To
Mary Mason Fairbanks
1 and 5 May 1868 • Virginia City, Nev.,
and San Francisco, Calif.
(MS: CSmH, UCCL 00204)
Virginia, Nevada, May 1.
My Dear Mother=
I cannot go a-Maying today, because it is snowing so hard—& so I have been writing some newspaper letters &1
San Francisco, May 5.
I didn’t finish—& now I have just arrived home again a few minutes ago. I find your kind letter of April 2 & Charley’s of April 1 awaiting me.2 I have had the hardest trip over the Sierras. Steamboat to Sacramento (balmy summer weather & the peaches & roses all in bloom)—railway to the summit (snow thirty feet deep on level ground & 100 in the drifts)—6-horse sleighs to Donner Lake—mail coaches to Coburn’s—railway to Hunter’s—stage-coaches to Virginia—all in the space of 24 hours.3 Distance 150 miles. Coming back last night in a [snowstorm], the two & a half hours’ sleighing (part of the time clear weather & superb moonlight,) was something [ maj magnificent]—we made ten miles an hour straight along. We had no such thrilling fun in Palestine.4
I lectured here—a little over sixteen hundred dollars in the house—gold & silver. The seats were all taken & paid for long before night, & then I stopped the sale of tickets, which made a large number of people mad—people who came at 7 p.m. & had to go away again. But I couldn’t help that. I didn’t want them standing up & bothering me. It was a miserably poor lecture. I shall write a better one the next time I come to San Francisco.
I wish I could have been there during Charley’s visit. [It ]was having a tolerably cheerful time of it at sea at that time, however, & I had rather be afloat than anywhere else—except at your house ma mère.
The Alta has given me permission to use the printed letters. It is all right, now.5
I could not go with Mr. Burlingame, though I wanted to do it badly. I told him I would join him in Europe before his mission was finished.6
I must try & send my photograph with this. It is better looking than I am, & so I ordered two hundred. I mean to order a thousand more. I will send you five hundred to put in your album.7
I find letters here from Mrs. Hooker (Did your meet her?—Mr. Beecher’s sister)—& [Julius ] [Moulton] .—& a dozen letters from other people.
But I see that I can’t keep my eyes open. It is near midnight. I am utterly & completely worn out. I intended to sleep on the boat—they gave me the bridal chamber as usual—(a ghastly sarcasm on my lonely state, but intended as a compliment) but I knew so many people on board that I staid up to talk—& now I cannot write—I can hardly see, for that matter.8 I was determined to write at you tonight, though, [ bef because ]I shall have so little spare time for two or three weeks to come that I was afraid I might neglect it.
Under these circumstances I know you will overlook the stupidity of this effort, & write me just the same as if I had done ever so well. Won’t you?
Remember me most kindly to the family, & when you write Charley tell him I am going to answer very shortly.
Your always friend 
&
dis far away cub
Sam L. Clemens
P.S. You must remember me to Mr & Mrs Severance. I got S’s postscript.9 Thanks.
Explanatory Notes | Textual Commentary
I rather dread the trip over the Sierra Nevada
to-morrow.... It is more irksome than it was before—more
tiresome on account of your being obliged to shift from cars to
stages and back again every now and then in the mountains. We used
to rattle across all the way by stage, and never mind it at all,
save that we had to ride thirty hours without stopping. (SLC 1868
[MT00736])
I said that if they had acted fairly and honorably,
and had allowed the country press to use the letters or portions of
them, my lecture-skirmish on the coast would have paid me ten
thousand dollars, whereas the Alta had lost
me that amount. Then he offered a compromise: he would publish the
book and allow me ten per cent. royalty on it. The compromise did
not appeal to me, and I said so. I was now quite unknown outside of
San Francisco, the book’s sale would be confined to that
city, and my royalty would not pay me enough to board me three
months; whereas my Eastern contract, if carried out, could be
profitable for me, for I had a sort of reputation on the Atlantic
seaboard acquired through the publication of six excursion-letters
in the New York Tribune and one or two in the
Herald. In the end Mr. Mac agreed to suppress his book,
on certain conditions: in my preface I must thank the Alta for waiving its
“rights” and granting me permission. I
objected to the thanks. I could not with any large degree of
sincerity thank the Alta for bankrupting my
lecture-raid. After considerable debate my point was conceded and
the thanks left out. (SLC 1904, 76–77) This summary seems to imply that the discussion with the
Alta owners occurred after Clemens had
returned from his failed “lecture-raid.” But the
discussion probably preceded the start of that tour, for on 1 May, in a
dispatch to the Chicago Republican, Clemens
wrote: “When I had finished the business that brought me
home, I lectured for the mutual benefit of the public and
myself” (SLC 1868 [MT00734]).
MacCrellish’s deliberations may nevertheless have continued
until Clemens’s return to San Francisco on 5 May.
Source text(s):Previous publication:
L2, 211–215; MTMF, 25–27.
Provenance:see Huntington Library, p. 512.
Emendations and textual notes:
snowstorm • snow-|storm
maj magnificent • majgnificent
It • [‘t’ partly formed]
Julius • Julisus
Moulton. • [deletion implied]
bef because • befcause
