Los Angeles herald., 1910-04-22
MARK TWAIN DIES
OUTWORN BY GRIEF
AND ACUTE AGONY
End Comes PainIeSsIy After Sew
eraI Hours of Coma; All
RestoratiVeS Fail
DAUGHTER AT HIS BEDSIDE
"Give Me My Classes" Last
Words of Noted Humorist;
End Comes at $50 p. m.
ASSOCIATED Press1


II EDDING. Conn, April 21.-Samuel
X Ianghorn Clemens mark Twain)
~ died painlessly at $3.50 tonight or
angina pectorls. He lapsed into coma
at 3 o'clock this afternoon and never
recovered consciousness. 1t was the
and Of a man outworn by grief and
acute agony of body.
Yesterday was a bad day for the lit
tie knot of anxious watchers at the
bedside For long hours the gray,
aduiline features lay nodded in the in
ertia of death, while the pulse sank
steadily but at night he passed from
stupor into the first natural sleep he
had known since he returned from
Bermuda, and then he woke refreshed,
even family cheerful, and in full pos
session of his faculties. He recognized
his daughter Clara (Mrs. Ossip Ga
brilowitsch). spoke a rational word or
two, and feeling himself unequal to
conversation, wrote out in pencil:
"Give me my glasses"
These were his last words. Laying
them aside, he sank, first into a rev
erie and later into final unconscious
ness.
1nere Was no ltOuSHL dl ltp 'iii'V1
however, that the end was so near.
At o'clock DR.. Robert Halsey, who
had been continuously in attendance,
said:
Mr.. Clemens is not SO strong at this
hour as he was at the corresponding
hour yesterday, but he has wonderful
vitality and he may rally again"
Albert Bigelow Paine, Mark Twain's
biographer and literary executor, said
.ryhn desired 10 ln0lllTG Tor
Mr.. Clemens:
II think you will not have to call
often again"
RELATIVES FAIL TO SEE HIM
Nevertheless. Mr.. and Mrs. E. E.
Ioomis, who hSd come up from New
York to give their love in person, left
Stormfeld, Mr.. Clements house, with
out seeing him and only heard of his
death as they were taking the train
to- New York again. Mrs. Loomis was
Mr. Clemens favorite niece and MT.
Loomis is vice president of the Lacka-
wanna railroad.
Similarly, Jarvis Langdon, a nephew.
who had run up for the day, left
wholly uninformed.
AT the deathbed were only Mrs. Cab
rilowitsch. her husband. DR.. Robert
Halsey. DR.. Quintard, Albert Bigelow
Paine who will write Mark Twain's
biography. and two trained nurses.
storatives-digitalis, strychine and
camphor-were administered, but the
patient failed to respond.
A tank of oxygen still stands. uncalled
for. at Redding station. Oxygen was
tried Yesterday and the physicians ex-
plained it was of no value, because
the valVular action CT the heart was
so disordered. There was only an ex-
treme and increasing debility, accom-
panied by labored respiration.
Angina pectoris is a paroxysmal az
fection of the chest, battling and OBJ
scure of origin, characterized by severe
pain. faintness and deep depression OF
spirit The pain is severe and OF a
crushing, or stabbing character. The
attacks increase in frenquency and
severity with uncertain intermissions.
some times of long duration, to fatal
termination.
SHOWED MUCH DEPRESSION
Mark Twain did not die in anguish.
Sedatives soothed his pain, but in his
moments of consciousness the mental
depression persisted. On the way up
from Bermuda, he said to Albert Blge-
low Paine, who had been his constant
companion in illness:
This is a bad job; we'll never pull
through with It,"
On shore once more, and longing for
the serenity of the New England hills.
he took heart and said to those who
noted his enfeeblement:
"Give me a breath of Reddiug air
once more and this will pass"
But it did not pass, and. tired of
body and weary of spirit, the old war
rior against shams and snobs, said I'M
ally to his nurse:
"Why do you fight to keep me alive?
Two days of life are as good to me as
four?"
1t is to be recalled that Mark Twain
was for more than fifty years an in
veterate smoker and the first conJec-
ture of the laymen would be that he
had weakened his heart by over indul-
gence in tobacco.
DR.. Halsey said tonight he was un-
able to predicate that the angina pee
toris from which Mark Twain died
was in any way sequel to nicotine
poisoning Some constitutions, he said,
seem immune to the effect of tobacco.
This was one of them
Yet it is a fact that since his illness
began the doctors had cut down Mr..
Clemens daily allowance of twenty ci-
gars and countless pipes, to four cigars
a day.
SMOKED IN PANTONTINIE
No privation was a greater sorrow to
him. He tried to smoke on the steam
er while returning from Bermuda and
only gave it UP because he was too
feeble to draw on his pipe. On his
death bed, when he had passed the
point of speech and it was no longer
certain his ideas were lucid, he would
make the motion Of waving cigar
and smilingly expel the air from un-
der the mustache, still stained with
smoke.
Where Mark Twain chose to spend
his declining years was the first out
most of Methodism in New England and
it was among the hills of Reddtng that
General Putnam, of revolutionary
fame, mustered his sparse ranks. Put
nam park now encloses the memory
of his camp.
Mark Twain first heard of it at the
dinner given him on his seventieth
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