In the next letter we find these two journalistic "blades" enjoying themselves together in the coast metropolis.This letter is labeled "No.2," meaning, probably, the second from San Francisco, but No.1has disappeared, and even No, 2 is incomplete.
To Mrs.Jane Clemens and Mrs.Moffett, in St.Louis:
No.2-- ($20.00 Enclosed)
LICK HOUSE, S.F., June 1, '63.
MY DEAR MOTHER AND SISTER,--The Unreliable and myself are still here, and still enjoying ourselves.I suppose I know at least a thousand people here--a, great many of them citizens of San Francisco, but the majority belonging in Washoe--and when I go down Montgomery street, shaking hands with Tom, **** and Harry, it is just like being in Main street in Hannibal and meeting the old familiar faces.I do hate to go back to Washoe.We fag ourselves completely out every day, and go to sleep without rocking, every night.We dine out and we lunch out, and we eat, drink and are happy--as it were.After breakfast, I don't often see the hotel again until midnight--or after.I am going to the Dickens mighty fast.I know a regular village of families here in the house, but I never have time to call on them.Thunder! we'll know a little more about this town, before we leave, than some of the people who live in it.
We take trips across the Bay to Oakland, and down to San Leandro, and Alameda, and those places; and we go out to the Willows, and Hayes Park, and Fort Point, and up to Benicia; and yesterday we were invited out on a yachting excursion, and had a sail in the fastest yacht on the Pacific Coast.Rice says: "Oh, no--we are not having any fun, Mark--Oh, no, Ireckon not--it's somebody else--it's probably the 'gentleman in the wagon'!" (popular slang phrase.) When I invite Rice to the Lick House to dinner, the proprietors send us champagne and claret, and then we do put on the most disgusting airs.Rice says our calibre is too light--we can't stand it to be noticed!
I rode down with a gentleman to the Ocean House, the other day, to see the sea horses, and also to listen to the roar of the surf, and watch the ships drifting about, here, and there, and far away at sea.When I stood on the beach and let the surf wet my feet, I recollected doing the same thing on the shores of the Atlantic--and then I had a proper appreciation of the vastness of this country--for I had traveled from ocean to ocean across it.
Remainder missing.)
Not far from Virginia City there are some warm springs that constantly send up jets of steam through fissures in the mountainside.The place was a health resort, and Clemens, always subject to bronchial colds, now and again retired there for a cure.
A letter written in the late summer--a gay, youthful document--belongs to one of these periods of convalescence.
To Mrs.Jane Clemens and Mrs.Moffett, in St.Louis:
No.12--$20 enclosed.
STEAMBOAT SPRINGS, August 19, '63.
MY DEAR MOTHER AND SISTER,--Ma, you have given my vanity a deadly thrust.
Behold, I am prone to boast of having the widest reputation, as a local editor, of any man on the Pacific coast, and you gravely come forward and tell me "if I work hard and attend closely to my business, I may aspire to a place on a big San Francisco daily, some day." There's a comment on human vanity for you! Why, blast it, I was under the impression that Icould get such a situation as that any time I asked for it.But I don't want it.No paper in the United States can afford to pay me what my place on the "Enterprise" is worth.If I were not naturally a lazy, idle, good-for-nothing vagabond, I could make it pay me $20,000 a year.
But I don't suppose I shall ever be any account.I lead an easy life, though, and I don't care a cent whether school keeps or not.Everybody knows me, and I fare like a prince wherever I go, be it on this side of the mountains or the other.And I am proud to say I am the most conceited ass in the Territory.
You think that picture looks old? Well, I can't help it--in reality I am not as old as I was when I was eighteen.
I took a desperate cold more than a week ago, and I seduced Wilson (a Missouri boy, reporter of the Daily Union,) from his labors, and we went over to Lake Bigler.But I failed to cure my cold.I found the "Lake House" crowded with the wealth and fashion of Virginia, and I could not resist the temptation to take a hand in all the fun going.Those Virginians--men and women both--are a stirring set, and I found if I went with them on all their eternal excursions, I should bring the consumption home with me--so I left, day before yesterday, and came back into the Territory again.A lot of them had purchased a site for a town on the Lake shore, and they gave me a lot.When you come out, I'll build you a house on it.The Lake seems more supernaturally beautiful now, than ever.It is the masterpiece of the Creation.
The hotel here at the Springs is not so much crowded as usual, and I am having a very comfortable time of it.The hot, white steam puffs up out of fissures in the earth like the jets that come from a steam-boat's 'scape pipes, and it makes a boiling, surging noise like a steam-boat, too-hence the name.We put eggs in a handkerchief and dip them in the springs--they "soft boil" in 2 Minutes, and boil as hard as a rock in 4 minutes.These fissures extend more than a quarter of a mile, and the long line of steam columns looks very pretty.A large bath house is built over one of the springs, and we go in it and steam ourselves as long as we can stand it, and then come out and take a cold shower bath.
You get baths, board and lodging, all for $25 a week--cheaper than living in Virginia without baths.....
Yrs aft MARK.
