1 January 1863
“New Year's Day” is preserved in a clipping from the Virginia City Territorial Enterprise, pasted immediately below “More Ghosts” (no. 34). For evidence of Clemens' authorship, see the headnote to that piece.
“New Year's Day” must have appeared on 1 January 1863. Three days later the Enterprise local items column carried a very brief follow-up squib, almost certainly by Clemens as well, elaborating on the custom of “friendly calls”:
New Years Extension.—Yesterday was New Years Day for the ladies. We kept open house, and were called upon by seventy-two ladies—all young and handsome. This stunning popularity is pleasant to reflect upon, but we are afraid some people will think it prevented us from scouting for local matters with our usual avidity. This is a mistake; if anything had happened within the county limits yesterday, those ladies would have mentioned it.1
Now is the accepted time to make your regular annual good resolutions. Next week you can begin paving hell with them as usual. Yesterday, everybody smoked his last cigar, took his last drink, and swore his last oath. To-day, we are a pious and exemplary community. Thirty days from now, we shall have cast our reformation to the winds and gone to cutting our ancient shortcomings considerably shorter than ever. We shall also reflect pleasantly upon how we did the same old thing last year about this time. However, go in, community. New Year's is a harmless annual institution, of no particular use to anybody save as a scapegoat for promiscuous drunks, and friendly calls, and humbug resolutions, and we wish you to enjoy it with a looseness suited to the greatness of the occasion.
The first printing appeared in the Virginia City Territorial Enterprise, probably on 1 January 1863. The only known copy of this printing, in a clipping in Scrapbook 4, p. 34, MTP, is copy-text. There are no textual notes or emendations.