t help it--in reality
I'm not as old as I was when I was eighteen.

Which was a true statement, so far as his general attitude was concerned.
At eighteen, in New York and Philadelphia, his letters had been grave,
reflective, advisory. Now they were mostly banter and froth, lightly
indifferent to the serious side of things, though perhaps only
pretendedly so, for the picture did look old. From the shock and
circumstance of his brother's death he--had never recovered. He was
barely twenty-eight. From the picture he might have been a man of forty.

It was that year that Artemus Ward (Charles F. Browne) came to Virginia
City. There was a fine opera-house in Virginia, and any attraction that
billed San Francisco did not fail to play to the Comstock. Ward intended
staying only a few days to deliver his lectures, but the whirl of the
Comstock caught him like a maelstrom, and he remained three weeks.

He made the Enterprise office his headquarters, and fairly reveled in the
company he found there. He and Mark Twain became boon companions. Each
recognized in the other a kindred spirit. With Goodman, De Quille, and
McCarthy, also E. E. Hingston--Ward's agent, a companionable fellow--they
usually dined at Chaumond's, Virginia's high-toned French restaurant.

Those were three memorable weeks in Mark Twain's life. Artemus Ward was
in the height of his fame, and he encouraged his new-found
brother-humorist and prophesied great things of him. Clemens, on his
side, measured himself by this man who had achieved fame, and perhaps
with good reason concluded that Ward's estimate was correct, that he too
could win fame and honor, once he got a start. If he had lacked ambition
before Ward's visit, the latter's unqualified approval inspired him with
that priceless article of equipment. He put his soul into entertaining
the visitor during those three weeks; and it was apparent to their
associates that he was at least Ward's equal in mental stature and
originality. Goodman and the others began to realize that for Mark Twain
the rewards of the future were to be measured only by his resolution and
ability to hold out. On Christmas Eve Artemus lectured in Silver City
and afterward came to the Enterprise office to give the boys a farewell
dinner. The Enterprise always published a Christmas carol, and Goodman
sat at his desk writing it. He was just finishing as Ward came in:

"Slave, slave," said Artemus. "Come out and let me banish care from