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.