Explanatory Notes
Apparatus Notes
MTPDocEd
[begin page 183]
37. The Sanitary Ball
10 January 1863

“The Sanitary Ball” filled two-thirds of Clemens' local items column in the Virginia City Territorial Enterprise for Saturday, 10 January 1863. A complete copy of that day's paper is preserved in the library of the Nevada Historical Society at Reno.1

The United States Sanitary Commission was founded in 1861 and was headed by Henry W. Bellows, whom Clemens came to know and admire in San Francisco in 1864. Its objective during the Civil War years was to help sick and wounded Union soldiers, and for this purpose local branches of the organization held auctions, promoted fairs, and gave balls to raise money.2 The commission held a Virginia City ball on Thursday, January 8; Clemens had publicized the event in his local column as early as Sunday, January 4. His methods seem somewhat unorthodox, for although he was obviously trying to boost attendance, he did so by ironically predicting failure:

To be present and see such a phenomenon, would be well worth the price of the ticket—six dollars, supper included. Wherefore, we advise every citizen of Storey to go to the ball—early—and stand ready to enjoy the joke. The fun to be acquired in this way, for a trifling sum of money, cannot be computed by any system of mathematics known to the present generation. And the more the merrier. We all know that a thousand people can enjoy that failure more extensively than a smaller number.3

It is unclear what kind of failure Clemens had in mind. But he was apparently alluding to his own mock prediction when he wrote the first sentence and the last paragraph of “The Sanitary Ball.”

[begin page 184]

The six-dollar ticket for the ball included late supper at the What Cheer House on South B Street as well as dancing at the spacious La Plata Hall across the way. Mr. Unger, proprietor of the What Cheer House, had contributed tableware and waiters' services for the event, and Clemens concluded his January 4 notice of the forthcoming ball with an appeal for matching contributions:

This generosity—this liberality in a noble cause—calls for a second from somebody. Get your contributions ready—money, wines, cakes, and knicknacks and substantials of all kinds—and when the ladies call for them, deliver your offerings with a grace and dignity graduated by the market value of the same, the condition of your pecuniary affairs, and the sympathy you feel for maimed and suffering humanity. The ladies may be looked for to-morrow.4

Editorial Notes
1 The sketch was first identified as Clemens' work by William C. Miller, “Mark Twain at the Sanitary Ball—and Elsewhere?” California Historical Society Quarterly 36 (1957): 35–40.
2  MTVC , pp. 186–187, 194.
3 Virginia City Territorial Enterprise, 4 January 1863, Scrapbook 1, p. 66, MTP.
4 Virginia City Territorial Enterprise, 4 January 1863, Scrapbook 1, p. 66, MTP.
Textual Commentary

The first printing appeared in the Virginia City Territorial Enterprise for 10 January 1863 (p. 3). The only known copy of this printing, in a newspaper at the library of the Nevada Historical Society at Reno, is copy-text. Copy: PH from the Nevada Historical Society. The newspaper has been torn and water stained, which results in an unusual number of doubtful readings. There are no textual notes.

[begin page 185]
The Sanitary Ball

The Sanitary Ball at La Plata Hall on Thursday night was a very marked success, and proved beyond the shadow of a doubt, the correctness of our theory, that ladies never fail in undertakings of this kind. If there had been about two dozen more people there, the house would have been crowded—as it was, there was room enough on the floor for the dancers, without trespassing on their neighbors' corns. Several of those long, trailing dresses, even, were under fire in the thickest of the fight for six hours, and came out as free from rips and rents as they were when they went in. Not all of them, though. We recollect a circumstance in point. We had just finished executing one of those inscrutable figures of the plain quadrille; we were feeling unusually comfortable, because we had gone through the performance as well as anybody could have done it, except that we had wandered a little toward the last; in fact, we had wandered out of our own and into somebody else's setexplanatory note—but that was a matter of small consequence, as the new locality was as good as the old one, and we were used to that sort of thing anyhow. We were feeling comfortable, and we had assumed an attitude—we have a sort of talent for posturing—a pensive attitude, copied from the Colossus of Rhodes—when the ladies were ordered to the centre. Two of them got there, and the other two moved off gallantly, but they failed to make the connection. They suddenly broached to under full headway, and there was a sound of parting canvas. Their dresses were anchored under our boots, you know. It was unfortunate, but it could not be helped. Those two [begin page 186] beautiful pink dresses let go amidships, and remained in a ripped and damaged condition to the end of the ball. We did not apologize, because our presence of mind happened to be absent at the very moment that we had theemendation greatest need of it. But we beg permission to do so now.

An excellent supper was served in the large dining-room of the new What Cheer House, on B street. We missed it there, somewhat. We were not accompanied by a lady, and consequently we were not eligible to a seat at the first table. We found out all about that at the Gold Hill ballexplanatory note, and we had intended to be prepared for this one. We engaged a good many young ladies last Tuesday to go with us, thinking that out of the lot we should certainly be able to secure one, at the appointed time, but they all seemed to have got a little angry about something—nobody knows what, for the ways of women are past finding out. They told us we had better go and invite a thousand girls to go to the ball. A thousand. Why, it was absurd. We had no use for a thousand girls. A thou—but those girls were as crazy as loons. In every instance, after they had uttered that pointless suggestion, they marched magnificently out of their parlors—and if you will believe us, not one of them ever recollected to come back again. Why, it was the most unaccountable circumstance we ever heard of. We never enjoyed so much solitude in so many different places, in one evening, before. But patience has its limits; we finally got tired of that arrangement—and at the risk of offending some of those girls, we stalked off to the Sanitary Ball alone—without a virgin, out of that whole litter. We may have done wrong—we probably did do wrong to disappoint those fellows in that kind of style—but how could we help it? We couldn't stand the temperature of those parlors more than an hour at a time: it was cold enough to freeze out the heaviest stockholderemendation on the Gould & Curry's booksexplanatory note.

However, as we remarked before, everybodyemendation spoke highly of the supper, and we believeemendation they meant what they said. We are unable to say anything in the matter from personal knowledge, except that the tables were arranged with excellent taste, and more than abundantly supplied, and everything looked very beautiful, and very inviting, also; but then we had absorbed so much cold weather in those parlors, and had had so much trouble with those girls, that we had no appetite left. We only eat a boiled ham and some pies, and went back to [begin page 187] the ball room. There were some very handsome cakes on the tables, manufactured by Mr. Slade, and decorated with patriotic mottoes, done in fancy icing. All those who were happy that evening, agree that the supper wasemendation superb.

After supper the dancing was jolly. They keptemendation it up till four in the morning, and the guestsemendation enjoyed themselves excessively. All theemendation dances were performed, and the bill of fareemendation wound up with a new style of plain quadrilleemendation called a medley, which involved the whole list. It involved us also. But we got out again—and we staid out, with great sagacity. But speaking of plain quadrilles reminds us of another new one—the Virginia reel. We found it a very easy matter to dance it, as long as we had thirty or forty lookers-on to prompt us. The dancers are formed in two long ranks, facing each other, and the battle opens with some light skirmishing between the pickets, which is gradually resolved into a general engagement along the whole line; after that, you have nothing to do but stand by and grab every lady that drifts within reach of you, and swing her. It is very entertaining, and elaborately scientific also; but we observed that with a partner who had danced it before, we were able to perform it rather better than the balance of the guests.

Altogether, the Sanitary ball was a remarkably pleasant party, and we are glad that such was the case—for it is a very uncomfortable task to be obliged to say harsh things about entertainments of this kind. At the present writing we cannot say what the net proceeds of the ball will amount to, but they will doubtless reach quite a respectable figure—say $400.

Editorial Emendations The Sanitary Ball
  the (I-C)  ●  [th]e
  stockholder (I-C)  ●  stock- | holder
  everybody (I-C)  ●  everybod[y] torn
  believe (I-C)  ●  belie[v]e torn
  was (I-C)  ●  [w]as torn
  kept (I-C)  ●  [ ]ept torn
  guests (I-C)  ●  [u]ests torn
  All the (I-C)  ●  All [h]e torn
  fare (I-C)  ●  [ ]are torn
  quadrille (I-C)  ●  [q]uadrille torn
Explanatory Notes The Sanitary Ball
 

we had wandered out of our own and into somebody else's set] According to Calvin Higbie, this was indeed Clemens' dancing style:

In changing partners, whenever he saw a hand raised he would grasp it with great pleasure and sail off into another set. His partner would have a hard time to hunt him up and herd him back to his rightful place. . . . Sometimes he would act as though there was no use in trying to go right or in trying to dance like other people and would rush off into another set with his eyes half closed, declaring to everybody that he never dreamed there was so much pleasure to be had at a ball.

(Quoted in Michael J. Phillips, “Mark Twain's Partner,” Saturday Evening Post 193 [11 September 1920]: 73)

 Gold Hill ball] Gold Hill was an important mining town on the Comstock Lode at the head of Gold Canyon and immediately south of Virginia City (Angel, History, pp. 55–56, 572). Clemens may have meant the Odd Fellows' Ball which he attended in Gold Hill on Wednesday, January 7. But if so, he misremembered the day, for he goes on to say that he started looking for female partners on Tuesday.
 to freeze out the heaviest stockholder on the Gould & Curry's books] By the beginning of 1863 the famous Gould and Curry Silver Mining Company on the Comstock Lode had replaced the Ophir as the richest incorporated mining company in the West, and by July its stock had soared to $6,300 a share (San Francisco Evening Bulletin, 2 July 1863, p. 1).