The Somerset herald. [volume] (Somerset, Pa.) 1870-1936, 1884-07-02

certainly not IN dannlOal Wnlcn na.
grown into flourishing little city
since Mr.. Clemens sketched it. Ii
his time the two embattled forces o
civilization and barbarism were en-
camped at Hannibal, as they wer,
at all times and everywhere the
morality of that place was the NOR
ality of a slaye-holding community
fierce, arrogant, one-sided-this vir.
tue for white, and that for black
folks ; and the religion was Calvin
ism in various phrases, with its pre-
OBSTINATE aristocracy of saints and
its rabble of hopeless sinners
Doubtless young Clemens escaped
neither of the opposing influences
wholly. His people, like the rest,
were shareholders, but his father,
like so many other shareholders, alb
horred slavery-silently. as he must
in such a time and place. If the
boys sense of justice suffered any
thing of that peryersion which so
curiously and pitiably MANNED the
reason of the whole south. it does
not appear in his books, where there
is not an ungenerous line, but al
ways, on the contrary, a burning re-
sentiment of all manner ofcruelty and
wrong.
The father, an austere and sim
gularly upright man, died bankrupt
when Clemens was twelve years old,
and the boy had thereafter to make
what scramble he could for an edu-
cation. He got very little learning
in school, and like so many other
Americans in whom the literary i'm
pulse is native, he turned 10 the To-
cal printing office for some cf the
advantages from which he was 9TH
erwise cut Off Certain records of
the three years spent in the Hanni-
bal COuria' office are to be found in
Mark Twain's book Of sketches but
| believe there is yet no history any,
where of the lcandeJahre, in which
he followed the life of a jour-printer,
from town to town, and from city to
city, penetrating even so for east
Philadelphia and New York.
" He returned to his own country
his patria-sated, if not satisfied,
with travel, and at seventeen he re-
solved to learn the river from st.
Louis to New Orleans as steam
boat pilot. Of this period of his life
he has given full account in the
delightful series of papers. Plotting
on the Mississippi which he print
ed seven years ago in the Atidntic
Monthly. The growth of the rail-
roads and the outbreak of the civil
war put an end to profitable plotting
and at twenty-four he was again
open to vocation. He listened for
a moment to the loudly calling
drum of that time, and he was actu-
ally in camp for three weeks ON the
rebel side but the unorganized force
to which he belonged was disband-
ed, and he finally did not go with
his sectlon,' either in sentiment or
in fact. His brother having been
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS of
Nevada Territory, Mr.. Clemens went
out with him as his private secreta-
ry; but he soon resigned his office
and withdrew to the mines. He
failed as a miner in the ordinary
sense but the life OF the mining
camp yielded him the wealth that
the pockets Of the mountain denied. |
He had the Midas-touch, without
knowing it, and ali these grotesque
have since turned into
gold under his hand. After his fail |
ure as a miner had become evident
even to himself, he was glad to take |
the place of a local editor on the |
Virginia City Enterprise, newspa-
per for which he amSed himself in
from time to time. He had |
written for the newspapers before
this few Americans escape that
tate and as an apprentice in the |
Hannibal Courier office his humor
had embroiled some of the leading
citizens, ana impaired the fortunes
Of that journal by the alienation of
several delinquent subscribers.
"But it was in the Enterprise that
ne first used his pseudonym of
Mark Twain, which he borrowed |
from the vernacular of the river,
where the man heaving the lead |
calls out Mark twain !" instead of |
Mark two" In 1864 he accepted,
1n the San Francisco Morning Call
The same sort of place which he held
On the Enterprise, and he soon made
MS nom de guerre familiar on that
coast; !" he not only wrote local
items in the Coll, but he printed hu-
morous sketches in various period
cals, and two years later he was
sent to the Sandwich Islands as
correspondent of a Sacramento pa
per.
In 1867, Mr.. Clemens made in
The Quaker City the excursion to
Europe and the East, which he has
in "The Innocents
Abroad" Shortly after his return
ne married, and placed himself at
where he bought an inter-
st in one of the city newspapers
ater he went to Hartford, where he
las since remained, except for the
wo years spent in second visit to
Europe" +"