll stick
to the newspaper work a while longer. On one occasion,
Clemens was standing at the corner of Clay in Montgomery Streets,
leaning against a lamp post and holding a cigar box
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under his arm. Missus Captain Edward Poole, a very beautiful
woman and as bright witty as beautiful, came along and
stopped and held out her hand, saying, why Mark, where
are you going in such a hurry? I'm moooving, drawled Mark,
at the same time opening the cigar box, disclosing a
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pair of blue socks, a pipe, and two paper collars.
He never cared for the ladies, was in fact a
fish out of water when he happened to be near them.
While employed on the daily Alta, he called at a
dressmaker's establishment and for ten minutes addressed a wax figure
of a lady before discovering his mistake. In the spring
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of eighteen sixty five, he became interested with Brett Hart
in the conduct of The Californian. While sub editor of
that magazine, he produced many sketches of merit, which were
widely copied in the Eastern press. In a series of
articles entitled Answers to Correspondents contributed to The Californian, appeared
the following and Wheeler Sonora. The following simple and touching
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remarks and accompanying poem have just come to hand from
the rich gold mining region of Sonora to mister Mark Twain.
The within parson which I have sought to poetry under
the name and style of he done his level best
was one among the whitest men I ever see, And
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it ain't every man that note him, that can find
it in his heart to say he's glad the poor
cuss is busted and gone home to the States. He
was here in an early day, and he was the
handiest man about taking hold of anything that come along
you most ever see, I judge he was a cheerful,
stirn critter, and ally was doing something. And no man
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can say he ever see him do anything by Havers.
Preaching was his natural gait. But he warn't man to
lay back and twiddle his thumb because there didn't happen
to be nothing doing in his own a special line, no, sir.
He was a man who would meander forth and stir
up something for hisself. His last axe was to go
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to his pile of King's end, talking it to phil
but which he didn't fill when there was a flush
out again him and naturally, you see, he went under,
and so he was cleaned out, as you may say,
and he struck the home trail cheerful but flat broke.
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I know this talent man in Arkansas, and if you
would print this humbly tribute to his gorgeous abilities, you
would greatly oblige his on happy friend. He done his
level best. Was he mining on the flat, He'd done
it with a zest. Was he a leading of the choir,
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He'd done his level best. If he'd a regular task
to do, he never took no rest or. If twas
off and on the same, he'd done his level best.
If he was preachin on his beat, he'd tramp from
east to west and north to south in cold and heat,
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he'd done his level best. He'd yank a sinner out
in hades and land him with the blest, then snatch
a prayer and waltz in again and do his level best.
He'd cos and sing and howl and pray and dance
and drink and jest and lie and steal all one
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to him. He'd done his level best. Whatever this man
was sought to do, he'd done it with his zest.
No matter what his contract was, he'd do his level best.
October eighteen sixty five. Verily, this man was gifted with
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gorgeous abilities, and it is a happiness to me to
embalm the memory of their luster in these columns. If
it were not that the poet crop is unusually large
and rank in California this year, I would encourage you
to continue writing, Simon, But as it is, perhaps it
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might be too risky in you to enter against so
much opposition. The nomadic taint ran ride in the blood
of both Mark Twain and Brett Hart, and they one
day deserted the Californian and started inland for another delusive
experiment in mining for gold. On returning to San Francisco,
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Clemens found his health failing and made arrangements to go
to the Sandwich Islands as a newspaper correspondent. Before his departure,
he held his first interview with Artemis Ward, the published
report of which was widely quoted. He sailed in eighteen
sixty six for Honolulu. There was a wedding on board
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the vessel, and Mark gave away the bride. The groom
was greatly vexed over the absence of a wedding ring.
When Mark reached up and pulled off one of the
huge curtain rings large enough to go around the girl's
two arms. He held an imposition on her finger at
the proper time, and as she was a remarkably pretty girl,
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he took good care to exercise his privilege of kissing
her at the close. Arriving in Honolulu, he proceeded to
write up the sugar plantations and descriptions of life and
character on the islands. His letters were very readable. They
were mostly published in the Sacramento Union. He wrote, among
other things, a most thrilling description of a burning crater
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some miles round, full of white and red heated crystal fire, caverns,
and crimson lava. There is a touch of wondrous beauty
in his picture of the Sandwich Islands, written some years after.
No alien land in all the world has any deep,
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strong charm for me, but that one, no other land
could so longingly and so beseechingly haunt me, sleeping and
waking through half a lifetime as that one has done.
Other things leave me, but it abides. Other things change,
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but it remains the same for me. Its balmy airs
are always blowing, its summer seas flashing in the sun.
The pulsing of its surf beat is in my ear.
I can see its garlanded crags, its leaping cascades, It's
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plumy po drowsing by its shore, its remote summits floating
like islands above the cloud rack. I can feel the
spirit of its woodland solitudes. I can hear the plash
of its brooks. In my nostrils still lives the breath
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of flowers that perished twenty years ago. And these world
wanderers who sit before us here have lately looked upon
these things, and with eyes of flesh, not the unsatisfying
vision of the spirit, I envy them that the climate
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of Hawaii soon restored him to perfect health, and after
an absence of two months, he returned to San Francisco
with renewed spirits and with his world wide fame still
before him. End of chapter three read by John Greenman
This is chapter three of Mark Twain, His Life and Work,
a biographical sketch. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain.
Mark Twain His Life and Work, A Biographical Sketch by
William M. Clemens, Chapter three in Nevada and California read
by John Greenman. Chapter three in Nevada and California. At
(00:25):
the outbreak of the Civil War, Mark Twain was a
regularly employed pilot on the river steamboat Alonzo Childs. He
remained at the wheel until the craft was converted into
a Confederate ram. The opening of the war. Having put
an end to profitable piloting, young Clemens, at the age
of twenty four years, returned to Hannibal and enlisted as
(00:48):
a three months volunteer in the Confederate Army under General Price.
In a magazine article printed some years since, he related
his experience as a soldier in a paper entitled the
Private History of a Campaign that Failed. The following is
his account of the organization of the company. I was
(01:10):
visiting in the small town where my boyhood had been spent, Hannibal,
Marion County. Several of us got together in a secret
place by night and formed ourselves into a military company.
One Tom Lyman, a young fellow of a good deal
(01:30):
of spirit but of no military experience, was made captain.
I was made second lieutenant. We had no first lieutenant.
I do not know why. It was long ago there
were fifteen of us. By the advice of an innocent
connected with the organization, we called ourselves the Marian Rangers.
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I do not remember that any one found fault with
a name. I did not. I thought it sounded quite well.
The young fellow who proposed this title was perhaps a
fair sample of the kind of stuff we were made of.
He was young, ignorant, good natured, well meaning, trivial, full
(02:17):
of romance, and given to reading chivalric novels and singing
forlorn love ditties. He had some pathetic, little nickel plated
aristocratic instincts and tested his name, which was Dunlap. To
tested it, partly because it was nearly as common in
(02:39):
that region as Smith, but mainly because it had a
Plebeian sound to his ear. So he tried to ennoble
it by writing it in this way d Unlap. That
contented his eye, but left his ear unsatisfied. For people
gave the new name the same old pronunciation, emphasis on
(03:03):
the front end of it. He proved useful to us
in his way. He named our camps for us, and
he generally struck a name that was no slouch, as
the boys said. Having been a pilot and therefore knowing
the channel and being familiar with the points where steamboats
would have to hug the shore, Lieutenant Clemens was detailed
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to special duty on the river. He was captured and paroled.
Being captured a second time, he was sent to Saint
Louis and imprisoned in a tobacco warehouse. He got to
thinking the matter over the possibility of being sent to
Grant's army, by which he was first captured, to be exchanged,
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and by which, if recognized, he would certainly be shot
for a violation of his parole. He finally succeeded in
making his escape and started westward. President Lincoln had appointed
James W. Nye as governor of Nevada, and Orion Clemens,
an older brother of Samuel, was selected as territorial secretary
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by the President. Sam joined his brother at Carson City
in the capacity of private secretary, but fearing that the
influence of his brother would not be sufficient to save
him if he should be recognized by passing officers or
soldiers of the Union Army. He did not remain long
in Carson, but pushed on to an out of the
(04:34):
way mining camp called Aurora, where he remained until he
fancied the storm had blown over. While in Aurora, he
wrote a series of letters to the Virginia City Enterprise,
which subsequently resulted in his obtaining an editorial position upon
that journal. Nevada at that time was swarming with adventurers.
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Bankrupt tradesmen were flocking there from other territories called ssh
Graduates tired of grubbing for Greek roots, went there to
grub for gold and silver. Murderers and thieves escaped from justice.
Gamblers and the outcasts from the cities joined the throng,
and society became very lively in the mining towns of
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the territory. The fashionable ornaments of the day consisted of
an eight inch revolver, an Arkansas toothpick, and jack boots.
In the mining regions, Mark Twain passed through diverse experiences.
He worked at day's wages in a courts mill, and
was explorer and prospector. Many of his sketches afterward incorporated
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in the Jumping Frog and Roughing. It were published at
that time in local or eastern journals. Once for the
space of a few moments, he owned the famous comstock
load and was worth millions. He found out all this
after he had sold the claim. During the winter of
eighteen sixty one sixty two, he returned to Carson City.
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For a time, there was little doing at the territorial capital,
and in the rear of Governor NY's private office was
a comfortable room where Clemens and the other attaches of
the offices whiled away the winter days at cards and storytelling.
In the spring of eighteen sixty two he accepted the
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local editorship of the Virginia City Enterprise, and upon that
paper utilized for the first time his pseudonym of Mark Twain.
He perpetrated many broad and practical jokes through his paper.
His sharp pen caused a man named Willis, then city
editor of the Virginia Union, to hunting up his record.
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This resulted in Clemens sending Willis a challenge to mortal combat.
Willis would not accept, for he said he would not
meet anyone on the field of honor except man of honor.
His best Man then challenged Clemens, but he too declined
on the same ground given by Willis. At that time,
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dueling had just been made popular by a meeting between
Tom Fitch, the silver Tungued Orator, and Joseph T. Goodman,
editor of the Enterprise. But the matter was dropped, and Mark,
Twain and Willis never met upon the field of honor.
About the year eighteen sixty three, says Robert Fulford, I
(07:31):
was a printer on the Virginia City Enterprise, and Mark
was on the local staff. Mark and I roomed together
across the divide in a place known as Gold Hill,
about a mile from Virginia City. He was a droll,
dry sort of a fellow, delighted in practical jokes, and
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the boys had to be constantly on the alert for
fear of some new scheme he would spring upon them.
A club of goodfellows was organized in Virginia City by
Mark Twain, Dan de Quill, Frank May, Louis Aldrich, and
others under the name of the Visigoths, and they carried
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their practical jokes to such an extent that they gained
a somewhat unfavorable reputation. While in Virginia City. Some miners
came down from Calaveras and told Mark Twain about the
miners there loading a frog up with shot. And it
was a fact. In those days the men in the
camps would bet about anything, and one day they got
(08:36):
to betting about how far some frogs could jump. They
conceived the idea of filling one of the rival frogs
with shot, and did it, and the frog couldn't jump.
Mark wrote out the story for the Enterprise, and in
this way the jumping frog of Calaveras first saw the
light of day. Many interesting anecdotes are told of the
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humorist's life in Virginia City, and he tells one himself
of how the funniest thing he ever wrote came to
an untimely end and was lost to the world through
the interference of an editorial compositor. In Nevada. At that time,
it was the custom of the proprietor of every new
saloon to send a basket of his choicest wines to
(09:23):
the newspaper office, and for the editor to return the
compliment by giving a glowing account of the brilliancy of
the affair. A basket of unusually choice wine had been
sent to the office One day from a saloon of
a very aristocratic order that was to be opened, Mark
was to write up the opening. He wrote a few
(09:45):
lines in the best of English, and then it began
to be badly mixed. And as he represented bottle after
bottle as having been sampled, approved, and emptied, he drifted
into worse and worse confusion, until finally the article was
all tangled up, as might be supposed of a man
(10:06):
who had drank a basket of mixed wines. When the
paper came out, Mark could not find his cherished article,
but instead found a short paragraph setting forth in the
most commonplace way that a basket of wines had been
received from mister Blank, and that they were very fine,
et cetera. Mark was mad and found that one of
(10:30):
the printers was responsible. The fellow said he could not
make head or tail of the copy, and thought mister
Clemmons must have been drunk when he wrote it, so
he tore it up and substituted the paragraph. The humorist
mourned long for the loss of the article, which he
could not reproduce, and to this day believes that it
was the most brilliant of any of his productions even
(10:54):
before or since. During this period in his career, Mark
gave to the world many of these short, humorous sketches
that made him famous. He had already acquired a name
on the Pacific coast, and his newspaper articles were beginning
to attract attention east of the Rocky Mountains. Among these
(11:15):
sketches were the Undertaker's Chat, the Petrified Man, and the
Marvelous Bloody Massacre. Some of the quaintest and brightest things
which have appeared under his name originally enlivened the pages
of The Enterprise with its Crimson catalog of murders, duels,
and Judge Lynch executions. In eighteen sixty three, the Gould
(11:40):
and Curry mine on the Comstock paid dividends amounting to
one hundred dollars to one hundred fifty dollars a share.
Whenever a dividend was declared, the San Francisco Bulletin, after
announcing the fact, would add, wonder if this dividend was cooked?
A certain San Francisco capitalist, being in Virginia City one
(12:01):
day after one of these monthly queries, told the cause
of them. It is a fact that one mining company
had hired money and declared a dividend. This was the
Dana mine, which never had a foot of war. But
the dividends raised the price of the stock to a
respectable figure, at which the owners thereof disposed of their stock.
(12:25):
This San Francisco capitalist stated that this swindle had caught
the proprietors of that journal somewhat heavily. But he added,
if the bulletin wants to find a company nearer home
which is borrowing money to pay dividends, I can give
you an instance in point, the Spring Valley Water Company
(12:47):
has hired money to pay its two last dividends, and
all the big fish are getting out and letting the
little fish in. Perhaps that might attract that journal's indignation. Also,
Twain and another writer employed on the enterprise counciled together
on the improbability of a plain notice of the fact
(13:08):
of the Spring Valley Water companies hiring money to pay dividends,
made as it must be in a country journal, would
attract any notice whatever in the metropolitan press. Accordingly, in
order to overcome the difficulty surrounding the country location, the
matter was held under advisement for one day, much to
(13:30):
the disgust of the San Francisco capitalist. On the second day,
Mark announced that he had surmounted the country difficulty, and
sure enough he had. Accordingly. In the local columns of
the Enterprise the next morning appeared an account of a
terrible tragedy that had been committed in the Great Pine
(13:51):
Forest between Empire City and dutch Nix the day before.
The story went on to state that a man named Hopkins,
who resided there and who had owned millions in the comstock,
had been induced to sell out his entire mining interests
by a relative of his, who was one of the
editors of the bulletin, by the same advice. He had
(14:13):
invested every dollar in the Spring Valley Water Company, and
on learning that its two last dividends had been paid
with borrowed money, he became so violently insane that he
murdered his wife and thirteen children, under the impression that
they would come to immediate want. The next day, Mark
(14:33):
published a card in which he took it all back,
except the way the money had been procured to pay
the dividends, and adding that it took a fearful tragedy
to get any truth into a San Francisco newspaper. Anyhow, J. H. Stebbens,
an old time printer, relates the following incident of Twain's
(14:56):
life in Virginia City. Clemens was local on the enterprise,
and I was a printer on the same paper. Clemens
was writing humorous sketches, but his fame as a humorist
was young. Yet he was an inveterate smoker and smoked
the foulst smelling pipe in Virginia City. By any odds.
Clemens's office was just off the composing room, and although
(15:19):
printers as a rule are not squeamish about pipes and things,
this pipe was breeding a revolution. It smelled so infernally
bad that we always spoke of it as the remains.
There were numerous plots suggested to get the remains out
of the way, but we hesitated about putting them into execution.
(15:40):
When we learned that it was a pipe of considerable
value and one that he cherished on account of its
association or something. It was clear, however, that something had
to be done, and we finally concluded to present Clemens
with a new pipe. We had suffered so much from
the old pipe of a thousand smells that we felt
(16:01):
justified in making him the victim of a joke if
we could, And so we scoured the town and bought
the cheapest pipe we could find that would pass after
night for a good one. I think it cost thirty cents.
One night, after we had the paper up, we all
filed solemnly out into the local room and presented Clemmens
with the pipe. We threw as much ceremony into the
(16:24):
presentation as possible. One of the boys made an address
that was really affecting. He talked about the toilers in
the profession of journalism, their long nights of labor, when
all the rest of the world was wrapped in peaceful slumber.
Then he worked in some of the poetry about tobacco
and the solace it afforded the tired brain. He spoke
(16:48):
of the warm friendship that existed between the local department
and the composing room, and hoped nothing would ever occur
to sever their silken ties. And he handed him the
twenty five cent Fraud wiped his fingers through his eyes
and sat down. Clemens was knocked completely out for a time,
(17:11):
but he pulled himself together and returned his thanks in
a very feeling manner. He said, the pretty gift from
his co workers on the paper touched him deeply, and
he would retain it long as a souvenir of pleasant days.
The old pipe had long been a friend and companion.
It had been a comforter in lonely hours. But this
(17:33):
handsome gift from friends he loved made the parting easy,
and as a climax to his remarks, he threw the
ill smelling old timer out of the window. We accepted
his invitation to go downstairs with him, and, knowing the
miserable swindle we had perpetrated every dollar he spent, gave
us a pang. The very next night, while Clemens was
(17:57):
smoking his new pipe, the bowl of the cussed thing
split open from stem to stern. We heard him growling
to himself and looking out of a hole in the
wall through which he shoved copy. We saw him brushing
the ashes off his desk and clothes, and swearing softly
in a very picturesque manner. He didn't say a word
(18:18):
to us about the pipe or its fate, and you
bet we said nothing to him. It was evident, however,
that he had done some thinking, for he appeared at
the office next night, complacently smoking the remains he had
gone down into the back yard and hunted it up.
From Virginia City, Mark Twain drifted, as a matter of course,
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to San Francisco, the harbor of all adventurers on the coast.
He was in a chronic state of impecuniosity when he
arrived at the Golden Gate. He had furnished some correspondence
to the Morning Call from Nevada and to the office
of that newspaper. He immediately betook himself. He wanted work
and money. He wore a ragged felt hat, a soldier's
(19:02):
blue overcoat, and pantaloons which had formed a passing acquaintance
with the tops of his boots. George Barnes, who was
at that time editor of The Call, told him to
go to work the next day and gave him an
order on the business office for money enough to make
himself look respectable. The next day Twain took possession of
(19:23):
his chair, and for six weary months Barnes tried to
get some work out of him. At the end of
that time, in his good natured way, he tried to
let Mark down and out easily and politely by saying
to him, Mark, don't you think you are wasting your time?
And talents and doing local work. What do you mean,
(19:48):
said Mark, Why, I think with your style and talent
you could make more money writing for first class magazines
than in such work as you are doing. Now. That
means that you don't want me any more, I suppose,
And he put his feet on the desk and smiled
(20:08):
blandly at Barnes. Well, I think you are better fitted
for that class of work. The fact is you have
come to the conclusion that I am not the kind
of man you want. Well, if you will have it,
said Barnes, you are not. You are the laziest, most shiftless,
(20:33):
good for nothing specimen I ever saw around a newspaper office.
I have tried for six months to get some work
out of you and failed, and I have come to
the conclusion that it is useless to keep you any longer.
Barnes replied Twain in his most placid manner. You are
not as smart a man as I thought you were.
(20:56):
You have been six months in finding that out, and
I knew the day I came to work. Give us
an order on the office for three days pay, and
I get one of the printers employed upon the call
at the time furnishes the following reminiscence. One evening, Clemens
came into our room where we were shining our boots.
(21:19):
What's up, boys, he asked. We're going to the theater,
but it's not seven yet. You've plenty of time, said Clemens,
sitting down on the corner of the bed, I want
to tell you a good story, and he proceeded to
entertain us with an account of his latest practical joke.
This reminded him of a personal experience on a steamboat,
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which in turn led to a graphic description of his
life on the Mississippi. He talked on without pause, holding
our closest interest by his artful blending of humor, pathos,
vivid description, and thrilling incident, until it breaking off. Suddenly,
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he said with a laugh, Well, boys, if you're going
to the theater, it's time you were off. We drew
our watches. It was eleven o'clock. His love for practical joking,
while living in California, called forth the following from a
San Francisco paper some years ago. There have been moments
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in the lives of various, kind hearted and respectable citizens
of California and Nevada when if Mark Twain were before
them as members of a vigilance committee for any mild
crime such as mule stealing or arson. It is to
(22:45):
be feared his shrift would have been short. What a
dramatic picture the idea conjures up, to be sure, Mark
before those honest men, infuriated by his practical jokes, trying
to show them what an innocent creature he was when
it came to mules, or how the only policy of
(23:07):
fire insurance he held had lapsed, how void of guile
he was in any direction, and all with that inimitable
drawl that perplexed countenance, and the peculiar scraping back of
the left foot like a boy speaking his first piece
at school. It is but fair to say that the
(23:30):
fund that Mark mixed up for citizens in those days
was not altogether appreciated in the midst of it. For
some one touched too sharply serge a bat a marie
a liquid, and Mark had another denouncer joined to the
wounded throng. I think I may justly claim to having
(23:52):
kept Mark Twain in the realms of literature, said General
John MacComb to the writer not long ago. In eighteen
sixty four, Mark Twain was City editor of the Morning Call.
In those days, the city editor of a San Francisco
newspaper had something else to do then sit at his desk,
make out details and read copy. Mark used generally to
(24:17):
look out for the late police news, would report a
lecture or anything that came to hand. I think the
local staff then considered of himself and one reporter. Things
did not go exactly to Mark's liking. He detested police
reporting and would not go to the city hall any
oftener than he was obliged to. He was out of
(24:39):
his sphere, he thought, and as a consequence, used to
be dissatisfied with the world in general and newspaper work
in particular. One morning I met him at the corner
of Clay and Montgomery Streets. We stopped, shook hands, and
he said, Mac, I've done my last newspaper work. I
(25:00):
am going back east. What do you mean, I asked, Well,
he replied, I've been trying to get out of this
work a long while. Some time since I made application
through some friends at Washington for an appointment as government
(25:21):
pilot on the Mississippi River. I have just received notification
that my application was successful. The salary is three hundred
dollars per month, and it is not hard work. I
was a great deal surprised and disappointed. Clemens and I
(25:45):
had become warm friends, and I had conceived a high
regard for his literary ability. Although I could see he
was more or less hampered by his surroundings. I determined
to do what I could to cause him to reconsider
his determination. With this object in view, I said to him, Sam,
you are making the mistake of your life. There is
(26:06):
a better place for you than a Mississippi steamboat. You
have a style of writing that is fresh and original
and is bound to be popular. If you don't like
the treadmill work of a newspaper man, strike up higher,
write sketches, write a book. You'll find a market for
your stuff, and in time you'll be appreciated and get
(26:29):
more money than you can standing alongside the wheel of
a steamboat. There's nothing in this pilot business either. You
say you were to get three hundred dollars a month,
that's in green backs. You remember, now, three hundred dollars
in green backs won't go a great way, as you know.
Then again, the war will be over in a little while,
(26:50):
and where'll you be? You will be thrown out of
government employ and you'll have to fight for work with
a lot of older and more experienced men. Can you succeed?
What will happen? He'll be a river pilot all the
rest of your days. And you know what that is. No, Sam,
don't you drop your pen. Now, stick to it, and
(27:11):
it will make your fortune. He listened very attentively to
what I had to say, and I saw that I
had made an impression. He said he would think it over,
shook my hand, and passed on down Clay Street. The
next day he came into my office and the first
thing he said was, now, Mac, I've taken your advice.
(27:32):
I thought it all over last night, and finally I
wrote to Washington declining the appointment, and so I'll stick
to the newspaper work a while longer. On one occasion,
Clemens was standing at the corner of Clay in Montgomery Streets,
leaning against a lamp post and holding a cigar box
(27:54):
under his arm. Missus Captain Edward Poole, a very beautiful
woman and as bright witty as beautiful, came along and
stopped and held out her hand, saying, why Mark, where
are you going in such a hurry? I'm moooving, drawled Mark,
at the same time opening the cigar box, disclosing a
(28:16):
pair of blue socks, a pipe, and two paper collars.
He never cared for the ladies, was in fact a
fish out of water when he happened to be near them.
While employed on the daily Alta, he called at a
dressmaker's establishment and for ten minutes addressed a wax figure
of a lady before discovering his mistake. In the spring
(28:38):
of eighteen sixty five, he became interested with Brett Hart
in the conduct of The Californian. While sub editor of
that magazine, he produced many sketches of merit, which were
widely copied in the Eastern press. In a series of
articles entitled Answers to Correspondents contributed to The Californian, appeared
the following and Wheeler Sonora. The following simple and touching
(29:04):
remarks and accompanying poem have just come to hand from
the rich gold mining region of Sonora to mister Mark Twain.
The within parson which I have sought to poetry under
the name and style of he done his level best
was one among the whitest men I ever see, And
(29:28):
it ain't every man that note him, that can find
it in his heart to say he's glad the poor
cuss is busted and gone home to the States. He
was here in an early day, and he was the
handiest man about taking hold of anything that come along
you most ever see, I judge he was a cheerful,
stirn critter, and ally was doing something. And no man
(29:50):
can say he ever see him do anything by Havers.
Preaching was his natural gait. But he warn't man to
lay back and twiddle his thumb because there didn't happen
to be nothing doing in his own a special line, no, sir.
He was a man who would meander forth and stir
up something for hisself. His last axe was to go
(30:13):
to his pile of King's end, talking it to phil
but which he didn't fill when there was a flush
out again him and naturally, you see, he went under,
and so he was cleaned out, as you may say,
and he struck the home trail cheerful but flat broke.
(30:34):
I know this talent man in Arkansas, and if you
would print this humbly tribute to his gorgeous abilities, you
would greatly oblige his on happy friend. He done his
level best. Was he mining on the flat, He'd done
it with a zest. Was he a leading of the choir,
(30:57):
He'd done his level best. If he'd a regular task
to do, he never took no rest or. If twas
off and on the same, he'd done his level best.
If he was preachin on his beat, he'd tramp from
east to west and north to south in cold and heat,
(31:19):
he'd done his level best. He'd yank a sinner out
in hades and land him with the blest, then snatch
a prayer and waltz in again and do his level best.
He'd cos and sing and howl and pray and dance
and drink and jest and lie and steal all one
(31:41):
to him. He'd done his level best. Whatever this man
was sought to do, he'd done it with his zest.
No matter what his contract was, he'd do his level best.
October eighteen sixty five. Verily, this man was gifted with
(32:01):
gorgeous abilities, and it is a happiness to me to
embalm the memory of their luster in these columns. If
it were not that the poet crop is unusually large
and rank in California this year, I would encourage you
to continue writing, Simon, But as it is, perhaps it
(32:22):
might be too risky in you to enter against so
much opposition. The nomadic taint ran ride in the blood
of both Mark Twain and Brett Hart, and they one
day deserted the Californian and started inland for another delusive
experiment in mining for gold. On returning to San Francisco,
(32:45):
Clemens found his health failing and made arrangements to go
to the Sandwich Islands as a newspaper correspondent. Before his departure,
he held his first interview with Artemis Ward, the published
report of which was widely quoted. He sailed in eighteen
sixty six for Honolulu. There was a wedding on board
(33:05):
the vessel, and Mark gave away the bride. The groom
was greatly vexed over the absence of a wedding ring.
When Mark reached up and pulled off one of the
huge curtain rings large enough to go around the girl's
two arms. He held an imposition on her finger at
the proper time, and as she was a remarkably pretty girl,
(33:25):
he took good care to exercise his privilege of kissing
her at the close. Arriving in Honolulu, he proceeded to
write up the sugar plantations and descriptions of life and
character on the islands. His letters were very readable. They
were mostly published in the Sacramento Union. He wrote, among
other things, a most thrilling description of a burning crater
(33:48):
some miles round, full of white and red heated crystal fire, caverns,
and crimson lava. There is a touch of wondrous beauty
in his picture of the Sandwich Islands, written some years after.
No alien land in all the world has any deep,
(34:10):
strong charm for me, but that one, no other land
could so longingly and so beseechingly haunt me, sleeping and
waking through half a lifetime as that one has done.
Other things leave me, but it abides. Other things change,
(34:35):
but it remains the same for me. Its balmy airs
are always blowing, its summer seas flashing in the sun.
The pulsing of its surf beat is in my ear.
I can see its garlanded crags, its leaping cascades, It's
(34:59):
plumy po drowsing by its shore, its remote summits floating
like islands above the cloud rack. I can feel the
spirit of its woodland solitudes. I can hear the plash
of its brooks. In my nostrils still lives the breath
(35:19):
of flowers that perished twenty years ago. And these world
wanderers who sit before us here have lately looked upon
these things, and with eyes of flesh, not the unsatisfying
vision of the spirit, I envy them that the climate
(35:41):
of Hawaii soon restored him to perfect health, and after
an absence of two months, he returned to San Francisco
with renewed spirits and with his world wide fame still
before him. End of chapter three read by John Greenman
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I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com