The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1897-07-15

~ sioaeeSt VI American humOriStS?
probably no one would answer sam
uel L. Clemens" but not one intelli-
gent American would fail to allot that
distinction to Mark Twain.
Marks father had been n slave
holder. and had met with reverses: he
died bankrupt, and when the boy
pad scarcely reached his 18th year. His
mother was a superior and handsome
woman, and it was from her that Mark
inherited some of his most admirable
QUANTITIES She was intelligent, ex-
tremely so, and could write well. She
was also given to dreamy speculations.
One of the boys kinsfolks once said
OF MN; He is a perfect little human
kaIelooscope- Yes spoke up an
otner, and he gets it from his mother"
mrs Clemens was looked ND TO in
Florida and in Hannibal as yerv OBJ
servant woman, who was interested in
all that was going on around her, and
VINO Kept posted on the news of the
DAY, so TAR as one could in Missouri 90
years ago.
the immediate cause of the failure
OF the elder Clemens was a scheme of
ms own TO render Salt river navigab BILE;
nehce, possibly, the well-worn saying:
gone up Salt river to imply disaster
parlor cars when they immigrated from
Florida TO Hannibal; there were no
railways IN that neck of the woods
tnen, and the family and its effects
were transported across the country in
prairie schooners.
ABOUT the modest home which Mark S
father established there were cliffs and
glens and caves. and picturesque
islands IN the winding river, and deep
10 RI L.
De sure, but these things, none of
which he had ever seen in poor old
FLORIDA. fostered his poetic spirit and
stirred his imaginative powers. If any
one doubts this he has but to pick up
copy of Tom Sawyer" and 'Huckle-
perry Finn" and read almost at ran
DOM
Mark had had a little schooling in
the hamlet of his birth, and his good
mother had aided him to learn, and in
Hannibal mis- studies were continued
in little weather-beaten frame school
house 20x4O feet in dimensions. where
a Miss Lucy Davis taught the young
idea how to shoot. There it was, while
under the administration of Miss Lucy
that the budding humorisJ made his
nrst acquaintance with the persuasive
power OF the hickory switch. and he is
on record as saying that ne distinctly
that he got were no jokes.
Mark began his serious work in life
shortly after his fathers death, as an
apprentice in the local printing office,
that of the Hannibal Courier, which,
believe, still lives and fiourishes, if not
like green bay tree, at all events in
a way which enables it to keep up with
the procession. Three years he served
as devil and typo, and at odd times
hea ROT III 60
the end OF his apprenticeship he con-
sidered himself a competent printer.
reporter and editor. Without compass
or cash he set out on foot for the east
ern country, and did odd jobs at the
case and press as he journeyed along.
At length he reached Philadelphia, but
finding that town too slow for his ideal
he tarried but while. and continued
his journey to New York. But the east
did not strike his fancy, and he longed
for old friends and scenes of the wild
and woolly west" AT II he turned up
again at Hannibal, out of work and
out of means.
The Father of Waters" had a fasci-
nation for him about that time, and
he wondered if he were not cut out for
a pilot He did not ponder this new
idea long, but forthwith looked for a
job, and quickly found it, as roust-
Louis ard New Orleans. In due time
he became pilot, and for seven years
he stuck to his new calling. He has
told how he liked it and all about it /
in his Plotting on the Mississippi" /
His picturesque life, and the strange /
and interesting people and things he /
came in contact with while plotting /
aroused his literary faculties, and all /
the while he was steering those pine I
and rosin-fed craft up and down the |
great river he scrubbed for the papers. !
Busy as he was, exciting as were his /
1uties-and he was one of the best /
pilots the old Mississippi ever knew
the found time TO cultivate the art of /
writing.
And it was while plotting that he got |
the non de plume by which ne has ever
since been known TO the world OF let
ters and to the world at large. This is
how il happened: He had been sign
ng his sketches 'Iosh,' a name which /
came to him he knows not how, but /
which he never cared for. One day
while in the pilot house bordering as
10 what name he could substitute for
Iosh." he heard a big buck niger
who was taking soundingS call out
Mark twain The phrase caught the
Young writer's fancy, and he deter
mined then and there that henceforth
lie WOULD HIS SUITES Will yen
name. Mark Twain
IT was not. however until 1853, while
tcting as city editor OF the Virginia City
that the humorist made use
If his new title.
Mark got his first step in 'Roughing
IT, about this time. Besides editing a
lively paper in a rapid town. he acted
Is clerk to his brother. whom President
lincoln had appointed secretary of the
erritorv of Nevada.
Nevada was about as much of a state
hen, as it is now. save in name. 1t was
ust beginning to swarm with reckless
,eoole. who had shot off at a tangent
rom the established order of society.
Tor a while Mark was happy in this To-
atty, where the fashionable toilet con-
listed of an S-inch Colts shooting iron,
n Arkansas split toothpick, jack boots,
nd an ''insectivOrous Shirt; and the
musements were drinking red likker,"
laying draw poker and practicing at
uman targets. When he finally tired of
his sort of thing Mark pulled up stakes
AN easy enough job-and went deeper
nto the mountains 10 mine
He worked for days wages in
uartZ mill. passed through many very
TRANCE experiences and helped others
D get rich. AT times he went down to
-irginfa City and kept his hand in at
-riting humorous sketches for the En-
srprise. Some of the quaintest and
rightest things which have appeared
nder his name in ..Roughing It"
Jumping Frog" and other books, first
the pages of the Virginia City
aper-
In 81 Mark drifted to San Francisco.
nd became a reporter. In the course
time he Joined Bret Harte in pub
shing the Californian, and for the first
me these two famous humorists hob
ofJbed and came TO know each other .