Fragment of a letter to Orion Clemens, in Keokuk, Iowa:
New Orleans February 6, 1862.
Shes a very pleasant little lady rather pretty about 28,say 5 feet 2 and one quarter would weigh 116has black eyes and hair is polite and intelligent used good language, and talks much faster than I do.
She invited me into the little back parlor, closed the door; and we were alone. We sat down facing each other. Then she asked my age. Then she put her hands before her eyes a moment, and commenced talking as if she had a good deal to say and not much time to say it in. Something after this style:
Madame. Yours is a watery planet; you gain your livelihood on the water; but you should have been a lawyer there is where your talents lie: you might have distinguished yourself as an orator, or as an editor; you have written a great deal; you write well but you are rather out of practice; no matter you will be in practice some day; you have a superb constitution, and as excellent health as any man in the world; you have great powers of endurance; in your profession your strength holds out against the longest sieges, without flagging; still, the upper part of your lungs, the top of them is slightly affected you must take care of yourself; you do not drink, but you use entirely too much tobacco; and you must stop it; mind, not moderate, but stop the use of it totally; then I can almost promise you 86 when you will surely die; otherwise look out for 28, 31, 34, 47, and 65; be careful for you are not of a long-lived race, that is on your fathers side; you are the only healthy member of your family, and the only one in it who has anything like the certainty of attaining to a great age so, stop using tobacco, and be careful of yourself.. In some respects you take after your father, but you are much more like your mother, who belongs to the long-lived, energetic side of the house. You never brought all your energies to bear upon any subject but what you accomplished it for instance, you are self-made, self-educated.
S. L. C. Which proves nothing.
Madame. Dont interrupt. When you sought your present occupation you found a thousand obstacles in the way obstacles unknown not even suspected by any save you and me, since you keep such matters to yourself but you fought your way, and hid the long struggle under a mask of cheerfulness, which saved your friends anxiety on your account. To do all this requires all the qualities I have named.
S. L. C. You flatter well, Madame.
Madame. Dont interrupt: Up to within a short time you had always lived from hand to mouth-now you are in easy circumstances for which you need give credit to no one but yourself. The turning point in your life occurred in 1840-7-8.
S. L. C. Which was?
Madame. A death perhaps, and this threw you upon the world and made you what you are; it was always intended that you should make yourself; therefore, it was well that this calamity occurred as early as it did. You will never die of water, although your career upon it in the future seems well sprinkled with misfortune. You will continue upon the water for some time yet; you will not retire finally until ten years from now. What is your brothers age? 35and a lawyer? and in pursuit of an office? Well, he stands a better chance than the other two, and he may get it; he is too visionary is always flying off on a new hobby; this will never do tell him I said so. He is a good lawyer a, very good lawyer and a fine speaker is very popular and much respected, and makes many friends; but although he retains their friendship, he loses their confidence by displaying his instability of character.. The land he has now will be very valuable after a while
S. L. C. Say a 50 years hence, or thereabouts. Madame
Madame. No less time-but never mind the land, that is a secondary consideration let him drop that for the present, and devote himself to his business and politics with all his might, for he must hold offices under the Government..
After a while you will possess a good deal of property retire at the end of ten years after which your pursuits will be literary try the law you will certainly succeed. I am done now. If you have any questions to ask ask them freely and if it be in my power, I will answer without reserve without reserve.
I asked a few questions of minor importance paid her $2and left, under the decided impression that going to the fortune tellers was just as good as going to the opera, and the cost scarcely a trifle more ergo, I will disguise myself and go again, one of these days, when other amusements fail. Now isnt she the devil? That is to say, isnt she a right smart little woman?
When you want money, let Ma know, and she will send it. She and Pamela are always fussing about change, so I sent them a hundred and twenty quarters yesterday fiddlers change enough to last till I get back, I reckon.
Sam.
It is not so difficult to credit Madame Caprell with clairvoyant powers when one has read the letters of Samuel Clemens up to this point. If we may judge by those that have survived, her prophecy of literary distinction for him was hardly warranted by anything she could have known of his past performance. These letters of his youth have a value to-day only because they were written by the man who later was to become Mark Twain. The squibs and skits which he sometimes contributed to the New Orleans papers were bright, perhaps, and pleasing to his pilot associates, but they were without literary value. He was twenty-five years old. More than one author has achieved reputation at that age. Mark Twain was of slower growth; at that age he had not even developed a definite literary ambition: Whatever the basis of Madame Caprells prophecy, we must admit that she was a good guesser on several matters, a right smart little woman, as Clemens himself phrased it.
She overlooked one item, however: the proximity of the Civil War. Perhaps it was too close at hand for second sight. A little more than two months after the Caprell letter was written Fort Sumter was fired upon. Mask Twain had made his last trip as a pilot up the river to St. Louis the nation was plunged into a four years conflict.
There are no letters of this immediate period. Young Clemens went to Hannibal, and enlisting in a private company, composed mainly of old schoolmates, went soldiering for two rainy, inglorious weeks, by the end of which he had had enough of war, and furthermore had discovered that he was more of a Union abolitionist than a slave-holding secessionist, as he had at first supposed. Convictions were likely to be rather infirm during those early days of the war, and subject to change without notice. Especially was this so in a border State.
III. Letters 1861-62. On The Frontier. Mining Adventures. Journalistic Beginnings
Clemens went from the battle-front to Keokuk, where Orion was preparing to accept the appointment prophesied by Madame Caprell. Orion was a stanch Unionist, and a member of Lincolns Cabinet had offered him the secretaryship of the new Territory of Nevada. Orion had accepted, and only needed funds to carry him to his destination. His pilot brother had the funds, and upon being appointed private secretary, agreed to pay both passages on the overland stage, which would bear them across the great plains from St. Jo to Carson City. Mark Twain, in Roughing It, has described that glorious journey and the frontier life that followed it. His letters form a supplement of realism to a tale that is more or less fictitious, though marvelously true in color and background. The first bears no date, but it was written not long after their arrival, August 14, 1861. It is not complete, but there is enough of it to give us a very fair picture of Carson City, a wooden town; its population two thousand souls.
(Date not given, but Sept, or Oct., 1861.)
My dear mother, I hope you will all come out here someday. But I shant consent to invite you, until we can receive you in style. But I guess we shall be able to do that, one of these days. I intend that Pamela shall live on Lake Bigler until she can knock a bull down with her fist say, about three months.
Tell everything as it is no better, and no worse.
Well, Gold Hill sells at $5,000 per foot, cash down; Wild cat isnt worth ten cents. The country is fabulously rich in gold, silver, copper, lead, coal, iron, quick silver, marble, granite, chalk, plaster of Paris, (gypsum,) thieves, murderers, desperadoes, ladies, children, lawyers, Christians, Indians, Chinamen, Spaniards, gamblers, sharpers, coyotes (pronounced Ki-yo-ties,) poets, preachers, and jackass rabbits. I overheard a gentleman say, the other day, that it was the d dest country under the sun.and that comprehensive conception I fully subscribe to. It never rains here, and the dew never falls. No flowers grow here, and no green thing gladdens the eye. The birds that fly over the land carry their provisions with them. Only the crow and the raven tarry with us. Our city lies in the midst of a desert of the purest most unadulterated, and compromising sand in which infernal soil nothing but that fag-end of vegetable creation, sage-brush, ventures to grow. If you will take a Lilliputian cedar tree for a model, and build a dozen imitations of it with the stiffest article of telegraph wire set them one foot apart and then try to walk through them, youll understand (provided the floor is covered 12 inches deep with sand,) what it is to wander through a sage-brush desert. When crushed, sage brush emits an odor which isnt exactly magnolia and equally isnt exactly polecat but is a sort of compromise between the two. It looks a good deal like grease-wood, and is the ugliest plant that was ever conceived of. It is gray in color. On the plains, sage-brush and grease-wood grow about twice as large as the common geranium and in my opinion they are a very good substitute for that useless vegetable. Grease-wood is a perfect most perfect imitation in miniature of a live oak tree-barring the color of it. As to the other fruits and flowers of the country, there aint any, except Pulu or Tuler, or what ever they call it, a species of unpoetical willow that grows on the banks of the Carson a river, 20 yards wide, knee deep, and so villainously rapid and crooked, that it looks like it had wandered into the country without intending it, and had run about in a bewildered way and got lost, in its hurry to get out again before some thirsty man came along and drank it up. I said we are situated in a flat, sandy desert true. And surrounded on all sides by such prodigious mountains, that when you gaze at them awhile, and begin to conceive of their grandeur and next to feel their vastness expanding your soul and ultimately find yourself growing and swelling and spreading into a giant I say when this point is reached, you look disdainfully down upon the insignificant village of Carson, and in that instant you are seized with a burning desire to stretch forth your hand, put the city in your pocket, and walk off with it.
As to churches, I believe they have got a Catholic one here, but like that one the New York fireman spoke of, I believe they dont run her now: Now, although we are surrounded by sand, the greatest part of the town is built upon what was once a very pretty grassy spot; and the streams of pure water that used to poke about it in rural sloth and solitude, now pass through on dusty streets and gladden the hearts of men by reminding them that there is at least something here that hath its prototype among the homes they left behind them. And up Kings Canon, (please pronounce canyon, after the manner of the natives,) there are ranches, or farms, where they say hay grows, and grass, and beets and onions, and turnips, and other truck which is suitable for cows yes, and even Irish potatoes; also, cabbage, peas and beans.
The houses are mostly frame, unplastered, but papered inside with flour-sacks sewed together, and the handsomer the brand upon the sacks is, the neater the house looks. Occasionally, you stumble on a stone house. On account of the dryness of the country, the shingles on the houses warp till they look like short joints of stove pipe split lengthwise.
(Remainder missing.)
In this letter is something of the wild freedom of the West, which later would contribute to his fame. The spirit of the frontier of Mark Twain was beginning to stir him.
There had been no secretary work for him to do, and no provision for payment. He found his profit in studying human nature and in prospecting native resources. He was not interested in mining not yet. With a boy named John Kinney he made an excursion to Lake Bigler now Tahoe and located a timber claim, really of great value. They were supposed to build a fence around it, but they were too full of the enjoyment of camp-life to complete it. They put in most of their time wandering through the stately forest or drifting over the transparent lake in a boat left there by lumbermen. They built themselves a brush house, but they did not sleep in it. In Roughing It he writes, It never occurred to us, for one thing; and, besides, it was built to hold the ground, and that was enough. We did not wish to strain it.
They were having a glorious time, when their camp-fire got away from them and burned up their claim. His next letter, of which the beginning is missing, describes the fire.
Fragment of a letter to Mrs. Jane Clemens and Mrs. Moffett, in St. Louis:
The level ranks of flame were relieved at intervals by the standard-bearers, as we called the tall dead trees, wrapped in fire, and waving their blazing banners a hundred feet in the air. Then we could turn from this scene to the Lake, and see every branch, and leaf, and cataract of flame upon its bank perfectly reflected as in a gleaming, fiery mirror. The mighty roaring of the conflagration, together with our solitary and somewhat unsafe position (for there was no one within six miles of us,) rendered the scene very impressive. Occasionally, one of us would remove his pipe from his mouth and say, Superb! magnificent! Beautiful! but-by the Lord God Almighty, if we attempt to sleep in this little patch tonight, well never live till morning! for if we dont burn up, well certainly suffocate. But he was persuaded to sit up until we felt pretty safe as far as the fire was concerned, and then we turned in, with many misgivings. When we got up in the morning, we found that the fire had burned small pieces of drift wood within six feet of our boat, and had made its way to within 4 or 5 steps of us on the South side. We looked like lava men, covered as we were with ashes, and begrimed with smoke. We were very black in the face, but we soon washed ourselves white again.
John D. Kinney, a Cincinnati boy, and a first-rate fellow, too, who came out with judge Turner, was my comrade. We staid at the Lake four days I had plenty of fun, for John constantly reminded me of Sam Bowen when we were on our campaign in Missouri. But first and foremost, for Annies, Mollies, and Pamelas comfort, be it known that I have never been guilty of profane language since I have been in this Territory, and Kinney hardly ever swears. But sometimes human nature gets the better of him. On the second day we started to go by land to the lower camp, a distance of three miles, over the mountains, each carrying an axe. I dont think we got lost exactly, but we wandered four hours over the steepest, rockiest and most dangerous piece of country in the world. I couldnt keep from laughing at Kinneys distress, so I kept behind, so that he could not see me. After he would get over a dangerous place, with infinite labor and constant apprehension, he would stop, lean on his axe, and look around, then behind, then ahead, and then drop his head and ruminate awhile. Then he would draw a long sigh, and say: Well could any Billygoat have scaled that place without breaking his neck? And I would reply, No, I dont think he could. No you dont think he could (mimicking me,) Why dont you curse the infernal place? You know you want to. I do, and will curse the thieving country as long as I live. Then we would toil on in silence for awhile. Finally I told himWell, John, what if we dont find our way out of this today well know all about the country when we do get out. Oh stuff I know enough and too much about the d d villainous locality already. Finally, we reached the camp. But as we brought no provisions with us, the first subject that presented itself to us was, how to get back. John swore he wouldnt walk back, so we rolled a drift log apiece into the Lake, and set about making paddles, intending to straddle the logs and paddle ourselves back home sometime or other. But the Lake objected got stormy, and we had to give it up. So we set out for the only house on this side of the Lake three miles from there, down the shore. We found the way without any trouble, reached there before sundown, played three games of cribbage, borrowed a dug-out and pulled back six miles to the upper camp. As we had eaten nothing since sunrise, we did not waste time in cooking our supper or in eating it, either. After supper we got out our pipes built a rousing camp fire in the open air-established a faro bank (an institution of this country,) on our huge flat granite dining table, and bet white beans till one oclock, when John went to bed. We were up before the sun the next morning, went out on the Lake and caught a fine trout for breakfast. But unfortunately, I spoilt part of the breakfast. We had coffee and tea boiling on the fire, in coffee-pots and fearing they might not be strong enough, I added more ground coffee, and more tea, but you know mistakes will happen. I put the tea in the coffee-pot, and the coffee in the teapot and if you imagine that they were not villainous mixtures, just try the effect once.