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19 and 20 October 1865 • San Francisco, Calif.
(MS, damage emended: CU-MARK, UCCL 00092)
‸P. S. You had better shove this in the stove—for if we strike a bargain I don’t want any absurd “literary remains” & “unpublished letters of Mark Twain” published after I am planted.‸
San F.—Oct. 19, 1865.
My Dear Bro & Sister:
Orion there was genius—true, unmistakeable genius—in that sermon of yours. It was not the gilded base metal that passes for intellectual gold too generally in this world of ours. It is one of the few sermons that I have read with pleasure—I do not say profit, because I am beyond the reach of argument now. But seven or eight years ago that single sermon would have saved me. It even made me think—yea, & regret, for a while, as it was. (Don’t [preach ]from this ‸the above‸ text, next time.) Viewed as a literary production, that sermon was first-class.
And now let me preach you a sermon. I never had but two powerful ambitions in my life. One was to be a pilot, & the other a preacher of the gospel. I accomplished the one & failed in the other, because I could not supply myself with the necessary stock in trade—i.e. religion. I have given it up forever. I never had a “call” in that direction, anyhow, & my aspirations were the very ecstasy of presumption. [ An But ]I have had a “call” to [literarture], of a low order—i.e. humorous. It is nothing to be proud of, but it is my strongest suit, & if I were to listen to that maxim of stern duty which says it is [ m that ]to do right you must [ multiply ]the one or the two or the three talents which the Almighty entrusts to your keeping,1 I would long ago have ceased to meddle with things for which I was by nature unfitted & turned my attention to seriously scribbling to excite the laughter of God’s creatures. Poor, pitiful business! Though the Almighty did His part by me—for the talent is a mighty engine when supplied with the steam of [ education .—]which I have not got, & so its pistons & cylinders & shafts move feebly & for a holiday show & are useless for any good purpose.
But as I was saying, it is human nature to yearn to be what we were never intended for. It is singular, but it is so. I wanted to be a pilot or a preacher, & I was about as well calculated for either as is poor Emperor Norton for Chief Justice of the United States.2 Now you aspire to be a lawyer, when the voice of God is thundering in your ears, & you are wilfully deaf & will not hear. You were intended for a preacher, & lo! you would be a scheming, groveling, mud-cat of a lawyer. A man never is willing to do what his Creator intended him to do. You are honest, pious, virtuous—what would you have more? Go forth & preach. When you preach from a pulpit, I will listen to you & not before. Until that time, I will read your sermons with sincere pleasure, but only as literary gems. That is my ultimatum. Ever since I got acquainted with you—which was in the [autumn ]of 1861—I have thought many & many & many a time what how you would tower head & shoulders above any of the small-fry preachers of my experience! I know what I am talking about. It is the nature of man to see as by the light of noonday the talents of his neighbor, (& to which that neighbor is blind as night,) & at the same time to be unaware of his own talents while he is gazing afar off at those of his ‸that‸ [neighbor., ]as aforesaid. You see in me a talent for humorous writing, & urge me to cultivate it. But I always regarded it as brotherly partiality, ‸on your part,‸ & attached no value to it. It is only now, when editors of standard literary papers in the distant east give me high praise, & who do not know me & cannot of course be blinded by [ partiality the glamour ]of partiality, that I really begin to believe there must be something in it.3
But I’ll [toss ]up with you. Your letter has confirmed me. I know—I don’t suppose—I know you would be great & useful as a minister of the gospel, & I am satisfied you will never be any better lawyer than a good many others. Now I don’t know how you regard the ministry, but I would rather be a shining light in that department than the greatest lawyer that ever trod the earth. What is the pride of saving the widow’s [property ]or the homicide’s trivial life, to snatching an immortal soul in mercy from the jaws of hell? Bah! the one is the [ insignificant ] ‸feeble‸ glitter of the [fire-fly], & the other the regal glory of the sun.
But as I said, I will toss up with you. I will drop all trifling, & sighing after vain impossibilities, & strive for a fame—unworthy & evanescent though it must of necessity be—if you will record your promise to go hence to the States & preach the gospel when circumstances shall enable you to [do so? ]I am in earnest. Shall it be so?
I am also in debt. But I have gone to work in dead earnest to get out. Joe Goodman pays me $100 a month for a daily letter, and the Dramatic Chronicle pays me [ $—]or rather will begin to pay me, next week—$40 a month for dramatic criticisms. Same wages I got on the Call, & more agreeable & less laborious work.4
Mollie, my dear, I send you slathers of love. Wrote to Ma to-night.
Yr Bro
Sam.
[in pencil, on back of letter as folded:]
Friday—Have just got your letter. The “prospects” are infernal, Mollie. “Confidence” is down low. I saved on the Ophir $25, [but ] not losing the $100 assessment I would have had to pay had I held it a few days longer. All stocks have their day, & “Confidence” will, too—I did want to wait on one stock till its day [arrived, but ]your prospects do not look encouraging.5 [ Go on, I ]
I read all your sermons—and I shall continue to read them, but of course as unsympathetically as a man of stone. I have a religion—but you will call it blasphemy. It is that there is a God for the rich man but none for the poor.
You are in trouble, & in debt—so am I. I am utterly miserable—so are you. K◇e Perhaps your religion will sustain you, will feed you—I place no dependence in mine. Our religions are alike, though, in one respect—neither can make a man happy when he is out of luck. If I do not get out of debt in 3 months,—pistols or poison for one—exit me. {There’s a text for a sermon on [Self-Murder—Proceed.}] 6
Explanatory Notes | Textual Commentary
The enterprising State of California, which follows as closely as she can upon the steps of her older Eastern sisters, has produced some examples of our national humor which compare favorably with those already mentioned. They are but little known in this region, and few, if any, have yet appeared “between covers.” The foremost among the merry gentlemen of the California press, as far as we have been able to judge, is one who signs himself “Mark Twain.” Of his real name we are ignorant, but his style resembles that of “John Phoenix” more nearly than any other, and some things we have seen from his pen would do honor to the memory of even that chieftain among humorists. He is, we believe, quite a young man, and has not written a great deal. Perhaps, if he will husband his resources and not kill with overwork the mental goose that has given us these golden eggs, he may one day take rank among the brightest of our wits. (“American Humor and Humorists,” Round Table, 9 Sept 65, 2)
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Previous publication:
L1, 322–325; SLC 1961, 6–9.
Provenance:
probably Moffett Collection; see p. 462.
Emendations and textual notes:
preach • [‘e’ and ‘a’ written as one character]
An But • [‘Bu’ over ‘An’]
literarture • [‘t’ over ‘r’]
m that • [‘th’ over ‘m’]
multiply • mul tiply [‘t’ inserted over ‘l’]
education .— • [dash over period]
autumn • [possibly ‘s autumn’; the ‘a’ is blotted and smeared and probably was not written over another character, but it might possibly be over ‘s’]
neighbor., • [comma over period]
partiality the glamour • [‘the glam’ over ‘partiality’]
toss • t[o]ss [torn]
property • [possibly ‘property,’]
insignificant • ins[ig]n[i]fic[ant] [torn]
fire-|fly • fire-fly
do so? • [sic]
$ — • [dash over dollar sign]
but • [sic]
arrived, but •
ar[rid], [b]ut [torn]
Go on, I • [‘on’ doubtful]
Self-Murder—Proceed.} •
Self-[Md
—]Proceed.[}]
[Clemens’s closing bracket is extremely faint. A
fragment of paper where ‘Murder’ was written is missing;
a mark on the surviving edge might be the top of the ‘d’. A crease runs
the full length of the page about ⅛ inch from the edge in all four leaves of the
MS, and fragments have broken away from all four leaves along
the crease, but only at this point has any text been lost for
that reason. This fragment could have broken away accidentally,
because the paper is brittle, but the possibility that someone
tore it deliberately cannot be ruled out.]