Mark Twain's Letters — Complete (1853-1910)Twain, Mark
General
Mark Twain's Letters — Complete (1853-1910)
Twain, Mark
Authors, American -- 19th century -- Correspondence; Twain, Mark, 1835-1910 -- Correspondence
Pamela, you wouldn't do for a local reporter--because you don't
appreciate the interest that attaches to names. An item is of no use
unless it speaks of some person, and not then, unless that person's name
is distinctly mentioned. The most interesting letter one can write, to
an absent friend, is one that treats of persons he has been acquainted
with rather than the public events of the day. Now you speak of a young
lady who wrote to Hollie Benson that she had seen me; and you didn't
mention her name. It was just a mere chance that I ever guessed who she
was--but I did, finally, though I don't remember her name, now. I was
introduced to her in San Francisco by Hon. A. B. Paul, and saw her
afterwards in Gold Hill. They were a very pleasant lot of girls--she and
her sisters.
P. S. I have just heard five pistol shots down street--as such things
are in my line, I will go and see about it.
P. S. No 2--5 A.M.--The pistol did its work well--one man--a Jackson
County Missourian, shot two of my friends, (police officers,) through
the heart--both died within three minutes. Murderer's name is John
Campbell.
The “Unreliable” of this letter was a rival reporter on whom Mark
Twain had conferred this name during the legislative session. His
real name was Rice, and he had undertaken to criticize Clemens's
reports. The brisk reply that Rice's letters concealed with a show
of parliamentary knowledge a “festering mass of misstatements the
author of whom should be properly termed the 'Unreliable,” fixed
that name upon him for life. This burlesque warfare delighted the
frontier and it did not interfere with friendship. Clemens and Rice
were constant associates, though continually firing squibs at each
other in their respective papers--a form of personal journalism much
in vogue on the Comstock.
In the next letter we find these two journalistic “blades” enjoying
themselves together in the coast metropolis. This letter is labeled
“No. 2,” meaning, probably, the second from San Francisco, but No. 1
has disappeared, and even No, 2 is incomplete.
To Mrs. Jane Clemens and Mrs. Moffett, in St. Louis:
No. 2--($20.00 Enclosed)
LICK HOUSE, S. F., June 1, '63.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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