Fragment of a letter from Sam L. Clemens to his sister Pamela Moffett, in St. Louis, summer of 1853:
From the gallery (second floor) you have a glorious sight the flags of the different countries represented, the lofty dome, glittering jewelry, gaudy tapestry, &c., with the busy crowd passing to and fro tis a perfect fairy palace beautiful beyond description.
The Machinery department is on the main floor, but I cannot enumerate any of it on account of the lateness of the hour (past 8 oclock.) It would take more than a week to examine everything on exhibition; and as I was only in a little over two hours tonight, I only glanced at about one-third of the articles; and having a poor memory; I have enumerated scarcely any of even the principal objects. The visitors to the Palace average 6,000 daily double the population of Hannibal. The price of admission being 50 cents, they take in about $3,000.
The Latting Observatory (height about 280 feet) is near the Palace from it you can obtain a grand view of the city and the country round. The Croton Aqueduct, to supply the city with water, is the greatest wonder yet. Immense sewers are laid across the bed of the Hudson River, and pass through the country to Westchester county, where a whole river is turned from its course, and brought to New York. From the reservoir in the city to the Westchester county reservoir, the distance is thirty-eight miles! and if necessary, they could supply every family in New York with one hundred barrels of water per day!
I am very sorry to learn that Henry has been sick. He ought to go to the country and take exercise; for he is not half so healthy as Ma thinks he is. If he had my walking to do, he would be another boy entirely. Four times every day I walk a little over one mile; and working hard all day, and walking four miles, is exercise I am used to it, now, though, and it is no trouble. Where is it Orions going to? Tell Ma my promises are faithfully kept, and if I have my health I will take her to Ky. in the spring I shall save money for this. Tell Jim and all the rest of them to write, and give me all the news. I am sorry to hear such bad news from Will and Captain Bowen. I shall write to Will soon. The Chatham-square Post Office and the Broadway office too, are out of my way, and I always go to the General Post Office; so you must write the direction of my letters plain, New York City, N. Y., without giving the street or anything of the kind, or they may go to some of the other offices. (It has just struck 2 A.M. and I always get up at 6, and am at work at 7.) You ask me where I spend my evenings. Where would you suppose, with a free printers library containing more than 4,000 volumes within a quarter of a mile of me, and nobody at home to talk to? I shall write to Ella soon. Write soon,
Truly your Brother,
Sam.
P. S. I have written this by a light so dim that you nor Ma could not read by it.
He was lodging in a mechanics cheap boarding-house in Duane Street, and we may imagine the bareness of his room, the feeble poverty of his lamp.
Tell Ma my promises are faithfully kept. It was the day when he had left Hannibal. His mother, Jane Clemens, a resolute, wiry woman of forty-nine, had put together his few belongings. Then, holding up a little Testament:
I want you to take hold of the end of this, Sam, she said, and make me a promise. I want you to repeat after me these words: I do solemnly swear that I will not throw a card, or drink a drop of liquor while I am gone.
It was this oath, repeated after her, that he was keeping faithfully. The Will Bowen mentioned is a former playmate, one of Tom Sawyers outlaw band. He had gone on the river to learn piloting with an elder brother, the Captain. What the bad news was is no longer remembered, but it could not have been very serious, for the Bowen boys remained on the river for many years. Ella was Samuel Clemenss cousin and one-time sweetheart, Ella Creel. Jim was Jim Wolfe, an apprentice in Orions office, and the hero of an adventure which long after Mark Twain wrote under the title of, Jim Wolfe and the Cats.
There is scarcely a hint of the future Mark Twain in this early letter. It is the letter of a boy of seventeen who is beginning to take himself rather seriously who, finding himself for the first time far from home and equal to his own responsibilities, is willing to carry the responsibility of others. Henry, his brother, three years younger, had been left in the printing-office with Orion, who, after a long, profitless fight, is planning to remove from Hannibal. The young traveler is concerned as to the family outlook, and will furnish advice if invited. He feels the approach of prosperity, and will take his mother on a long-coveted trip to her old home in the spring. His evenings? Where should he spend them, with a free library of four thousand volumes close by? It is distinctly a youthful letter, a bit pretentious, and wanting in the spontaneity and humor of a later time. It invites comment, now, chiefly because it is the first surviving document in the long human story.
He was working in the printing-office of John A. Gray and Green, on Cliff Street, and remained there through the summer. He must have written more than once during this period, but the next existing letter also to Sister Pamela was written in October. It is perhaps a shade more natural in tone than the earlier example, and there is a hint of Mark Twain in the first paragraph.
To Mrs. Moffett, in St. Louis:
New York, Oct. Saturday 53.
My dear sister, I have not written to any of the family for some time, from the fact, firstly, that I didnt know where they were, and secondly, because I have been fooling myself with the idea that I was going to leave New York every day for the last two weeks. I have taken a liking to the abominable place, and every time I get ready to leave, I put it off a day or so, from some unaccountable cause. It is as hard on my conscience to leave New York, as it was easy to leave Hannibal. I think I shall get off Tuesday, though.
Edwin Forrest has been playing, for the last sixteen days, at the Broadway Theatre, but I never went to see him till last night. The play was the Gladiator. I did not like parts of it much, but other portions were really splendid. In the latter part of the last act, where the Gladiator (Forrest) dies at his brothers feet, (in all the fierce pleasure of gratified revenge,) the mans whole soul seems absorbed in the part he is playing; and it is really startling to see him. I am sorry I did not see him play Damon and Pythias the former character being his greatest. He appears in Philadelphia on Monday night.
I have not received a letter from home lately, but got a Journal the other day, in which I see the office has been sold. I suppose Ma, Orion and Henry are in St. Louis now. If Orion has no other project in his head, he ought to take the contract for getting out some weekly paper, if he cannot get a foremanship. Now, for such a paper as the Presbyterian (containing about 60,000,[Sixty thousand ems, type measurement.]) he could get $20 or $25 per week, and he and Henry could easily do the work; nothing to do but set the type and make up the forms.
If my letters do not come often, you need not bother yourself about me; for if you have a brother nearly eighteen years of age, who is not able to take care of himself a few miles from home, such a brother is not worth ones thoughts: and if I dont manage to take care of No. 1, be assured you will never know it. I am not afraid, however; I shall ask favors from no one, and endeavor to be (and shall be) as independent as a wood-sawyers clerk.