5 February 1863
“Letter from Carson” survives in one of Mark Twain's scrapbooks in an undated clipping from the Virginia City Territorial Enterprise. Clemens' dateline (“Carson, Tuesday Night”) and his opening reference to the morning he arrived in Carson City (“Thursday Morning”) establish the date of writing as 3 February 1863 and the probable date of publication as February 5.
The letter falls into three parts: an opening section describing the fantastic adventures of Mark Twain and the Unreliable; a second section containing the chatty and relatively straightforward description of the wedding festivities; and finally, two factual paragraphs, omitted in the present text, about a court case and several recent mine incorporations.
The section on the Unreliable clearly continues the feud over the articles stolen from Mark Twain's trunk in Washoe City—a matter described in the previous sketch, “Letter from Carson City” (no. 40), which was published on Tuesday, February 3. However, in the present piece the dateline of the Unreliable's challenge letter is January 29, five days before sketch no. 40 was published. The Unreliable's letter may therefore allude to an earlier Enterprise article (now lost) which also described the stolen articles. Certainly these became a fairly constant theme of raillery between Clemens and Rice, and they may easily have done so before the February 3 letter.
On the other hand, it seems somewhat more likely that when writing the present letter, two days after the first one appeared in the Enterprise and while he was still in Carson City, Mark Twain simply got his fictional chronology confused. The “atrocious document” from the Unreliable was inadvertently dated before the publication of the letter to which it refers; the Unreliable's sarcastic allusion to “those valuables” and his challenge are [begin page 200] both answers to Mark Twain's request in sketch no. 40 that his adversary “return my valuables.”
The Unreliable's response to Mark Twain's counterchallenge to engage in “mortal combat with boot-jacks” employs a typical burlesque device: a brilliant concoction of the conventional rhetoric used by the stricken, desperate romantic, eager to embrace his tragic fate.
Carson, Tuesday Night.
Eds. Enterprise:—I received the following atrocious document the morning I arrived here. It is from that abandoned profligate, the Unreliable, and I think it speaks for itself:
Carson City, Thursday MorningⒶemendation.
To the Unreliable—Sir:—Observing the driver of the Virginia stage hunting after you this morning, in order to collect his fare, I infer you are in town.Ⓐemendation
In the paper which you represent, I noticed an article which I took to be an effusion of your muddled brain, stating that I had “cabbaged” a number of valuable articles from you the night I took you out of the streets in Washoe City and permitted you to occupy my bed.
I take this opportunity to inform you that I will compensate you at the rate of $20 per head for every one of those valuables that I received from you, providing you will relieve me of their presence. This offer can either be accepted or rejected on your part; but, providing you don't see proper to accept it, you had better procure enough lumber to make a box 4x8, and have it made as early as possible. Judge Dixson will arrange the preliminaries, if you don't accede. An early reply is expected by
Reliable.
Not satisfied with wounding my feelings by making the most extraordinary references to allusionsⒶtextual note in the above note, he even sent me a challenge to fight, in the same envelop with it, hoping to work upon my fears and drive me from the country by intimidation. But I was not to be frightened; I shall remain in the Territory. I guessed his [begin page 202] object at once, and determined to accept his challenge, choose weapons and things, and scare him, instead of being scared myself. I wrote a stern reply to him, and offered him mortal combat with boot-jacks at a hundred yards. The effect was more agreeable than I could have hoped for. His hair turned black in a single night, from excess of fear; then he went into a fit of melancholy, and while it lasted he did nothing but sigh, and sob, and snuffle, and slobber, and blow his nose on his coat-tail, and say “he wished he was in the quiet tomb;” finally, he said he would commit suicide—he would say farewellⒶemendation to the cold, cold world, with its cares and troublesⒺexplanatory note, and go and sleep with his fathersⒺexplanatory note,Ⓐemendation in perdition. Then rose up this young man, and threw his demijohn out of the window, and took a glass of pure water, and drained it to the very, very dregsⒺexplanatory note. And then he fell on the floor in spasms. Dr. TjaderⒺexplanatory note was called in, and as soon as he found that the cuss was poisoned, he rushed down to the Magnolia SaloonⒺexplanatory note and got the antidote, and poured it down him. As he was drawing his last breath, he scented the brandy and lingered yet a while upon the earth, to take a drink with the boys. But for this, he would have been no more —and possibly a good deal less—in another moment.Ⓐemendation So he survived; but he has been in a mighty precarious condition ever since. I have been up to see how he was getting along two or three times a day. He is very low; he lies there in silence, and hour after hour he appears to be absorbed in tracing out the figures in the wall paper. He is not changed in the least, though; his face looks just as natural as anything could be—there is no more expression in it than a turnip. But he is a very sick man; I was up there a while ago, and I could see that his friends had begun to entertain hopes that he would not get over it. As soon as I saw that, all my enmity vanished; I even felt like doing the poor Unreliable a kindness, and showing him, too, how my feelings towards him had changed. So I went and bought him a beautiful coffin, and carried it up and set it down on his bed, and told him to climb in when his time was up. Well, sir, you never saw a man so affected by a little act of kindness as he was by that. He let off a sort of war-whoop, and went to kicking things around like a crazy man; and he foamed at the mouth, and went out of one fit and into another faster than I could take them down in my note-book. I have got thirteen down, though, and I know he must have had two or three before I could find my pencil. I actually believe he would have had a thou- [begin page 203] sand , if that old fool who nurses him hadn't thrown the coffin out of the window, and threatened to serve me in the same way if I didn't leave. I left, of course, under the circumstances, and I learn that although the patient was getting better a moment before this circumstance, he got a good deal worse immediately afterward. They say he lies in a sort of a stupor now, and if they cannot rally him, he is gone in, as it were. They may take their own course now, though, and use their own judgment. I shall not go near them again, although I think I could rally him with another coffin.
I did not return to Virginia yesterday, on account of the wedding. The parties were Hon. James H. SturtevantⒺexplanatory note, one of the first Pi-Utes of NevadaⒺexplanatory note, and Miss Emma Curry, daughter of Hon. A. CurryⒺexplanatory note, who also claims that his is a Pi-Ute family of high antiquity. Curry conducted the wedding arrangements himself, and invited none but Pi-Utes. This interfered with me a good deal. However,Ⓐemendation as I had heard it reported that a marriage was threatened, I felt it my duty to go down there and find out the facts in the case. They said I might stay, as it was me; the permission was unnecessary, though—I calculated to do that anyhowⒶtextual note Ⓐemendation. I promised not to say anything about the wedding, and I regard that promise as sacred—my word is as good as my bond. At three o'clock in the afternoon, all the Pi-Utes went up stairs to the old Hall of Representatives in Curry's houseⒺexplanatory note, precededⒶemendation by the bride and groom, and the bridesmaids and groomsmen (Miss Jo. Perkins and Miss MettieⒶemendation CurryⒶtextual note, and Hon. John H. MillsⒺexplanatory note and Wm. M.Ⓐemendation Gillespie,) and followed by myself and the fiddlers. The fiddles were tuned up, three quadrille sets were formed on the floor. Father BennettⒺexplanatory note advanced and touched off the high contracting parties with the hymenealⒶemendation torch (married them, you know), and at the word of command from Curry, the fiddle-bows were set in motion, and the plain quadrilles turned loose. Thereupon, some of the most responsible dancing ensued that you ever saw in your life. The dance that Tam O'Shanter witnessedⒺexplanatory note was slow in comparison to it. They kept it up for six hours, and then they carried out the exhausted musicians on a shutter, and went down to supper. I know they had a fine supper, and plenty of it, but I do not know much else. They drank so much shampain around me that I got confused, and lost the hang of things, as it were. Mills, and Musser, and Sturtevant, and Curry, got to making speeches, and I got to looking at the bride and bridesmaids—they looked uncommonly hand- [begin page 204] some —and finally I fell into a sort of trance. When I recovered from it the brave musicians were all right again, and the dance was ready to commence. They went to slinging plain quadrilles around as lively as ever, and never rested again until nearly midnight, when the dancers all broke down and the party broke up. It was all mighty pleasant, and jolly, and sociable, and I wish to thunder I was married myself. I took a large slab of the bridal cake home with me to dream on, and dreampt that I was still a single man, and likely to remain so, if I live and nothing happens—which has given me a greater confidence in dreams than I ever felt before. I cordially wish my newly-married couple all kinds of happiness and posterity, though.
Mark Twain.Ⓐemendation
The first printing appeared in the Virginia City Territorial Enterprise, probably on 5 February 1863. The only known copy of this printing, in a clipping in Scrapbook 4, pp. 12–13, MTP, is copy-text. The whole of the letter is not reprinted here; for the omitted section, see MTEnt , pp. 56–57.