January 20 Saturday – Sam wrote from San Francisco to his mother, and sister Pamela:
“I don’t know what to write—my life is so uneventful. I wish I was back there piloting up & down the river again. Verily, all is vanity and little worth—save piloting” [MTL 1: 327].
Sam was at a low point. It seems like the new and wondrous places he found since leaving Hannibal soon wore thin, and his wanderlust took over. His piloting days would always be fixed in his memory in a romantic haze. Without that fixture, much of his great works might not have been produced. He bemoaned that the “Jumping Frog” story, “ a villainous backwoods sketch” would be singled out by “those New York people” to “compliment.” Perhaps his use of Coon’s story didn’t feel much like his own, even though he’d worked hard at revising it. He also wrote of Bret Harte’s desire to collaborate on a collection of stories and sketches, and a burlesque of California’s best poets book he and Harte planned. Neither work came to fruition. Sam enclosed clippings from the San Francisco Examiner about a new book he was to write [MTL 1: 327-31].