If my letters do not come often, you need not bother yourself about me; for if you have a brother nearly eighteen years of age, who is not able to take care of himself a few miles from home, such a brother is not worth one’s thoughts:  and if I don’t manage to take care of No. 1, be assured you will never know it.  I am not afraid, however; I shall ask favors from no one, and endeavor to be (and shall be) as “independent as a wood-sawyer’s clerk.”

I never saw such a place for military companies as New York.  Go on the street when you will, you are sure to meet a company in full uniform, with all the usual appendages of drums, fifes, &c.  I saw a large company of soldiers of 1812 the other day, with a ’76 veteran scattered here and there in the ranks.  And as I passed through one of the parks lately, I came upon a company of boys on parade.  Their uniforms were neat, and their muskets about half the common size.  Some of them were not more than seven or eight years of age; but had evidently been well-drilled.

Passage to Albany (160 miles) on the finest steamers that ply’ the Hudson, is now 25 cents—­cheap enough, but is generally cheaper than that in the summer.

I want you to write as soon as I tell you where to direct your letter.  I would let you know now, if I knew myself.  I may perhaps be here a week longer; but I cannot tell.  When you write tell me the whereabouts of the family.  My love to Mr. Moffett and Ella.  Tell Ella I intend to write to her soon, whether she wants me to nor not. 
                              Truly your Brother,
                                        Saml L. Clemens.

He was in Philadelphia when he wrote the nest letter that has come down to us, and apparently satisfied with the change.  It is a letter to Orion Clemens, who had disposed of his paper, but evidently was still in Hannibal.  An extended description of a trip to Fairmount Park is omitted because of its length, its chief interest being the tendency it shows to descriptive writing—­the field in which he would make his first great fame.  There is, however, no hint of humor, and only a mild suggestion of the author of the Innocents Abroad in this early attempt.  The letter as here given is otherwise complete, the omissions being indicated.

To Orion Clemens, in Hannibal: 

Philadelphia, Pa.  Oct. 26,1853.  My dear brother,—­It was at least two weeks before I left New York, that I received my last letter from home:  and since then, not a word have I heard from any of you.  And now, since I think of it, it wasn’t a letter, either, but the last number of the “Daily Journal,” saying that that paper was sold, and I very naturally supposed from that, that the family had disbanded, and taken up winter quarters in St. Louis.  Therefore, I have been writing to Pamela, till I’ve tired of it, and have received no answer.  I have been