MARK TWAIN IN THE SAN FRANCISCO DRAMATIC CHRONICLE
1866
[EDITOR'S NOTE: This item has not been previously republished elsewhere. It may be from one of Clemens's original daily letters to the Virginia City Territorial Enterprise which has been lost.]
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FALSE TO THEE!
We were prepared for almost any vindictive "stroke of the pen" that the exhaustless ingenuity of "Mark Twain" could inflict, but, on the honor of a respectable citizen, we never imagined that he would let himself down on San Francisco in this treacherous manner: "Now I hate to tell such a plain truth, but I must -- the bulk of San Francisco's liberality seems sometimes actuated by a love of applause. She don't always take kindly to a good deed for a good deed's sake, but pat her on the head, and flatter her, and say Bully, bully, bully, is the great Metropolis of the Pacific, and she will break her neck trying to accomplish that good deed. You get Dr. Bellows to glorify her princely liberality in ten telegraphic sentences, at forty cents a word, and down they come with $20,000 for the Sanitary Fund! They always respond when 'Glory' calls but they are sometimes slow to respond when they are not going to be applauded."
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[transcribed from microfilm]
