The midland journal., 1910-04-29

+. I
Redding. CT. (Special) Samuel
Langhorn Clemens ("Mark Twain")
died lpainlessly at $50 P. M. Of an
gina pectoris. He lapsed into coma
at o'clock and never recovered con-
sciousness. It was the end of a man
outworn by grief and acute agony of
body.
For long hours the grey, aquiline
features lay moulded in the inertia
of death, while the pulse sank lower
and lower, but late at night Mark
Twain passed from stupor into the
first natural sleep he had known
since he returned from Bermuda. and
in the morning he woke refreshed,
even family cheerful, and in full
possession Of all his faculties.
He recognized his daughter Clara
(Mrs. Ossip Gabrilowitsch), spoke a
rational word or two and, feeling
himself unequal to conversation,
wrote out in pencil: "Give me my
glasses" They were his last words.
Laying them aside, he sank first into
reverie and later into final uncon-
scionsness.
k1b 1AO DCt1tAl DOQ.
At the death bed were only Mrs.
Gabrilowitsch (ClaTa Clemens), her
husband, DIR. Robert Halsey, DR..
Quintard, Albert Bigelow Paine, who
wrote Mark Twain's biography, and
his literary executor and the two
trained nurses. Restoratives-digi
tails, strychnine and camphor-were
administered. but the patient failed
to respond.
Mr.. Clemens did not die in an
guish. Sedatives soothed his pain,
but in his moments of consciousness
the mental depression persisted. On
the way up from Bermuda he said
to Albert Bigelow Paine, who had
been his constant companion in his
illness:
This is 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 in sor-
row:
"Give me breath OF Redding air
once more and this will pass But
1t did not pass, and, tired of body
and weary of spirit. the old warrior
against shams and snobs said family
to his nurses:
Why do you fight to keep me
alive? Two days Of life are as good
to me as four"
Inveterate Smoker.
It is certain to be recalled that
Mark Twain was for more than so
years an inveterate smoker. and the
first conjecture of the layman would
be that he had weakened his heart
by over-indulgence in tobacco. Dr..
Halsey said that he was unable to
predicate that the angina pectoris
from which Mark Twain died was in
any way sequel of nicotine poison
ing. Some constitutions, he said,
seem immune from the effects of to-
bacco. This was one of them. Yet
it is true that since his illness began
the doctors had cut Mark Twain's
daily allowance of twenty cigars and
countless pipes to four cigars a day.
No deprivation was greater sor-
row to him. He tried to smoke on
the steamer while returning from
Bermuda. and only gave it up be-.
cause he was too feeble to draw on
his pipe. Even on his deathbed
when he had passed the point of
speech and it was no longer certain
that his ideas were lucid, he would
make the motion of having a cigar
and, smiling, expel empty air from
under the mustache still stained
with smoke.
His New England Home.
Where Mark Twain chose to
spend his declining years was the
first output of Methodism in New
England. and it was among the hills
of Redding that General Israel Put
nam, of Revolutionary fame. muster
wife chews Tobacco.