The Salt Lake herald-Republican. [volume] (Salt Lake City, Utah) 1909-1918, 1910-04-22
Pleasant Chats With NeIehbors.

There are apple trees ana grey stone
walls. The entrance to the house Is
winding. leafy lane"
Pleasant Chats With Neighbors.
Through these lands the Innocent at
Home loved to wander in his white
flannels for homely gossip with his
neighbors. They remember him best as
che who, above all things, loved good
listener, for Mark was mighty talker,
stored with fairy tales for the little
maids he adored, and racier, ruddier
speech for more stalWart, masculine
ears. 1t is legend that he was vast
ly proud of his famous mop of white
hair, and used to spend the pains of a
court lady in getting II to just the
proper stage of artistic disarray.
Last summer the walks began to fall
ter, last fall they ceased for good. The
death of II. IL Rogers, close friend,
was q severe blow. The death of his
daughter JeaDe, who was seized with
an attack of epilepsy last fail, while in
her bath, was another blow from which
he never recovered. 1t was then that
the stabbtng pains In the heart began.
Mark Twain died as truly as any man
ever did of a broken heart.
His Last Work.
The last bit of literary work he had
was a chapter of his unfinished auto
biography describing his daughter
Jeane's death. He sought diversion in
Bermuda, where he was the guest of
the American vice consul, VIM. H. Al
len. whose young daughter Helen act
ed as amanuensis for what letters he
cared to dictate.
His winter was gay, but not happy.
When he heard OF the successive
deaths of his two friends, VIM. NJ. LAT
fan of the Sun and r. w. Guilder, edi-
tor of the Century, he said sadly:
How fortunate they are; no such
fortune of that kind ever comes to me-"
Life had no further allurements for
him. htr Paine said tonight that the
book Mark Twain took up from the
CoVerlet beside him when he asked for
his glasses was Carlyle's history of
the French revolution, his inseparable
companion, and greatest favorite.
The burial will be in the family plot
al Elmira, n. Y. where lie already his
wife, his two daughters, Susan and
Jean, and his infant son, LanghOrne.
No date has yet been set as the family
are still undecided whether there shall
be a public funeral in this city.
1t is said Stormfield will be kept as
a summer place by his daughter, who
is very fond both of the house and the
country, though her husbands musical
engagements make il necessary that
he spend part of each year abroad.
Mr. Paine said tonight Mark Twain
had put his affairs in perfect order
and died well off, though by no means
rich man. He leaves a considerable
number Of unfinished manuscripts in
all stages of completion, many of
them begun years ago and put aside
as unsatisfactory.
Mrs. Gabrielowitsch will aid Mr..
Paine in the final decision as to what
use shall be made of these.
Biographical Sketch.
The mere chronology of Mark
Twain's life is soon told. Like most
jewellers in the Imagination. his sig
nfficance to posterity lies not as with
men of action, in how he wrought upon
events, but rather in how events
wrought upon him. for from such reac-
lions resulted his imaginative output
one of the most considerable of his
time, and, as it now seems, one of the
most secure.
Briefly then, Mark Twain was born
ida, Mo. November 80. 1885. MY par
ests, he writes in his own burlesque
autobiography, were neither very
poor, nor conspicuOusly honest. The
earliest ancestor the Twains have any
record of, was a friend of the family
by the name OF Higgins"
The county chrcS>cles have II that
the elder Clemens failed in business and
died. leaving his son the ample world to
make his fortune in.
Accordingly. Mark Twain's acquaint-
anee with literature began in Pulling
words into type. not ideas into words.
Educated only IN puDilc SCHOOLS, he was
apprenticed to a printer at IS and
worked at his trade in st. Louis, Gin
cinnati, Philadelphia and New York,
until at IS he could crafty g boyish
ambition to become a cub to a Missis-
sippi river pilot
Profitable knowledge Gained.
Both these happenings reacted pro-
foundry in HIS later life. His knowl-
edge of river life, acquired when he
nil Of ~, IT,
yer" "'Huckleberry Finn and life on
the Mississippi" regarded abroad as his
first title to fame. It even suggested
his pseudonym, for Mark Twain is a
leadsman's cry to the pilot In shallow
sta ges.
And his familiarity with printing