Mark Twain Speaking

3. Concluding Remarks

16 MARK TWAIN SPEAKING After taking "The Sandwich Islands" on a tour of California and Nevada mining towns in the autumn of1866, Mark Twain returned to San Francisco, where he gave afarewelllecture before sailingfor the East afew days later. His concluding remarks, below, were aformal leave-taking, couched in oratorical lang;uage more conventional than he generally used. Press andpublic united in wishing him well. Concluding Remarks Congress Hall, San Francisco, December 10,1866 My Friends and Fellow Citizens: I have been treated with extreme kindness and cordiality by San Francisco, and I wish to return my sincerest thanks and acknowledgments. I have also been treated wIth marked and unusual generosity, forbearance and good-fellowship, by my ancient comrades, my brethren of the press-a thing which has peculiarly touched me, because long experience in the service has taught me that we of the press are slow to praise but quick to censure each other, as a general thing-wherefore, in thanking them I am anxious to convince them, at the same time, that they have not lavished their kind offices upon one who cannot appreciate or is insensible to them. I am now about to bid farewell to San Francisco for a season, and to go back to that common home we all tenderly remember in our waking hours and fondly revisit in dreams of the night-a home which is familiar to my recollection, but will be an unknown land to my unaccustomed eyes. I shall share the fate of many another longing exile who wanders back to his early home to find gray hairs where he expected youth, graves where he looked for firesides, grief where he had pictured joy-everywhere change!-remorseless change where he had heedlessly dreamed that desolating Time had stood still!-to find his cherished anticipations a mockery, and to drink the lees of disappointment instead of the beaded wine of a hope that is crowned with its fruition! And while I linger here upon the threshold of this, my new home, to MARK TWAIN SPEAKING 17 say to you, my kindest and my truest friends, a warm good-by and an honest peace and prosperity attend you, I accept the warning that mighty changes will have come over this home also when my returning feet shall walk these streets again. I read the signs of the times and I, that am no prophet, behold the things that are in store for you. Over slumbering California is stealing the dawn ofa radiant future! The great China Mail Line is established, the Pacific Railroad is creeping across the continent, the commerce of the world is about to be revolutionized. California is Crown Princess of the new dispensation! She stands in the center of the grand highway of the nations; she stands midway between the Old World and the New, and both shall pay her tribute. From the Far East and from Europe, multitudes of stout hearts and willing hands are preparing to flock hither; to throng her hamlets and villages; to till her fruitful soil; to unveil the riches of her countless mines; to build up an empire on these distant shores that shall shame the bravest dreams of her visionaries . From the opulent lands of the Orient, from India, from China,japan, the Amoor; from tributary regions that stretch from the Arctic circle to the equator, is about to pour in upon her the princely commerce of a teeming population of four hundred and fifty million souls. Half the world stands ready to lay its contributions at her feet! Has any other state so brilliant a future? Has any other city a future like San Francisco? This straggling town shall be a vast metropolis; this sparsely populated land shall become a crowded hive ofbusy men; your waste places shall blossom like the rose and your deserted hills and valleys shall yield bread and wine for unnumbered thousands; railroads shall be spread hither and thither and carry the invigorating blood of commerce to regions that are languishing now; mills and workshops, yea, andfactories shall spring up everywhere, and mines that have neither name nor place today shall dazzle the world with their affluence. The time is drawing on apace when the clouds shall pass away from your firmament, and a splendid prosperity shall descend like a glory upon the whole land! I am bidding the old city and myoid friends a kind, but not a sad farewell, for I know that when I see...