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

| in way a sequel to nicotine pois-
/ cning. Some constitutions, he said,
seem immune from the effects of to-
| bacco. This was one of them. Yet II
is true that since his illness began the
| doctors had cut down Mark Twain
| daily allowance of 20 cigars and count
| less pipes to four cigars day.
No deprivation was a greater sorrow
| TO him. He tried to smoke on the
! steamer 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 long certain
that his ideas were lucid, he would
make the motion of waving a cigar
and smllirgly expel the air from under
the moustache still stained with smoke.
Where Mark Twain chose to spend
lis declining years was the first out
post of Methodism in New England and
it was among the Mills of Redding that
General Israel Putnam of Revolution
ery fame mustered his sparse ranks.
Putnam park now encloses the memory
of his camp.
Mark Twain first heard of 1t at tho
dinner given him on his SEVENTEEN
there mentioned its beauties and added
that there was a vacant house adjoining
Il think you may buy that old house
for me- Mark Twain said.
Sherwood Place was the delectable
name of that old house and where it
stood Mark Twain reared the white
walls of the Italian villa he first named
Innocent at Home" but first ex-
perience OF what a M " England win
ter storr can be in it's whitest fury
quickly ca fused him to christen it
anew "Stormfield.'
Home Where He Died.
The house has been thus described
by Albert BiFelow Paine: "Set on
fair hillside with such a green slope
a 0IIfSnToad the
valley as made one catch his breath
little when he first turned to look at
it. A trout stream flows through one
of the meadows. There are apple trees
that is a winding, leafy lane"
Through these lanes the Innocent at
Home loved to wander in his white
fannels for homely gossip with the
reighbers. They remember him best
as one who above all things loved a
good listener. for Mark was a mighty
talker, stored with fairy tales for the
little maids he adored. and racier, ruder
speech for the more stalwart, masculine
ears. 1t is a legend that he was vastly
proud of his famous mop~of white hair
and used to spend the pains of a court
lady getting it to lust the proper stage
of artistic disarray.
Last sun emer the walks began to fall
ter, last fall they ceased for good. The
death of H. H. Rogers. close friend,
was severe blow. The death of his
daughter Jean. VINO was seized with an
attack of epilepsy last fall while in
her bath, was an added blow from
which he rever recovered. 1t was then
that the stabbing pains in the heart
began. Mark Twain died as truly as
r. can be said of any man, of a broken
heart.
Sketch OF His Life.
The mere chronology of Mark
Twain's life is soon told. Like most
dwellers in the imagination. his sig
nificance 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 re-
actions resulted his imaginative out
put, one of the most considerable of
his time and as it now seems. one of
the most secure