To Mary Mason Fairbanks
5 July 1868 • San Francisco, Calif.
(MS: CSmH, UCCL 02738)

San F, July 5.

Dear Mother—

I lectured on Venice night before last—large audience & fashionable—& gave so much satisfaction that I feel some inches taller, now. Mind, I do not forget that I am right among personal friends, here, & that a lecture which they would pronounce very fine, would be entirely likely to prove a shameful failure before an unbiased audience such as I would find in an eastern city or on board the Quaker City. I only claim that these citizens here call this a good lecture—I do not claim, myself, that it is. I am satisfied it would be pretty roughly criticised in an eastern town.

But one thing I know—there is no slang, & no inelegancies in it—& I never swore once., never once was guilty of profanity.1

My steamer ticket is bought (at least I insisted on buying it, but they would not take the money,) & I sail tomorrow, sure—& hope to reach New York about July 28 in the “Henry Chauncey.” I always stop at the N Westminster Hotel. Can’t you drop me a line there, or to Dan’s care—121 Wm. st.?

Saw our engineer, Harris, last night. He is just in, from around the Horn—is 1st assistant in the Japan—new steamer, & Oh, such a perfect palace of a ship. I do want to sail in her so badly. [ H ]She leaves for China shortly.2 Harris’s berth is a good one. I am going to introduce him to all the nabobs of the Pacific Mail Steamship Company & make them promise to keep him in service & promote him to a chiefship as soon as they can.3 Kind regards to all.

Yrs, ‸(on the isthmus,
when you get this,)‸

Sam L. Clemens.

Explanatory Notes | Textual Commentary

Editorial Signs

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1 Clemens’s lecture (on 2, not 3, July) was well received by the critics. The Dramatic Chronicle noted its “wit without vulgarity” and called it “a decided success.” The Californian reported, “The first part of the lecture was devoted to a graphic and concise history of the past Venice, which was summed up in a very able manner.... and during the latter part of his lecture—that describing modern Venice—he sprang all kinds of concealed jokes, drolleries, flashes of humor and sarcasm ... till the hall echoed with their cachinations.” Even the California Weekly Mercury, which had lambasted his April lecture for its “sacrilegious allusions” and “malignant distortions,” pronounced this performance “a fine affair, superior in many respects to his last—one or two words and one anecdote being all that could possibly be questioned” (“Mark Twain,” San Francisco Dramatic Chronicle, 3 July 68, 2; “Mark Twain’s Lecture,” Californian 8 [4 July 68]: 3; “Mark Twain,” San Francisco California Weekly Mercury 12 [5 July 68]: 4).

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2 In mid-April the Pacific Mail Steamship Company launched its new luxury steamer, the Japan, from New York. It arrived in San Francisco on 3 July after an eighty-two-day voyage around Cape Horn. A sidewheel steamer of 4,350 tons, with accommodations for over a thousand passengers, it was lavishly fitted out with black-walnut woodwork and furniture and decorated “in the most exquisite style of fresco; peach blossom, lavender, purple, pea green, constitute the principal colors, with gold ornamental work.” The Japan departed San Francisco for the Far East on 3 August with (among others) J. Ross Browne, American minister to China, and his family aboard (San Francisco Alta California: “The New Steamer ‘Japan,’” 24 Apr 68, 1; “Arrival of the ‘Japan,’” 4 July 68, 1; “Departure of the ‘Japan’—An Incident,” San Francisco Evening Bulletin, 3 Aug 68, 3).

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3 See the next letter.

Description of Texts and Provenance

Source text(s):

MS, Huntington Library, San Marino, Calif. (CSmH, call no. HM 14229).

Previous publication: L2, 234–235; MTMF, 33–34.

Provenance:see Huntington Library, p. 512.

Emendations and textual notes:

H • [partly formed]