Belmont chronicle. [volume] (St. Clairsville, Ohio) 1855-1973, 1882-08-31
Mark Twain's Life.

Mr.. HOwells Contributes W Aie Sap.
tember Century a notably clover and
sympathetic sketch Of Mark twain.
which contains the following authentic
account Of his family and his al ventures.
The frontispiece Of the same number Ia
An engraving by Cole. after fhaysr's
portrait of the haaaerist:
In enc form or other, Mr. Samuel l..
Clemens has told the stery Of his life In
his books, and in sketehing his career l
shall have to rocur to the leading facts
rather than to offer fresh information.
He was remotely Of Virgihiatl origin
and more remotely OF good BHgiish
stock the name was we'll knOWA befors
his time in the South. whsre u saiiator.
a congressman aad other dignitartas had
worn L.; but his branch of the family
fled from the destitutioR Of those vast
landed possessions in TcnHessst, eele-
brated in The Gilded Age" and went
very poor to Missouri Mr.. Clemens
was born On. the ,3Oth of .NuYesiber.
1885, at Florida In the latter State. but
his father removed shortly afterwsrti to
Hannibal, small town on the Miasis-
sippi, where most OF the humorists boy
hOed was spent. Hannibal a. name is
hopelessly coRfnssd and ineffsctiys,, but
if we can know nothing of Mr., Clemens
from Hannibal. wa can know much of
Hannibal from. Mr.. Clsmens, whe i'm
fact, has studied l0afing, ont-at-elboNs.
down-atthe-hesls, siavs-holding, kissis-
sippi river town Of thirty years $50,
with such strong reality IN his boys 10
Of SsEnrxa 20 fh..k
inquire nothing further concerning the
type. The original perhaps no longer
exists anywhere; certainly rot In Han
nibal, which has grown into a flourish
ing little city since Mr. Clemens sketch
ed 1t. In his time, shei two sInbattied
forces of, civilization and barbarian
were encampedlat Hannibal, as they are
at all times and every where; the NOR
ality of the place was the morality of a
community: fierce, arro-
giant, one-sided-this virtue for while,
and that for black felix's; aud the reii-
glon was Calvinism in various phases,
with its predestinate aristocracy of
saints and Its rabble OF hopeless sinners
Doubtless. young Clemens escaped peith-
er OF the. opposing influences wholly.
his people like the rest we're slaVs-hu!d-
ers; but his father, like so many other
slave holders, abhorred slavery silent
ly, as he m;;st in snch time and place.
Ii the boys sense of justice suffered
anything OF that peryersion which 30
curiOusly and pitiably MANNED the rea-
son of the whole South. it does not Ap-
pear in his books, where there is not an
ungenerOus line. but always, on the
contrary, a burning rssenlrs ut Of all
manner OF cruelty aud wrong.
The fathar, an austrre and s.ngularly
upright man. died bankrupt when
Clemens was twelve years old, and the
boy had thereafter To make what scram-
BILE he could for All education. He got
very little learning in scheOl. AID like
so many other Americans ia whom the
literary impalse Is natiye, he turned tO
the local pF4nting-o office foi SONS of the
wise cat OF. Certain records of the
three years spent IN tiru ffuftatA-Ii Gasur-
ier Office are to be found la Mark
Twain's book OF sketches; but believe
there is yet no history anywhere OF the
in which he followed the
life of jour-printer, from town to
so far into the vague and fxbled East as
He returned to his own country-his
pdtriG -sated, II not satisfied, with trav-
ell, and ut seventevn he resolved to "learR
the river from st. Louis to New Or
leans as Strahi-boat pilot OF this
period of his life he has given full sc-
count in the delightful SERIES of papers.
'Piloting on the Mississippi which he
printed seven years ago. in Abe Atlantic
hi - 81 krA
and the outbreak of the Civil War put
IN emf to profitable plotting, and at
twenty-four he Was again open to a,yo-
cation. He listened for a moment to-
the loudly calling drum OF that tina,
and he was actually IN eaisp for thros
weeks on the rrbel side; but the unOr-
ganized force to which he belonged was
disbaaded, and he finally did not "go
with his section, elmer in sentiment or
IN fSct His brother havihgsbeen aI,-
pointed Lieutenalltr Governor VI Nevada
Territory. Mr.. E1smens went out with
him as his private SECRETARY; but he
soon resigned his Office and withdrew to
The mines He failed rs q miner, In the
sense; but the life of the min
yielded him. The wealth that
.he pockets Of the meuntaiR dsnisd;, he
had the MidaS-touch, without knsging
It, and all these grUtesQue experiences
have since turned into gold under his
hand. After HIS failure AS = miner had
become evident " himself, he Was glad
20 take the place of local editor on the
Virginia City Enterprise. = newspaper
ior which he had AMUSED himself In
writing from time to time. He had
written for the newspapers bef 10 this;
lew Americans escape that fate; and "a
IN apprentice in ths Hannibal Courier
,fice his humor had embroird some OF
he leading citizens, and impsirrd tie
fortunes Of that journal by :ne aliens-
ion Of several delinquent suhscriberS
But it was in the Enterpris,. that he
irst used his pseudenym OF Mark
rwain," which he borrowed from the
of the river. where the man
the lead calls out Mark twain,-
instead of MARK twoP In 1851. he A.
,epted, on the San Francisco Morning
Call, the same sort Of place which hs
had held on the Enterprise, aId he soos
made his nom de 0tsesre familiar "-a
hat coast; he not only Wrote "l,c~i
TENS" in the Call, but he printed H.
norous sketches In various periodical.
md, two years later, he was ssnt ia the
Sandwich Islands as correspondent OLA
Sacramento paper.
In 1867, Mr.. Clemens made In the
Quaker City tho excursion to 4Lrupe
and the East which he has commemorate
ID in aThe Innocsnts Abroad" Shortly
sftsr his return he married, and placed
himself at Buffalo, whore 10 bought aa
interest in enc of the city newspapers;
ater he came to Hartford. where he has
,ince remained, except for the two ysars
,pent in q second visit to Europe.
An Iowa man desired to send his two
nothsrless children to Virginia. He
pinned an Odd Fellows badge upon the