d intended remaining but a few days, but lingered three weeks,
a period of continuous celebration, closing only with the holiday
season. During one night of final festivities, Ward slipped away
and gave a performance on his own account. His letter to Mark
Twain, from Austin, Nevada, written a day or two later, is most
characteristic.

Artemus Ward's letter to Mark Twain:

AUSTIN, Jan. 1, '64.

MY DEAREST LOVE,--I arrived here yesterday a.m. at 2 o'clock. It is a
wild, untamable place, full of lionhearted boys. I speak tonight. See
small bills.

Why did you not go with me and save me that night?--I mean the night I
left you after that dinner party. I went and got drunker, beating, I may
say, Alexander the Great, in his most drinkinist days, and I blackened
my face at the Melodeon, and made a gibbering, idiotic speech. God-dam
it! I suppose the Union will have it. But let it go. I shall always
remember Virginia as a bright spot in my existence, as all others must
or rather cannot be, as it were.

Love to Jo. Goodman and Dan. I shall write soon, a powerfully convincing
note to my friends of "The Mercury." Your notice, by the way, did much
good here, as it doubtlessly will elsewhere. The miscreants of the
Union will be batted in the snout if they ever dare pollute this rapidly
rising city with their loathsome presence.

Some of the finest intellects in the world have been blunted by liquor.

Do not, sir--do not flatter yourself that you are the only
chastely-humorous writer onto the Pacific slopes.

Good-bye, old boy--and God bless you! The matter of which I spoke to you
so earnestly shall be just as earnestly attended to--and again with
very many warm regards for Jo. and Dan., and regards to many of the good
friends we met.

I am Faithfully, gratefully yours,
ARTEMUS WARD.

The Union which Ward mentions was the rival Virginia. City paper;
the Mercury was the New York Sunday Mercury, to which he had urged
Mark Twain to contribute. Ward wrote a second letter, after a siege
of illness at Salt Lake City. He was a frail creature, and three
years later, in London, died of consumption. His genius and
encouragement undoubtedly exerted an influence upon Mark Twain.
Ward's second letter here follows.

Artemus Ward to S. L. Clem