To
Jane Lampton Clemens and Pamela A. Moffett
19 August 1863 • Steamboat Springs, Nev. Terr.
(MS: NPV, UCCL 00071)
No. 12—$20
Steamboat Springs,1
August 19.
My Dear Mother & 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, & you gravely come forward & tell me “if I work hard & attend closely to my business, I [ c 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 I could 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, & I don’t care a cent whether school keeps or not. Everybody knows me, & 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, & I seduced Wilson (a Missouri boy, reporter of the Daily Union,) from his labors, & we went over to Lake Bigler.2 But I failed to cure my cold. I found the “Lake House”3 crowded with the wealth & fashion of Virginia, & I had to could not resist the temptation to take a hand in all the fun going. Those Virginians—men & women both—are a stirring set, & 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, & came back into the Territory again. A lot of them had purchased a site for a town on the Lake shore, & 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 Creator.
The hotel here at the Springs4 is not as much crowded as usual, & 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 [steamboat’s ]’scape pipes, & it makes a boiling, surging noise like a steamboat, too—hence the name. We put eggs in a hankerchief & dip them in the Springs—they “soft boil” in 2 minutes, & boil as hard as a rock in 4 minutes. These fissures extend more than a quarter of a mile, & the long line of steam columns looks very pretty. A large bath house is built over one of the Springs, & we go in it & steam ourselves as long as we can stand it, & then come out & take a cold shower bath. You get baths, board & lodging, all for $25 a week—cheaper than living in Virginia without baths.
We shall bud out into a State before many months, which will relieve Orion of his office. If I have influence enough, I mean to get him nominated a candidate for some fat office under the State Government, so that you can come out and live with him.5 I am a pretty good hand at such things. I was a mighty heavy wire-puller at the last Legislature. I passed every bill I worked for, & on a bet, I killed a bill by a three-fourths vote in the House after it had passed the Council unanimously. Oh, I tell you a reporter in the Legislature can swing more votes than any member of the body. We’ll have rare times the coming session, & in the State convention.
Yrs aff
Mark
Explanatory Notes | Textual Commentary
Source text(s):Previous publication:
L1, 263–266; MTB, 1:238–39, excerpts; MTL, 1:91–93, with omissions.
Provenance:see McKinney Family Papers, pp. 459–61.
Emendations and textual notes:
any • a | any [ran out of space]
c may • [‘m’ over ‘c’]
day.” There’s • day.”— |There’s
steamboat’s • steam-|boat’s
