San Francisco—
Aug. 25, 1866—
Bill, My Boy—
There has been a misunderstanding all around. You know I didn’t want to take your note, but you insisted on it. And when I started across the plains to be gone 3 months & have the recreation we all needed (thinking the war would be closed & the river open again by that time,) I turned over a lot of notes for money I had loaned (for I did not know what might happen,) & among to Ma, & among them yours—but I charged her earnestly never to call on you for a cent save in direst emergency, because, in all justice you could not be said to owe me a cent. And I told her that if the note remained in my possession I never would present it. I was under too many obligations (those of old & tried friendship included,) to you & Bart, to ever have anything like sordid business engagements with you.1
Well, Mas don’t understand the case as we do, Bill, but she will when I go home in October. I know she don’t, because she has a larger soul [that ]God usually gives to women.
I generally get up at eleven o’clock, because I am naturally lazy, as you well know, & because the pleasantest of my acquaintances at the hotel breakfast at that hour—but this morning I overslept myself & did not get down until a little after noon—just time enough to [miss ]my breakfast by a scratch.2 You know how d—d savage a man feels under such [circumstances], & so you will appreciate it when I say that when the clerk sent me your letter it answered for breakfast, restored my temper & made me comfortable & at peace with all the world. Thank you right heartily, my lad.
Bill, of course with so much rubbing against antagonistic natures, I have at last come to smothering my feelings & choking them down from showing on the surface—but the news about the Association “fetched” me. I don’t know when anything has made me feel so badly as the paragraph that told me the Association had fallen from its high estate—had lost its more than regal power. I say more than royal power, Bill, & I speak advisedly—for no king ever [ wil wielded ]so absolute a sway over subject & domain as did that old Association. I have compared its machinery with that of other governments—royal, republican & ecclesiastic—& did not find its match. These had their rotten places, their weak spots—but it was perfect. It was a beautiful system—beautiful—& I am sorry enough that its greatness hath departed from it.3
I am sorry, too, that the instrument of its undoing was found among its own subjects.4 I am sorry to hear any harm of any pilot—for I hold those old river friends above all others, & I know that in genuine manliness they assay away above the common multitude. You know, yourself, Bill—or you ought to know it—that all men—kings & serfs alike—are slaves to [ cir other ]men & to circumstances—save, alone, the pilot—who comes at no man’s beck or call, obeys no man’s orders & scorns all men’s suggestions. The king would do this thing, & he would do that: but a cramped treasury overmasters him in the one case & a seditious people in the other. The Senator must hob-nob with canaille whom he despises, & banker, priest & statesman trim their actions by the breeze of the world’s will & the world’s opinion. It is a strange study,—a singular [phenomenon m ], if you please, that the only real, independent & genuine gentlemen in the world go quietly up & down the Mississippi river, asking no homage of any one, seeking no popularity, no notoriety, & not caring a damn whether school keeps or not.5
Beck Jolly is President—long may the distinguished [traveler], the mighty hunter of lions, the brilliant Chinese linguist & the dreaded scourge of the nations of the Orient flourish! Amen. You ask Zeb6 if he believes there is anybody who can fence with pokers, or talk Chinese, or quell insurrections or eat tiger meat like Beck & me. But who is the Secretary?
“You “write me of the boats, thinking I may yet feel an interest in the old business.” You bet your life I do. It is about the only thing I do feel any interest in & yet I can hear least about it. If I were two years younger, I would come back & learn the river over [ g again]. But it is too late now. I am too lazy for 14-day trips—too fond of running all night & sleeping all day—too fond of sloshing around, talking with people.
[ M Why ]in the mischief don’t [O’Neil ] [ did die]? Is that d—d Fenian going to live forever? But he was a bully boy, if ever there was one. You ought to have seen him & me bring the (d—n the boat’s name, I can’t think of it now—Alonzo, or Child, or something like that,) up the river, through the ice, drawing all the water. He was the whitest Captain I ever sailed with, & in this stiff “earthquake cobbler” I drink present joy & final salvation to him!7
Do you recollect the old hoss that died in the wilderness? I have made that famous in Washoe, & didn’t I make those solemn missionaries’ eyes bug out with it? I think so.8 While I was there, the American Ministers to China & Japan—Mr [Burlinggame ]& Gen. Van [Valkenburg ]came along, & we just made Honolulu howl. I only got tight once, though. I know better than to get tight oftener than once in 3 months. It sets a man back in the esteem of people whose good opinions are worth having.
Didn’t have much fun coming up, because we had light winds & calms all the way & were at sea 25 days. on the voyage.
Why the devil didn’t you say something about Sam & Bart?9
I am very, very sorry you cannot get well10—but don’t despond—it is poison, rank poison to knuckle down to care & hardships. They must come to us all, albeit in different shapes—& we may not escape them—it is not possible—but we may swindle them out of half their puissance with a stiff upper lip.
Marry be d—d. I am too old to marry. I am nearly 31. I have got gray hairs in my head. Women appear to like me, but d—n them, they don’t love me.
Well, I have only been back a week, & I have got to stir around some & see the boys. Good bye, Bill. I hope to start to the States about the time you receive this letter—but [I don’t know]—the world is an [uncertain institution].
Yrs,
Old Ed Montgomery did me a genuine kindness once, Bill, if you recollect,11
Explanatory Notes | Textual Commentary
When I think of Uncle Sam during those early years it is always as a singer. He would sit at the piano
and play and sing by the hour, the same song over and over:—
There was an old horse And his name was Jerusalem. He went to Jerusalem, He came from Jerusalem. Ain’t I glad I’m out of the wilderness! Oh! Bang! (MTBus, 39) Other, briefer descriptions of his performances, on the Mississippi and in Nevada, can be found in MTB, 1:129, 295–96; ET&S1, 197; William Wright 1893, 14; and Doten 1973, 2:997. While in Hawaii, Clemens presumably had ample opportunity to make
“eyes bug out” with this song since “as he went about the Islands” he
“called on or stayed over night with many missionaries and their descendants” (MTH, 134). “Jerusalem/Methusalem” possibly derived from a song Clemens might have learned in his
childhood—for example, the slave song “The Old Gray Mare Came Tearin’ out the
Wilderness,” melodic source of the popular “Old Gray Mare” (Sandburg, 102).
Source text(s):Previous publication:
L1, 357–362; MTLBowen, 12–15.
Provenance:The University of Texas acquired the MS in the summer of 1940 from William Bowen’s daughter Mrs. Louis Knox, the
former Eva Laura Bowen (MTLBowen, 7 n. 12, 10).
Emendations and textual notes:
that • [sic]
miss • msiss miss [‘i’ over ‘s’; rewritten for clarity]
circumstances • cicurcumstances [‘rc’ over ‘cu’]
wil wielded • wilelded [‘e’ over ‘l’]
cir other • [‘oth’ over ‘cir’]
phenomenon m • [‘m’ mended to ‘n’]
traveler • traverler [‘l’ over ‘r’]
g again • [‘a’ over ‘g’]
M Why • [‘W’ over partly formed character, possibly ‘M’, ‘N’, or ‘A’]
O’Neil • [sic]
did die • die d [‘e’ over ‘d’]
Burlinggame • [‘a’ over ‘g’]
Valkenburg • [sic]
I don’t know •
I [d
’]
|know [torn; see
illustration]
uncertain institution •
unce[]
|institution [torn; see illustration]
Mark •
M[a]
[torn; see illustration]
Sam Mark • [‘Mark’ over ‘Sam’]
