The Autobiography of Mark Twain - Mark Twain (best english books to read .TXT) 📗

laws, he went off on a wild-goose chase to hunt for the mysterious cement mine; and how I went off nine miles to Walker River to nurse Captain John Nye through a violent case of spasmodic rheumatism or blind staggers, or some malady of the kind; and how Cal and I came wandering back into Esmeralda one night just in time to be too late to save our fortune from the jumpers.33

I will insert here this letter, and as it will not see the light until Higbie and I are in our graves, I shall allow myself the privilege of copying his punctuation and his spelling, for to me they are a part of the man. He is as honest as the day is long. He is utterly simple-minded and straightforward, and his spelling and his punctuation are as simple and honest as he is himself. He makes no apology for them, and no apology is needed. They plainly state that he is not educated, and they as plainly state that he makes no pretense to being educated.

Greenville, Plumas Co., California
March 15⁠—1906,

Saml. L. Clemens.
New York City,N.Y.

My Dear Sir⁠—

Two or three parties have ben after me to write up my recolections of Our associations in Nevada, in the early 60’s and have come to the conclusion to do so, and have ben jocting down incidents that came to mind, for several years. What I am in dout is, the date you came to Aurora, Nevada⁠—allso, the first trip you made over thee Sieras to California, after coming to Nev. allso as near as possable date, you tended sick man, on, or near Walker River, when our mine was jumped, dont think for a moment that I intend to steal any of your Thunder, but onely to mention some instances that you failed to mention, in any of your articles, Books etc. that I ever saw. I intend to submit the articles to you so that you can see if anything is objectionabl, if so to erase, same, and add anything in its place you saw fit.

I was burned out a few years since, and all old data, went up in smoke, is the reason I ask for above dates, have ben sick more or less for 2 or 3 years, unable to earn anything to speak of, and the finances are getting pretty low, and I will admit that it is mainly for the purpose of Earning a little money, that my first attempt at writing will be made- and I should be so pleased to have your candid opinion, of its merits, and what in your wisdom in such matters, would be its value for publication. I enclose a coppy of Herald in answer to enquiry I made, if such an article was desired.

Hoping to hear from you as soon as convenient, I remain with great respect,

Yours &c

C. H. Higbie.

[Copy.]

New York, Mar. 6⁠—’06

C. H. Higbie,
Greenville, Cal.

DrSir

I should be glad indeed to receive your account of your experiences with Mark Twain, if they are as interesting as I should imagine they would be the Herald would be quite willing to pay you verry well for them, of course, it would be impassible for me to set a price on the matter until I had an opertunity of examining it. If you will kindly send it on, with the privilege of our authenticating it through Mr. Clemens, I shall be more than pleased, to give you a quick decision and make you an offer as it seems worth to us. However, if you have any particular sum in mind which you think should be the price I would suggest that you communicate with me to that effect.

Yours truly

New York Herald,

By Geo. R. Miner.

Sunday Editor.

I have written Higbie and asked him to let me do his literary trading for him. He can shovel sand better than I can⁠—as will appear in the next chapter⁠—but I can beat him all to pieces in the art of fleecing a publisher.

Tuesday, March 27, 1906

Higbie’s spelling⁠—Mr. Clemens’s scheme for getting Higbie a job at the Pioneer⁠—In 1863 Mr. Clemens goes to Virginia City to be sole reporter on “Territorial Enterprise”⁠—Mr. Clemens tries his scheme for finding employment for the unemployed, on a young St. Louis reporter, with great success. Also worked the scheme for his nephew, Mr. Samuel E. Moffett.

I have allowed Higbie to assist the Herald man’s spelling and make it harmonize with his own. He has done it well and liberally and without prejudice.

To my mind he has improved it, for I have had an aversion to good spelling for sixty years and more, merely for the reason that when I was a boy there was not a thing I could do creditably except spell according to the book. It was a poor and mean distinction, and I early learned to disenjoy it. I suppose that this is because the ability to spell correctly is a talent, not an acquirement. There is some dignity about an acquirement, because it is a product of your own labor. It is wages earned, whereas to be able to do a thing merely by the grace of God, and not by your own effort, transfers the distinction to our heavenly home⁠—where possibly it is a matter of pride and satisfaction, but it leaves you naked and bankrupt.

Higbie was the first person to profit by my great and infallible scheme for finding work for the unemployed. I have tried that scheme, now and then, for forty-four years. So far as I am aware it has always succeeded, and it is one of my high prides that I invented it, and that in basing it upon what I conceived to be a fact of human nature I estimated that fact of human nature accurately.

Higbie and I were living in a cotton-domestic lean-to at the base of a mountain. It was very