No, gentlemen, ask of me anything else and I will do it cheerfully; but do not ask me not to afflict the people. I wish to tell them all I know about VENICE. I wish to tell them about the City of the Sea—that most venerable, most brilliant, and proudest Republic the world has ever seen. I wish to hint at what it achieved in twelve hundred years, and what it lost in two hundred. I wish to furnish a deal of pleasant information, somewhat highly spiced, but still palatable, digestible, and eminently fitted for the intellectual stomach. My last lecture was not as fine as I thought it was, but I have submitted this discourse to several able critics, and they have pronounced it good. Now, therefore, why should I withhold it?
Let me talk only just this once, and I will sail positively on the 6th of
July, and stay away until I return from China—two years.
Yours truly, MARK TWAIN.
(FURTHER REMONSTRANCE)
SAN FRANCISCO, June 30th.
MR. MARK TWAIN,—Learning with profound regret that you have concluded to postpone your departure until the 6th July, and learning also, with unspeakable grief, that you propose to read from your forthcoming book, or lecture again before you go, at the New Mercantile Library, we hasten to beg of you that you will not do it. Curb this spirit of lawless violence, and emigrate at once. Have the vessel's bill for your passage sent to us. We will pay it.
Your friends, Pacific Board of Brokers [and other financial and social institutions]
SAN FRANCISCO, June 30th.
MR. MARK TWAIN—DEAR SIR,—Will you start now, without any unnecessary
delay?
Yours truly,
Proprietors of the Alta,
Bulletin, Times, Call, Examiner
[and other San Francisco
publications].
SAN FRANCISCO, June 30th.
MR. MARK TWAIN—DEAR SIR,—Do not delay your departure. You can come
back and lecture another time. In the language of the worldly—you can
"cut and come again."
Your friends,
THE CLERGY.
SAN FRANCISCO, June 30th.