Martinsburg herald. [volume] (Martinsburg, W. Va.) 1881-1920, 1910-04-30

ties hung LII. d. handles. He Sas
"Dr. Clemens" three times over, but
the distinction never spoiled him.
with no school learning a V such as
he gained from a few years attenf
ance at the village school in Hannibal
Mo-, his scholastic titles were earned
by literary work which the whole
world accepted.
He Was intensely Democratic.
Mark Twain was intensely demo-
cratic. He was easily approachable,
and he never emitted any bears
growl or lions roar. Even the hum
blest person was made to feel at
ease in his presence. Shrinking re-
porters sent to interview him quit
their shrinking and pulled up when
they found him as easy to interview
as the aspiring author of the poem
published in the lower corner OF the
town weekly. He could talk on any
topic. even the weather, and glorify
it with his humor. Mark Twain was
one of the politest men ! ever knew.
He was considerate of the feelings
of others, and therein lies the soul Of
politeness. Those obsessed by +
notion that it was impossible for
Mark Twain tc open his mouth with
out saying something funny should
revise their impression of him. In the
course of his last visit to his boyhood
home at Hannibal in the summer Of
1902 he said solemn things in most
digniied manner possible. Several
times he was so deeply touched by
the pathos of the occasion, his meet.
ing with boyhood friends then grown
old like himself, his visit 70 the
graves of his parents, that his voice
quavered and broke, and the newt
able tears trickled down his face. He
was overcome with emotion, conquer
ed by tender sentiment, and those of
us whose privilege it was to observe
him upon these occasions vent away
with a new notion as to Mark Twain.
He was not the mere jester, o the
button who sees in life only the CUFF
avs and works ~assiduously to evoke
them in boisterous riot of laughter.
He was the man of feeling, the ten
der hearted old fellow, the owner of
a heart as gentle as any that ever
beat.
His Many Personal Sorrows.
Mark Twain's life was not a rose
bed. He walked no primrose path.
He encountered stumbling places and
had steep hills of difficulty TO climb.
And he had sorrows that bit and
griefs hat b~ludgeoned. AT the close
of his life, so far as relatives were
concerned, he was almost alone in the
world.
His best loved daughter, Susy, died
in America when he vas in Europe
His story of her death in his autoblog-
raphy is a piece of pathos seldom sur
passed. His wife. who was Miss
Olivia Langdon, of Elmira, n. Y, his
companion for many years, died in
Italy after rain wanderings for the
restoration of her health. He built a
big country home, near Redding,
Conn, and settled down to continue
growing old as gracefully as he coul1
with his two remaining daughters,
Clara and Jean. In November Of 1908
Clara married a foreigner and went
abroad to live. Jean was left with
him. ON the day before Christm as,
with a Christmas tree for her father
trimmed by her own hands in N Of
the rooms. Jean Clemens was found
dead in her bathtub, having been
seized with an epileptie fit and drown
ed.
When Mark Twain was fifty years
old and worth about ST, 600. 600 a pub
fishing firm in which he was d part
ner became bankrupt. He lost his for
tune and was involved heavily in debt.
HE set to work, made a featuring and
writing tour around the world and in
ten years had paid off his Indebted
mess and again was ahead OF the wolf.
BY that time he had become so I'M
iverstlly famous that his work COM
manded it's own price. Thereafter he
could write or rest as he chose, and
he chose to write much.
Mark Twain's writing life began in
his pilot days and continued up to his
death-half a century of devotion to
the art of making people happy. For
several years he was simply a hard
working newspaper reporter n spe-
ciaf correspondent, searching Cor gold
in Nevada and California between jobs
at journalism which g~rubstakcd him
for prospecting. But he found his
purest and most paying streak Of ore
when in 1867 he wrote " The Jump
ing Frog OF Calaveras County" That
story, picked up in a mining camp,
was his first promising literary pros
pet. .
He had struck the mother lode.
Printer, pilot, reporter, humorist,
novelist, philospher-he is safely EN-
BANNED to enduring fame.
MAKES DENIAL.