The Complete Letters. Mark Twain

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 midnight 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 careworn 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 waterproof. 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