To Jane Lampton Clemens and Pamela A. Moffett
18 July 1863 • Virginia City, Nev. Terr.
(MS, damage emended: CU-MARK, UCCL 00069)

No. 10—$20 enclosed

Virginia, July 18.

My Dear Mother & Sister

Ma, [you] are slinging insinuations at me again. Such as “where did I get the [money!?]” and “the company I kept” in San Francisco.” Why I sold “wildcat” mining ground that was given me, & my credit was always good at the bank for two or three thousands dollars, & is yet. I never gamble, in any shape or manner, and never drink anything stronger than claret or lager beer, which conduct is regarded as miraculously temperate in this country. As for my company, Ma, I went into the very best society to be found in San Francisco, & to do that, you must know, of course, that I had to keep myself [ my mighty ]straight. I also keep move in the best Society of Virginia, & actually have a [ reputation ] to preserve.

As for money, I manage to make a living, but if I had any business tact, the office of reporter here would be worth $30,000 a year—whereas, if I get 4 or $5,000 out of it, it will be as much as I expect. I have stock in my possession, which, if I had sold when it was first given me, from time to time, [ wou in ]the [last months], would have brought me $10,000—but I have carelessly let it go down to nothing again. I don’t think I am any account, anyhow. Now, I raised the price of “North Ophir” from [$13 a foot] to $45 a foot, to-day, & [they gave] me five feet.1 That will go the [way of] all the rest. I shall probably mislay it or throw it in my trunk & never get a dollar out of it. But I am telling you too many secrets, & I’ll stop. One more. [ I A ]gentleman in San Francisco told me to call at his office, & he would give me five feet of “Overman.” Well, do you know I never went after it? The stock is worth $40000 a foot, now—$2,000 thrown away.2 I don’t care a straw, for myself, but I ought to have had more thought for you. Never mind, though, Ma—I will be more careful in future. I will take care that your expenses are [paid.—] sure.

You and Pamela only pay $8 a week apiece for board (& lodging too?) Well, you are not in a very expensive part of the world, certainly. [ I My ]room-mate & I pay, together, $70 a month for our bedchamber, & $50 a month, each, for board, besides.3 Put in my washing, & it costs me $100 a month to live.

Affectionately,

Mark 4

Explanatory Notes | Textual Commentary

Editorial Signs

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1 The North Ophir mine was located in the Argentine district in Washoe County, near Virginia City. The price for North Ophir stock in fact rose from $20 asked/$12 bid on 15 July to $45 asked/$23 bid on 18 July (“Stock Market,” Virginia City Evening Bulletin, 15 and 18 July 63, 2). It is not known whether Clemens wrote an item on 18 July for the Enterprise puffing the North Ophir, for the paper of that date is not extant. But the next day, 19 July, he wrote to the San Francisco Morning Call:

The “North Ophir” is coming into favor again. As nuggets of pure silver as large as pieces of chalk were found in liberal quantities in the ledge, the mine was pronounced “salted,” and the stock fell from $60 to $13 a foot. However, during the last day or two a hundred experienced miners have examined the claim, and laughed at the idea of its having been salted. . . . Their testimony has removed the stain from the North Ophir’s character, and the stock has already begun to recover. (SLC 1863, 1)

A charge that the North Ophir was salted with melted half-dollars had been made by the Virginia City Evening Bulletin on 6 July (“Fluctuations of North Ophir,” 2). Clemens later admitted this to be the fact in a letter of 11 October 1869 to the New York Society of California Pioneers (New York Tribune, 14 Oct 69, 5, in MTL, 1:163–65) and in chapter 44 of Roughing It.

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2 Clemens gives a different account of this missed opportunity in chapter 44 of Roughing It:

I met three friends one afternoon, who said they had been buying “Overman” stock at auction at eight dollars a foot. One said if I would come up to his office he would give me fifteen feet; another said he would add fifteen; the third said he would do the same. But I was going after an inquest and could not stop. A few weeks afterward they sold all their “Overman” at six hundred dollars a foot and generously came around to tell me about it—and also to urge me to accept of the next forty-five feet of it that people tried to force on me.

The Overman was a productive mine on the Comstock lode in the Gold Hill district of Storey County. Clemens’s claim about the value of its stock was accurate: the bid price had risen from $150 to $400 between 6 and 16 July (“Stock Market,” Virginia City Evening Bulletin, 6 July 63, 2, and 16 July 63, 3).

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3 Clemens was living at the White House, a recently completed, “most elegantly furnished” boardinghouse on B Street, “perhaps one of the best finished buildings in the city” (“Large Conflagration—Loss About $30,000,” Virginia City Evening Bulletin, 27 July 63, 3; Kelly 1863, 293). It was managed by Mrs. C. A. Williamson, whom Clemens had earlier known and liked as the proprietor of the Carson City White House (ET&S1, 397; Kelly 1862, 91). Two of Clemens’s acquaintances, Clement T. Rice (the Unreliable) and William M. Gillespie, also lived at the White House. It is not known which of the two was his roommate.

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4 The earliest extant private use of this signature, which also appears on the next two letters, to Jane Clemens and Pamela Moffett. Clemens’s family may have objected to the pseudonym, for “Mark” does not reoccur until 20 January 1866.

Description of Texts and Provenance

Source text(s):

MS, Mark Twain Papers, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley (CU-MARK). The MS consists of a folder of off-white onionskin faintly lined in blue, 8 3/16 by 10½ inches (20.8 by 26.8 cm), inscribed on first and fourth pages only in black ink. The MS is reproduced in Photographs and Manuscript Facsimiles.

Previous publication: L1, 259–261; MTB, 1:233, 234, excerpts.

Provenance:probably Moffett Collection; see p. 462.

Emendations and textual notes:

you • y you [‘y’ over partly formed, possibly miswritten ‘y’]

money!? • [question mark over exclamation point]

my mighty • myighty [‘i’ over ‘y’]

reputation • [broken underscore]

wou in • [‘in’ over ‘wou’]

last months • [an ink blot covers possible ‘2’ or ‘3’]

$13 a foot • $13 | [ f]oot [torn]

they gave • they | [v]e [torn]

way of • wa[y] of [torn]

I A • [‘A’ over ‘I’]

paid.— • [dash over period]

I My • [‘M’ over ‘I’]