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

turned him naturally first into news
paper work. then into creative writing
and finally into the publishing business,
wherein, like Sir Walter Scott, he SUI
fered e bankruptcy disastrous to every
thing Dut his honor, and, like Sill Wal
ter, again paid off by his pen debts not
of Ills own making.
In due time Mark Twain became a
full-fledged pilot. He tells the rest
himself. in a chapter of Life on the
Mississippi" by and by the war came.
commerce was suspended, my occupa-
ton was gone.
81 had to seek another livelihood. SO
became a silver miner in Nevada; a
gold miner in California; next report
err in San Francisco; next a special cor
respondent in the Sandwich islands;
next rowing correspondent in Europe
and the east; next an Institutional
and finally l became a scribbler of
books and an fmmovable fixture among
the other rocks Of New England"
Disastrous Business Career.
This was in 1872, two years after he
had married Olivia l.. Langdon of Ell
MIRA n Y, who brought him an indie
pendent fortune. At that time his writ
ings were in great demand. he had an
assured income, his own home, and
seemed indeed a fixture. But in 1885
his popularity as an author and his &C
quaintance with the mechanics of the
publishing trade-besides being a prac-
teal printer ne had been part owner
of the Buffalo Press before his mar
riage-drew him into the firm of c.
L. Webster & Co, publishers. The firm
brought out the memoirs of General
Grant and paid his widow sS50,0O0 but
its prosperity was shOrt-lived and 1t
failed with liabilities OF $4,000. The
failure had already taken S65 900 OF
Mark Twain's cash, but he determined
also to shoulder the debts. and to pay
them off, undertook in 1855 a lecture
tour around the world.
Mark Twain was an inveterate
smoker and one of the most leisurely
men in the world. An old pressman
who was printers devil in an office
where Mark was an editorial writer
tells this anecdote of his habits of
work;
"One of my duties was to sweep the
room where the 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 a nickel to dot
an ''i' in his copy for him. He GER
tainly did enjoy life, that man did"
Easy-Going, But Hard Worker.
Yet this easy-going dawdler acquit-
ted himself of a prodigious deal of
work in his life, and bound himself
could have discharged without hurt
to his good name by passing through
bankruptcy. He did not practice what
he preached. SIT don't make no diff
ference" he had Huck Finn say,
whether you do right or wrong, a
persons conscience amt got no sense
and just goes for him anyway. If I
had yaller dog that didn't know no
more than a persons conscience did,
I'd pizen him. 1t takes up more room
than ali the rest of a persons insides,
and yet amt ne good nohow"
With Mark Twain's lecture trip
around the world began his interna-
tional celebrity and his gradual rise
into a 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 literature output
written with more finesse. became
more critical and less creative. His
public appearances grew more fire.
quent, his whimsical utterances gained
greater currency and a whole litera-
ture of anecdotes grew up about him.
Yale gave him the degree of NJ. A.,
and later of LID, in 1901; the Uni
versity of Missouri, his native state,
1907 the University of oxford, with
great ceremony, made him LTD.
True Worth of Mark Twain.
Indeed. serious appreciation of Mark
Twain as an artist and not a mere
jokesmith began abroad, but his true
worth has long been recognized in this
country. Mark Twain's humor," said
William Dean Howells, will live for
ever. He portrays and interprets real
types, not only with exquisite appreci-
alton and sympathy, but with force
and truth of drawing that makes them
permanent. He had the true humor-
lists tender heart and deep seriousness.
Like Bret Harte. with whom he worked,
like the great west that bred him, his
most audacious sallies were terse and