The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1910-04-22

Samuel Langhorne Clemens in Flor
ida, Mo-, Nov. 80, 1885. MY parents"
he writes in his own burlesque biog-
raphy, "were neither very poor, nor
conSpicuOusly honest The earliest an
cestor the Twains have any record of
was a friend of the family by the
name of Higgins" The county chron-
icles have it that the elder Clemens
failed in business and died. leaving his
son the ample world to make his for
tune in. Accordingly. Mark Twain's
acquaintance with literature began in
putting words into type not ideas into
words. Educated only in the public
schools, he was apprenticed to print
er at 13 and worked at his trade in ST.
Louis, Cincinnati, Philadelphia and
New York until at Is he could crafty
bOyiSh ambition to become a cub to
o. Mississippi river pilot Both these
happenings reacted profoundly on his
later life. His knowledge of river life,
acquired when he was pilot, took
form in Tom Sawyer, HUckleberry
Finn and Life the Mississippi, re-
garded abroad as his first 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 creative writing and finally
into the publishing business wherein.
like Sir Walter Scott. he suffered a
bankruptcy 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 f1edged pilot. He tells the rest |
himself in chapter of Life on the |
mississippi; By and by the war came, |
commerce was suspended, my occupa- |
ton was gone. 1 had to seek another |
livelihood. So became a silver miner |
in Nevada; a gold miner in California; |
next, a reporter in San Francisco; /
next, a special correspondent in the |
Sandwich islands; next, a rowing cor |
respondent in Europe and the east; |
a ms oil
the lecture platform, and finally, 1 be-
came a scribbler of books. and an
immovable fixtures among the other
rocks of New England"
His Marriage
This was in 1872, year after he
had married Miss Olivia l.. Langdon
of Elmira. n. Y. who brought him an
independent fortune. At that time his
writings were in great demand he had |
an assured income. his own home. and
seemed indeed a fixture. But in 1883
his popularity as an author and his
acquaintance with the mechanic of the |
publishing trade-besides being a
practical printer he had been part
owner of the Buffalo Express before
his marriage-drew him into the firm
of G. L. Webster & Co., publishers The
firm brought out the Memoirs of Cen
eral Grant and paid his widow $780,
600, but its prosperity was short lived
and it failed with liabilities of $4,000.
The failure had already taken $65,000
of Mark Twains cash, but he deter
mined also to shoulder the debts and
to pay them off and undertook in
1886 lecture trim 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 Of
flee where Mark was editorial writer,
tells this anecdote of his habits of
work:
lone of my duties was to sweep the
he obi lyad
day Mark would give me a nickel to
get away from him He would die in
the dust rather than uncross his legs.
one day he gave me a nickel to dot an
Il in his copy for him. He certainly
did enjoy life. that man.
Yet this easy-going dawdler acquit-
ted himself of a prodigious deal of
work in his life, and bound himself
voluntarily to pay off debts that he
could have discharged without hurt
to his good name by passing through
bankruptcy. He did not practice as |
he preached.
1T don't make no difference he
had Huck Finn say. whether you do
right or wrong, persons conscience
him anyway. If I had a yallar dog
that didn't know no more than a per-
sons conscience did I'd pizen him. 1t !
takes up more room than all the rest
of the persons insides. and yet amt
no good nohOw."
His Trip Around the World.
With Mark Twain's lecture trip
around the world began his interna-
tional celebrancy and his gradual rise |
into figure taken in some sense to
typify the American. From humoriSt
he became the kindly, but hooking
moralist and philosopher of Puddin
Head Wilson. His literary output be-
came more occasional and, though
written with more fneSse, more criti-
cal and less creative, his public appear
ance grew more frequent, his whim-
steal utterances gained greater cur
rency and a whole literature of anec-
dotes grew up about him. Yale gave
him the degree of NJ A and later of
L. H d. in 1901; the University of
with L. L. D. in 1892 and in 1897 the
University of Oxford, with ceremony
made him LIT d. :
Indeed serious appreciation of Mark
Twain as an artist and not mere
jokesmith began abroad but his true
worth long had been recognized in
this country. Mark Twain humor,"
said VIM. Dean Howells. will live
forever. He portrays and interprets !
real types, not only with exquisite ap
probation and sympathy, but with
force and truth of drawing that makes
them permanent He had the true
humorist tender heart and deep Sc
riousness Like Bret Harte, with
whom he worked, like the great West
that bred him, his most audacious sal
lies were terse and sternly grave AS
p rnoralist, love of humanity, hatred
of sham and the sense of duty formed
his most ironic and debonair preach
ments.
Four children were born to Mark
Twain of whom two. son and
daughter, died early. One other
daughter, Jean, who had been an in
valid for life. was found dead in her
hath tub last fall in her home at Red
ding Conn. Her tragic death greatly
saddened her father, who declined in
hot T6