glorified every step
of the Quaker City journey. Buffalo was a progressive city--a beautiful
city, as American cities go--but it was hardly an inspiring city for
literature, and a dull, dingy newspaper office was far, very far, from
the pleasant decks of the Quaker City, the camp-fires of Syria, the blue
sky and sea of the Mediterranean.

LXXXII. THE WRITING OF "ROUGHING IT"

The third book published by Mark Twa
in was not the Western book he was
preparing for Bliss. It was a small volume, issued by Sheldon & Co.,
entitled Mark Twain's Autobiography (Burlesque) and First Romance. The
Romance was the "Awful, Terrible Medieval Romance" which had appeared
in the Express at the beginning of 1870. The burlesque autobiography
had not previously appeared. The two made a thin little book, which, in
addition to its literary features, had running through it a series of
full-page, irrelevant pictures---cartoons of the Erie Railroad Ring,
presented as illustrations of a slightly modified version of "The House
That Jack Built." The "House" was the Erie headquarters, the purpose
being to illustrate the swindling methods of the Ring. The faces of Jay
Gould, James Fisk, Jr., John T. Hoffman, and others of the combination,
are chiefly conspicuous. The publication was not important, from any
standpoint. Literary burlesque is rarely important, and it was far from
Mark Twain's best form of expression. A year or two later he realized
the mistake of this book, bought in the plates and destroyed them.

Meantime the new Western book was at a standstill. To Orion, in March,
he wrote:

I am still nursing Livy night and day. I am nearly worn out. We
shall go to Elmira ten days hence (if Livy can travel on a mattress
then), and stay there until I finish the California book, say three
months. But I can't begin work right away when I get there; must
have a week's rest, for I have been through thirty days' terrific
siege.

He promised to forward some of the manuscript soon.

Hold on four or five days and I will see if I can get a few chapters
fixed to send to Bliss....

I have offered this house and the Express for sale, and when we go
to Elmira we leave here for good. I shall not select a new home
till the book is finished, but we have little doubt that Hartford
will be the place.

He disposed of his interest in the Express in April, at a sacrifice of
$10,000 on the purchase price. Mrs