The Morris County chronicle. [volume] (Morristown, N.J.) 1877-1915, 1910-04-26
MARK TWAIN DIES
AT REDDING HOME
Worn Out by Grief and Agony a
Seyenty-four.
DISTRESSED At JEANS DEATH
"Give Me My Classes" Written in
Bed, His Last Words-Laying
Them Aside the Humorist Sank
Into RevePie.

Redding, Conn. Samuel Langhorn
Clemens, Mark Twain" died from
angina pectoris. 1t was the end OF
man outworn by grief and acute
agony of body.
For many hours the gray aquiline
features lay nodded in the inertia Of
death, while the pulse sank lower and
lower, but late at night Mark Twain
passed from stupor into the first ma
tural sleep he had known since he
returned from Bermuda, and next
morning he woke refreshed, even
cheerful and in full possession of all
his faculties. He recognized his
daughter Clara, Mrs. Ossip Gabrilo-
witsch, spoke a rational word or two,
and, feeling himself unequal to con-
versation, wrote out in pencil. Give
me my glasses" They were his last
words. Laying them aside, he sank
first into reverie, and later into maj
unconsciousness-dead.
Samuel Langhorne Clemens was
born in Florida, Mo-, on November
80, 1885. My parents, he writes,
in his own Burlesque Autobiography,
were neither very poor nor conspic-
uously honest. The ear
Hest ancestor the Twains have any
record of was a friend of the family
by the name of Higgins, The coun-
ty chronicles have it that the elder
Clemens failed in business and died,
leaving his son the ample world to
make his fortune in.
Accordingly, Mark Twain's ae-
uuaintance with literature began in
putting words into type, not ideas
into words. Educated only in the
public schools, he was apprenticed
TO a printer at thirteen and worked
at his trade in St. Louis, Cincinnati,
Philadelphia and New York City, I'M
til at eighteen he could crafty a boy
ish ambition to become cub to a Mis-
Sissippi River pilot Both these des-
perate happenings reacted profound
ly on his later life. Varied and
eventful as that life was, it might
almost be said that only two things
happened to Mark Twain--he learned
the river and he learned to set type.
His knowledge of river life, &C.
uuired when he was a pilot, took
form in TON Sawyer "Huckleber-
Ey ILL anu AllC OA SAC 4xAlo0AooAR-
pi," regarded abroad as his surest
title to fame. 1t even suggested his
pseudonym, for Mark Twain" is a
linesman's cry to the pilot in shallow
stages. And his familiarity with
printing turned him naturally first
into newspaper work, then into crea-
tive writing, and finally into the pub
fishing business, wherein, like Sir
Walter Scott, he suffered bank
ruptcy, disastrous to everything but
his honor, and, like Sir Walter again,
paid off by his pen debts not of his
own making.
In due time Mark Twain became a
full fledged pilot. He tells the rest
himself in chapter of life on the
Mississippi.
by and by the war came, COM
merce was suspended, my occupation
was gone.
II had to seek another livelihood.
So I became silver miner in Me-
vada; next, gold miner in Califor-
mia; next, a reporter in San Fran
CISCO next, a special correspo ndent
in the Sandwich Islands; next, a row.
ing correspondent in Europe and the
East; next. an Institutional torch
bearer on the lecture platform, and,
finally, l became a scribbler of books,
and an immovable fixture among the
other rocks of New England"
This was in 1872, two years after
he had married Miss Olivia L. Lang
don, of Elmira, N. Y, who brought
him an independent fortune Atthat
time his writings were in growing de-
he ko Ina h Is
own home, and seemed indeed a fix
ture. But in 1885 his popularity as
an author and his acquaintance with
the mechanics of hepublishing trade
besides being a practical printer
he had been part owner of the Buff
falo Express before his marriage
drew him into the Arm of G. l.. Web
ster C Co., publishers. The firm
brought out the memoirs Of General
Grant, and paid his widow $350,000.
but its prosperity was short lived and
it failed with liabilities of $4,000.
The failure had already sucked in
$65, 900 of Mark Twain's cash, but
he determined also to shoulder the
debts. and to pay them off undertook
in 1885 lecture trip around the
world.
Mark Twain was an inveterate
smoker and one of the most leisurely
men in the world. An old pressman
who was once printers devil in an
Office where Mark Twain was edito-
rial writer tells this anecdote of his
habits of work: zone of my duties
was to sweep the room where editors
worked. Every day Mark would
give me a nickel to get away from
him. He would rather die in the
dust than uncross his legs One day
he gave me nickel to dot an l. in
his copy for him. He certainly did
enjoy life, that man did"
Yet this easy-going dawdler ac-
quilted himself of prodigious deal
Of work in his life, and bound him.
that he could have discharged with
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