New (Old) Mark Twain Found in Bancroft Scraps
New letters by Mark Twain are found with some frequency by the editors of the Mark Twain Project, sometimes without ever leaving the county (see Bancroftiana, Spring 1999, p. 13).
It is much rarer, however, to find lost texts of anything Mark Twain published in the Virginia City Territorial Enterprise because no file of that paper survives, the last having perished in the earthquake of 1906.
It therefore seems to us an event worth gloating over that Associate Editor Richard Bucci recently found two such clippings, and that he performed this feat without ever leaving The Bancroft Library!
While working on a volume of Mark Twain's journalism and short fiction (due out next year), Bucci decided to look through Bancroft Scraps — a series of scrapbooks containing newspaper clippings assembled for Hubert Howe Bancroft. These scrapbooks have been part of the library since Bancroft sold his collection to the University at the turn of the century, and researchers have certainly perused them many times before, looking for just this kind of lost gem. That editor Bucci had the patience and optimism to re-examine the scrapbooks speaks to the caliber of research performed routinely on the fourth floor of Bancroft.
In any case, he found two long sections from Enterprise letters published about a month apart, on 23 January and 22 February 1866. Neither clipping had the author's signature intact (H.H. Bancroft was interested in publicity about his forthcoming book of poems, not in preserving works of the young San Francisco journalist who signed himself Mark Twain). But other evidence makes it quite clear that both clippings are from Mark Twain's San Francisco correspondence with the Enterprise — a series of daily letters in 1865 and 1866 comprising some 300,000 words, less than 30 percent of which has survived in any form. Neither letter was ever collected or reprinted in Mark Twain's lifetime, nor has any modern collection ever included them. Here is the first clipping, which editor Bucci said he felt privileged to be the first person since at least 1906 to read and recognize as Mark Twain's:
SAN FRANCISCO LETTER.
[FROM OUR RESIDENT CORRESPONDENT.]
SAN FRANCISCO, January 18.
A RIGHTEOUS JUDGE.
Judge Rix decides that the word "bilk" is obscene, and has fined a man for using it. He ought to have hanged him; but considering that he had not power to do that, and considering that he punished him as severely as the law permitted him to do, we should all be satisfied, and enter a credit mark in our memories for Judge Rix. That word is in all our dictionaries, and is by all odds the foulest one there. Its sound is against it — just as the reader's countenance is against him, perhaps, or just as the face or voice of many a man we meet is against the owner, and repels a stranger. The word was popular a hundred years ago, and then it meant swindling, or defrauding, and was applicable to all manner of cheating. Having such a wide significance, perhaps its disgusting sound was forgiven it in consideration of its services. But it went out of date — became obsolete, and slept for nearly a century. And then it woke up ten years ago a different word — a superannuated word shorn of every virtue that made it respectable. The hoary verb woke up in a bawdyhouse after its Rip Van Winkle sleep of three generations and found itself essentially vulgar and obscene, in that it had but one solitary significance, and that described the defrauding a harlot of the wages she has earned. Since then its jurisdiction has been enlarged somewhat, but nothing can refine it — nothing can elevate it; it is permanently disgraced; it will never get rid of the odor of the bawdyhouse. The decision of Judge Rix closes respectable lips against its utterance and banishes it to the domain of prostitution, where it belongs. Depart in peace, proscribed Bilk!
THE RIGHTEOUS SHALL NOT BE FORGOTTEN.
Not while Bancroft publisheth, at any rate. He is going to render justice unto all that legion of Californian poets who were defrauded of fame in being left out of "Outcroppings." The number thus wronged has been estimated at eighteen hundred. Bancroft, with a hardihood that commands our admiration and a spirit of enterprise which is a credit to California, is going to publish a book wherein all these poets may sing. Each of them will be allowed a space not exceeding a hundred lines — a page, say. Eighteen hundred pages! — nine volumes of California poetry! Think of it! In poesy California will advance to the front — to the head of the nation, at a single stride! A litter of nine volumes of "purp-stuff " at a single birth! Can the country stand it? Pray Heaven the Genius of California Literature die not in the pains of labor. This enterprise is eminently Californian, and will be encouraged. We cannot bear to see things done in a mild and unassuming way, here; we delight in dash, boldness, startling effects. We take no pride in anything we do unless it be something that will knock the wind out of the world for a moment and make it stand appalled before us. We like to hear the nations say, "There is no mistaking where that thunderbolt hails from — that's California, all over!" You will see them hunt their holes when this inundation of "purp-stuff " floods the land. They will say, "Away with your little Outcroppings! — away with your little penny primer of nursery rhymes! — this thing has got the California ear-marks on it!"
Bancroft's book will be issued June 1st. The eighteen hundred must send in their offerings early in March — all who delay beyond that time will be ruled out again. But you needn't be afraid — they will all be on time. These are the fellows who can jerk you four columns of poetry in a single night.
I am told that Mr. Henry Bush, the daguerrean artist, has already sent in several extracts from his fine epic — his famed "Harp of the Day" — and also a graceful sonnet or so. Fitz Smythe has contributed his stately anthem, "Gone! Gone! Gone!" written in a lucid moment just subsequent to the assassination of the President. That other gifted, but shamefully neglected Alta poet, "K," has offered his noble verses entitled, "Steamer Out at Sea," which he wrote that time the Golden City was missing for fifteen days. Emperor Norton is a contributor.
Pittsinger is a contributor. Mr. Bloggs, of the Call, is a contributor. The Flag poets are contributors. I am a contributor. Bancroft has secured the services of an editor for his book who is entirely "uncommitted to any clique;" who is impartial and will judge dispassionately all productions submitted to him. If a poem possesses any merit he will insert it. If it possesses none, he will reject it with tears and lamentation.
Come on, you sniveling thieves! Fall into ranks and blast away with your rotten poetry at an unoffending people! Do your worst and vamose — scatter — git! Say your say and then stop your yowling forevermore!
Robert Hirst is Curator of the Mark Twain
Papers and General Editor of Bancroft's
Mark Twain Project.
Volume 115
Fall 1999
Table of Contents
Bancroft's Marvelous Medieval French Manuscripts
From the Director: Biotech at Bancroft
Cataloging the Teatro Español Collection
New (Old) Mark Twain Found in Bancroft Scraps
Eleanor Swent Puts Her Mining Expertise to Work
Russian Emigré Wins First Hill-Shumate Prize
Theresa Salazar Is New Curator for Bancroft Collection
New Oral History Catalog Covers Two Decades
Second Chronicle Salutes UC Women Since 1870
Desiderata: Coffee, Tea, and Chocolate
