September 17 Thursday – Sam wrote another “Letter from Mark Twain” (dated Sept. 13.) from San Francisco to the Enterprise about the trip over, first to Carson City on the Carpenter & Hoog stagecoach, then by the Pioneer Stage to San Francisco. The letter included a humorous account of Sam’s traveling companion, R.W. Billet, being gawked at by pioneers who thought him black because he had so much dust on him from the stage trip over. [ET&S 1: 291-5].

Sam reviewed performances by Adah Isaacs Menken (1835?-1868), actress and poet—two plays, Mazeppa and The French Spy—. Sam wrote that her acting in the former play resembled the contortions of a violent “lunatic”:

She bends herself back like a bow; she pitches headforemost at the atmosphere like a battering-ram; she works her arms, and her legs, and her whole body like a dancing-jack…she “whallops” herself down on the stage, and rolls over as does the sportive pack-mule after his burden is removed.

In his review of The French Spy, Sam wrote she acted like: a frisky Frenchman…as dumb as an oyster, [her] extravagant gesticulations do not seem so overdone…She don’t talk well, and as she goes on her shape and her acting, the character of a fidgety ‘dummy’ is peculiarly suited to her line of business [MTL 1: 276n3; Smith 75; Krause 33]. Note: the first source gives Sept. 17; second source gives no date; Krause gives Sept. 13. Sam would run into the bohemian Adah again in Virginia City. Also included in the letter, “Over the Mountain,” and “Mr. Billet Is Complimented by a Stranger” [ET&S 1: 293-5].