Helena weekly herald. [volume] (Helena, Mont.) 1867-1900, 1883-06-14

London Telegraph.


When boy has ceased to wish to be ;
clown he desires to drive an engine anC
when that ambition has passed he mex
wants to 60 to sea. 1t is curious to observe
the uniformity of opinion among boys or
these matters. We never hear of a lad pas
sionately anxious to De lawyer, and hidine
himself in corners to read about the law
nor probably any lad-a small lad-devotes
his days and nights to thinking how delight
full it must be to be clergyman TO be a
stockbroker, a banker, a farmer, to be even q
member OF Parliament, is not among the
ambitions of boys. They would be willing
to shine as actors, indeed, but ON condition
that they appear with whitened cheeks, and
a leg of mutton and hot poker in their
pockets. Of engineering they have few
ideas outside the notion that an engineer
whether civil or otherwise, is an individual
with grimy face-a distinct advantage to
boys, most OF whom abhor soap-who stands
behind locomotive and makes it 20 along
as fast as he pleases, not to mention whistling
whenever he takes it into his head to enter
tunnel
The sea, however, is usually the boys long
! est and most earnest dream. And it is not a
little extraordinary that the hardest, the
toughest, and having regard to the routine of
its discipline and the character of its mem
bers, the most prosaic of all callings, should
stand at the very head of the professions as
an inspiration Of sentiment or poetry and of
romantic tancies The sea has charm for
the young which men can only understand
by becoming boys again in fancy, and think
ing out of the minds they had when boys
Were it possible exactly to determine all
that a lad dreams about the sea, the i'm
pulses which move HIM toward it, his ideas
of life on board ship and the wonders of the
world into which the mariner sails, we
should find the picture wanting neither in
humor nor in pathos-humor in the utter
unlkeness to the truth, and pathos in the
generous, child-like imagination which
filings its wonderful light over one of the
harshest and most unsympathetic of human
facts, enriching it to such degree that even
the mature mind is captivated by the boyish
fancy, and regards the sea from the stand
point of the dreaming, enthusiastic lad.
Mark Twain.
Mark Twain the renowned archaologist,
poet and astronomer, is a lineal descendent
OF the celebrated Twain who were made one
flesh He was born on Plymouth Rock,
April l, 1928, on a remarkably cold morn
ing, and the administrative of the camphor
and red flannel department afterwards
stated that he was the most remarkable baby
she had ever seen. At the early age of Z,
Mark-for so he was cruelty christened-was
already addicted to science, and his discov-
cry, made one year later, that a spring
clOthes-pin artstically applied to the contin- !
uation of cat would create in that somnO- |
lent animal a desire for vigorous foreign
travel, is still used by the aborigines Of Con-
necticut and Massachusetts,. When he was
10 Mark went through college He entered
the tToEt door, turpentined the rector's favor
lite cat, and graduated the same evening
over the fence. He then started for Califor-
MIA, Milwaukee and other remote confines of
the earth, and began those remarkable series
of truthful anecdotes for which he is now so
justly famed AS an arch2ologist however,
he has won most renOwn, and his collection |
of Pompeiian, Sanscrit, Egyptian and early
Greek jokes now in possession of OsgOod & |
Co., of Boston, is considered the most COM
plete in the world. Some envious critics |!
claimed that most of these were painfully |
carved by Mark himself, and the balance
composed Of heterogeneous and unrelated |
parts, but there seems to be no reasonable |
doubt that they are all genuine antiques
Personally, Mr.. Twain is q remarkably
well preserved man. He Is short, florid and |
very corpulent, laughs necessarily, and is a
rapid and brilliant speaker. His essay on
" Draw Poker in American Politics" is con-
ceded to be mastery treatise on political
while his poem entitled "The Frog
Down by Weight of Shot" will hold its !
place as one of the most pathetic in the Ian
guagc.