The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1885-05-14
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SKETCH OF MARK TWAIN.
Personal Appearance-Career a q Cores
POndent and EditOr-A Hard Worker.
cleveland LEADER


pOndent and EditOr-A Hard Worker.
cleveland Leader.l
Mark Twain has big head stuck on by
long neck to a pair of round shoulders.
He came on to the stage as though he
were half asleep, and he looked to me as
though natu'c in putting him together,
had, somehow, gotten the joints mixed.
He has big face. nose large enough to
represent any kind of genius and eyes
large, black and sleepy. He has a thick,
bushy name of hair, which is now iron
gray, and q bushy mustache which over
hangs his characteristic mouth. As he
stood on the stage he reminded me much
of mammoth Interrogation point. and as
he drawled out his words with scarcely
gesture his voice made me think of little
buZZ-saw slowly grinding inside corpse.
He did not laugh while he uttered his
funniest jokes, and when the audience
foared he merely Stroked his chin or
pulled his mustachc.
Still he could not help being satisfied,
and / do not doubt the contrast of his first
days in Washington. when he came here
years ago and had hard work making
money enough to pay his board bills,
came forcibly before him. Though it is
not generally known, Mark Twain was
once a Washington correspondent He
came here from the west with Senator
Stewart and for time wrote letters to
The Alta California and the The New
York Tribune. He used to drink a good
deal in those days, and was hardly con
sidered a reputable character. 1t was
shortly before this that he made the trip
from which he wrote "1nnocentS
Abroad " and this book he wrote here
from the notes he took during his tour.
The book made him both famous and
wealthy.
His manuscript he first sent to several
prominent publishers, but they all rejected
it, and he was about giving up in despair
when Hartford company took hold of it
The result was they made $40, OOO of the
book and sold more than 200, 600 copies
of it. 1t was after this that Mark Twain
tried editing The Buffalo Express. A
man who worked on the paper at the time
told me to-day that this venture of his was
not a success. He lOafed around the office,
guying the Office boy, and telling jokes
and stories rather than writing, and the
only fruit of his Buffalo experience was
his marriage. which, like "Innocents
Abroad, turned out we'll His wife
brought pot of gold into the family and
when he got to Elmira he found that his
father-in-law had made him the present of
a brown-stone front, and thrown in a
cOachman with bug on his hat. Twain
did not remain in Elmira, however, but
went to Hartford and began to write
~Roughing It. " This was also successful
and established his fame
Mark Twain probably makes as much
out of his books as any other writer in
the country He has his Hartford firm
publish his books for him, and he so ar
ranges it that he gets a royalty en- those
printed in Europe He is better known
in foreign lands than any other American
writer, and he is an international char
acter. Many of his scenes are taken from
real life, and his descriptions of travel are
in the main true. He is a hard worker,
and while at Hartford he writes in his
billiard-room in the attic Like Troll
lope, he believes that there is nothing
like piece of shoemakerS wax on the
seat of ones chair to turn out good liter
airy work, and, like Blaine, he has a fixed
amount of writing for each days duty.
He rewrites many of his chapters, and
some of them have been scratched
out and interlined again and again. Mr.
Clemens-everyone knows Mark Twain's
name is C1emens-will be 40 years old on
the Both of December He is a Mis-
souri, man by birth. and has taken care of
himself ever since he was p. He has
been a practical printer, steamboat pilot,
private secretary, miner, a reporter, q
lecturer, and book maker.