23 August 1864
This sketch was published in the San Francisco Morning Call. Although it was not signed, Clemens referred to himself as “Mark Twain” in the sketch. In addition, he was demonstrably the author of “Sarrozay Letter from ‘the Unreliable’ ” (no. 86), which amounts to an early version of the present sketch, contains several passages taken nearly verbatim from it, and survives in the author's holograph.
Judging from the manuscript of the early version, Clemens may have offered it to the San Francisco Golden Era and, when it was refused, salvaged his material by printing the present version in the Call. On the other hand, he may have revised his manuscript for purely literary reasons. Perhaps he recognized the limitations of drunken humor, and decided that his material was suitable only for a short newspaper sketch and not for a longer one in the Era. After first composing the manuscript and signing it “Mark Twain,” he changed his mind and added the prefatory letter in which he interposed some distance between himself and the drunken letter writer. In the present sketch, Clemens extended that impulse by quoting only snippets of the drunken material, and by striking a familiar pose: the genteel “Moral Phenomenon,” who is “filled . . . with humiliation” by the letter he has received. The two versions provide an opportunity to observe the apprentice writer experimenting with drunken dialect, as well as with the proper scope of this humorous device. On the whole, the second sketch is superior in highlighting (without obscuring, through phonetic spelling) the drunken observer's maudlin and befuddled state of mind, in its controlled incoherence, and in its judgment about when to stop.
We have before us a letter from an intelligent correspondent, dated “Sarrozay, (San José?) Last Sunday;” we had previously ordered this correspondent to drop us a line, in case anything unusual should happen in San José during the period of his sojourn there. Now that we have got his chatty letter, however, we prefer, for reasons of our own, to make extracts from it, instead of publishing it in full. Considering the expense we were at in sending a special correspondent so far, we are sorry to be obliged to entertain such a preference. The very first paragraph in this blurred and scrawling letter pictured our friend's condition, and filled us with humiliation. It was abhorrent to us to think that we, who had so well earned and so proudly borne the appellation of “M. T., The Moral PhenomenonⒺexplanatory note,” should live to have such a letter addressed to us. It begins thus:
“Mr. Mark Twain—Sir: Sarrozay's beauriful place. Flowers—or maybe it's me—smells delishs—like sp-sp-sp(ic!)irits turpentineⒶemendation. Hiccups again. Don' mind them—had 'em three days.”
As we remarked before, it is very humiliating. So is the next paragraph:
“Full of newsper men—re porters. One from Alta, one from FlagⒶemendation, one from Bulletin, two from Morring Call, one from Sacramento Union, one from Carson Independent. And all drunk—all drunk but me. By Georshe! I'm stonished.”
The next paragraph is still worse:
“Been out to Leland of the Occidental, and Livingston in the Warrum Springs, and Steve, with four buggies and a horse, which is a sp-splennid place—splennid place.”
Here follow compliments to Nolan, Conductor of the morning train, for his kindness in allowing the writer to ride on the engine, where he could have “room to enjoy himself strong, you know,” and to the Engineer for his generosity in stopping at nearly every station to give people a “chance to come on board, you understand.” Then his wandering thoughts turn again affectionately to “Sarrozay” and its wonders:
“Sarrozay's lovely place. Shade trees all down both sides street, and in the middle and elsewhere, and gardens—second street back of Connental Hotel. With a new church in a tall scaffolding—I watched her an hour, but can't understand it. I don' see how they got her in—I don' see how they goin' to get her out. Corralled for good, praps. Hic! Them hiccups again. Comes from s-sociating with drunken beasts.”
Our special next indulges in some maudlin felicity over the prospect of riding back to the city in the night on the back of the fire-breathing locomotive, and this suggests to his mind a song which he remembers to have heard somewhere. That is all he remembers about it, though, for the finer details of its language appear to have caved into a sort of general chaos among his recollections.
“The bawr stood on the burring dock,Whence all but him had f-flowed—f-floored—f-fled—
The f'flumes that lit the rattle's back
Sh-shone round him o'er the shed—”
“I dono what's the marrer withat song. It don't appear to have any sense in it, somehow—but she used to be abou the fines' f-fusion—”
Soothing slumber overtook the worn and weary pilgrim at this point, doubtless, and the world may never know what beautiful thought it met upon the threshold and drove back within the portals of his brain, to perish in forgetfulness. After this effort, we trust the public will bear with us if we allow our special correspondent to rest from his exhausting labors for a season—a long season—say a year or two.
The first printing in the San Francisco Morning Call for 23 August 1864 (p. 1) is copy-text. Copies: clipping in Scrapbook 5, pp. 41–42, MTP; PH from Bancroft. The author's holograph of an earlier version survives (MS); it is published for the first time in this collection as “Sarrozay Letter from ‘the Unreliable’ ” (no. 86). Since Mark Twain copied portions of the earlier version into the present sketch, quoting them as parts of a “letter from an intelligent correspondent, dated ‘Sarrozay, (San José?) Last Sunday,’ ” it is tempting to regard the accidentals of the earlier manuscript as more authoritative than those of the Call printing where these coincide. But comparison of the manuscript with the Call version shows that Mark Twain extensively rewrote the quoted portions of his original letter, and study of the manuscript shows that even in the earlier version he was tinkering with the accidentals as well as the substantives of his text. Where the accidentals of the Call (written within days of the manuscript) vary from the accidentals of the holograph, the difference is therefore as likely to be the result of the author's deliberate choice as of the compositor's changes. The word “sp-sp-sp(ic!)irits” in the Call, for example, is just as likely to render Mark Twain's intention as the manuscript reading “sp—sp—sp(ic!)—irits.” We have therefore not emended from MS except to resolve doubtful readings in the Call. There are no textual notes.