DEATH OF MARE TWAIN, WORLD’S GREATEST HUMOURIST

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXII, Issue 7110, 23 April 1910, Page 1

DEATH OF MARE TWAIN, WORLD’S GREATEST HUMOURIST

PASSES AWAY THURSDAY EVENING ( STORY OF A WONDERFUL CAREER (By Telegraph.—Press Association.—Received April 22, 5 p.m.) NEW YORK, April 22. .Mark Twain died at his residence at Redding, Connecticut, yesterday. He had been suffering greatly for some days from attacks of angina pectoris, and_ yesterday morning became unconscious. He passed away at half-past 0 o'clock in the evening.

More mention of tho words “Mark I-,. Twain" recall the works and sayings of Mr f Samuel Langhorne Clemens, the famous humourist whose death is announced this morning. Born in Missouri seventy-five years ago. educated, at the common schools, and apprenticed to a printer at the age of twelve, lie passed through varied experiences until enter-ing-the ranks of journalism, and finally finding his metier in a branch of literature he. made peculiarly his'own. ; “THE JUMPING FEOG." I It was Artemus Ward who liftel Mark Twain’s fame across the Hooky mountains. Mark Twain, then a young man, had achieved fame oil along the'Pacific coast; but the mountains seemed to form a, barrier which prevented his new stylo of humour getting into Eastern minds. Mark Twain was on the staff of a paper at Nevada, when Artemus Ward came into the district on the tour during which ho collected the materials for his lecture on the Mormons. He said that Twain ought to be known all over the world, and lie expressed a deairc to help that knowledge along. “You write that story you told me about the; Jumping Frog, and I’ll print it in my own book. Carleton, of New York, is publishing my book, and he wants more matter.” “The Jumping Frog" was written, and sent to Carleton, but he could see no humour in it, and thought this unknown man had been , recommended merely through the good nature of Artemus Ward. So Carleton gave the story to Henry Clapp, who was then editing, a paper called the “Saturday Press," which was just about to expire. “The Jumping Frog" was printed in its, last issue,-and Mark always said regretfully that the story had killed it, but the paper had served its mission. , Some other editor thrust his scissors into the "Saturday Press," and reprinted the frog story, and so it went into practically every newspaper in the United States, and thus Mark Twain’s fame went over the mountains. "INNOCENTS ABEOAD." Mark Twain wrote “The Innocents Abroad” to order for a firm of publishers who, ho tells us, were staid did fossils, and after reading it, were afraid of it. The majority of them, indeed, he choracteristically remarks, “were of the opinion that there were places in it of a humorous character. Bliss, one of the partners, said the house had never published a book that had a suspicion lake that attaching to it, and that the directors were afraid that a departure of this kind would seriously injure the house’s reputation; that he was tied hand and foot, and was not permitted to carry out his contract.” Finally Mr Clemens threatened legfal .proceedings, and the book was published. “In nine months the "book took the publishing house out of debt, advanced its stock from twenty-five to two hundred, and left seventy thousand dollars profit to the good. It was Bliss that told me this (in 1869)—but if it was true, it was the first time that he had told the truth.in sixty-five years. He was born in 1804.” With Charles Dudley Warner as collaborator, Mr Clemens produced, in 1873, his first novel, "The Gilded Age,” in which appeared that fine character sketch of Colonel Sellers, and much happy mingling of the dramatic and even tragic with the humorous. In 1876 was published “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer," followed, after a lapse of twelve

l-yeara, by "Huckleberry -Finn." Between “Tom Sawyer” and : "Huckleberry Firm" came many short sketches, also “A Tramp Abroad,'’ in which "a residence in Switzerland ami Germany was described in ranch of the same old humorous spirit that had chauKlepised •‘TUB Innocents Abroad.”. To thja i - ,;.d aiso belong “The,'Fiance 'and the Fauper," “A Yankee at the CduK ot Prince Ar- : thur,” and "Life on; Ihe Mississippi.” | In IS3I “Pmld’nhtad Wilson,” with'its I quaint philosophy; in ado liie author • many new friends and cemented lira esteem in which the author was held by bis bid admirals,'' arid in I.SCJ came that wonderful and Irtaiililiil book ".loan of Arc," an historical study of the highest' value, and considered merely as a romance, a work which deshrvrs a foremost place ip. the very' front rank of historical fiction. "Toni o„'.vy<r Abroad,” "More Tramps Abroad” (wher'chi wore chronicled Mark Twain's experienced in Australia and 1 New Zealand'. “The Man that' Corrupted Hadleybtp’g,” '.nd. more recently, a book i.a which the doctrines of the Christian ricicntis's wen; dealt with somewhat severely. PERSONAL CHARACTERISTICS. "When you talk with Mark Twain,” says a recent, writer, “you are always a little nervous until you eel, warmed,up, to a real enthusiasm on; any subject. As long as your'speech is'actuated by latent snobbishness, however remote, you feel a subconsciorts tremor. Those eyes, that appear to be gazing info the wind, are gazing, into the wind of your statements, looking for the essential weaknesses. A. little, quaint, exaggerated remark will haul you up short. It will i be the exact truth startlingly contrasted with your moral pretences. .You will find that you have been explained to '-ourself, and yon wjll laugh at yourself. Rut | if you are inspired by a real and a.' generous enthusiasm —say for the Art of' letters, for the French language, or for the British nation—he will let you go on till you have tired yourself to death. Ho may be wearied, but he won’t show it. Perhaps he does not listen. He may not be inspired by every noble action; ho does not even seek out abuses to remedy; but ho is death on such humbugs as run up against him. And wo may say that hie one mistake, "The Yankee at the Court of King, Arthur,” exactly exemplifies these characteristics. For, in so ] tar as it is a lampoon on the sham i priests of a noble, vanished ideal, it is : useless, the sham priests neing all dead; and in so far as it holds the noble auo vanished ideal up to ridicule it is a crime. Bat it is a crime of ignorance, and so, perhaps, it is venial. It is as it King Arthur himself had mu a tilt against Abraham Lincoln, a good knight raising his sword upon a lawgiver whoso language and turn of mind he could net I be expected to understand.,” , j Mr Robert Barr in some reminiscences. ; recently published, tells of the old gentleman’s methods of work. " They were staying in Switzerland near Lucerne. "Ho had taken a furnished villa at Weggis, while I was staying at the Hotel Lion d’Or. There, were man* j rooms in Mark’s villa eminently suit- i able for working in. but Jie felt about: them as Stevenson did regarding a similar aparement in his house at Samoa, and so Mark had engaged a garret in a white farmhouse about a mile further down the lake. This timbered loft was solely reached by an unexpected backstairway, of a breakneck steepness, mod-

eUcd on the Matterhorn. The garret wah fumishcd with a plain wooden table and. two most uncomfortable wooden chairs. Here lie began to write every morning' at eleven, taking no midday meal, and at four o’clock bo knocked off tvork,; eat-,; isficd if ho had accomplished. - his daily maximum of fifteen kundrod. :words.;: : It' was my pleasant privilege to call ■ upon him every afternoon, at four, risk my. neck up and down those stairs,; and ■ drag him away from Ins manuscript, sometimes no easy task, for so absorbed did ho become in his writing; that time ceased to'exist so far as ho was concerncd.” IN EEMINISCENT VEIN. On his sevenf ieth birthday Mr. Clemens was entertained at a complimentary dinner at Delmonico’s, Now York, all of the most noted American men of letters being present to do him honour. On that occasion ho delivered a speech, so full of wit and wisdom as to ho almost a classic on "How to live until seventy.” He recognised that he had passed the Scriptural statute of limitations, that he m a time-expired man and had been, mustered out. for whom the only bugle call would be "Lights out." He was seventy: —seventy, nestling in the chimney corner taking his rest, smoking his pipe and reading.; wishing that all ; his friends, when their turn came to embark, might like himself stop aboard tho waiting ship,: with reconciled; spirit and lav a course toward the sinking sun with a contented heart. He had reached the awful dignify of ■ three score years and. ten by sticking; to a scheme of life that would kill anyone else. Here arc some glimpses of his ; habits.

“1 have made it a rule tb go to bed when there wasn’t anybody left to sit no with; I have madc.it a rule to get up when I had to. . . .1 have never taken any exercise except sleeping and j! resting, and I never intend to take any,' Exercise'is loathsome. ,; ■;■ : y'li, :.l.

"T have made it a rule never to smoke more than one cigar at a time.: I have no other restrictions as regards smoking;, 1 do not know just when I began to smoke, I only know that it was in my father's lifetime, and that;Lwas discreet; ■ He passed from this • life early: in ,1847. when I was a shade past elevenever since then 1 have smoked publicly." : “ As for drinking, J have no rule about: that. AVRen others drink I like to help, otherwise I remain dry. bv •:habit and. preference. This dryness does not hurt me,, but it could easily hurt yon, be-, cause vou are different, Y r pu let it alone.;, "For thirty years I : have taken coffee and bread at 8 in the top tiling. and, no bite or sup until 7.30 ia the , evening. That is all right for me and is wholesome, because I. never had a headache in my life, but headachy people would not roach seventy comfortahlj by that road, and thgv would be foolish to try. If you. find yon can’t make seventy bv any but an urwonjforfahlc roa<L don't you. go. ■Get out at flic first station where's.: there's a cemetery.” " We can't roach old age by another man's road. My habits protect rpy life,: but they would assassinate you.” "When Mr Clemens visited Wellington some rears ago he was met at the railway station after the train journey from New Plymouth. “Y'cs. I enjoyed that trip,” he said. “It was so good that I hardly like to leave the train and people, for X feel that I’ve grown na with them.” T’ho " express " had run well to time, too. i