CENTENARY OF MARK TWAIN

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22742, 30 November 1935, Page 2

CENTENARY OF MARK TWAIN

AMERICA’S FAMOUS HUMORIST By A. T. C. World-wide publicity is being given at present to the centenary of the birth of Samuel Clemens, the popular American , humorist. Mark Twain was born in the small inland town of Florida, Missouri, on November 30, 1835. Shortly afterwards hia parents removed to the lively river port of Hannibal. There he was educated, learned the printer’s trade, and became a river pilot. At that time this river highway, “ the mighty Mississippi,” swarmed with travel, trade and life. What was more natural for Pilot Clemens than to study his cargo of humanity, note their habits, characteristics, and other odd and interesting things—then write about them ? Consequently his training in this practical university was later responsible for “Life on the Mississippi” in 1883, and “Huckleberry Finn” in 1884. “ The influences about the human being,” ho wrote, years later, “ create his preferences, his aversions, his politics, his tastes, his morals, his religion.” Twain was right. Most of his characters reflect intimate personalities of his early life, and he was always greater at transcription and portrayal than he was at invention. Even the internal conflict of Huckleberry Finn and Aunt Polly played itself out in the theatre, of Mark Twain’s soul. It is interesting to note that Clemens’s pseudonym actually derived from the leadsman’s call, “Mark twain” (mark two fathoms), to show the depth of the water. In the capacity of editor of the Enterprise of Virginia City, Clemens learned the advantage of the crisp, direct style that characterises his writing. His contributions to this progressive paper enjoyed local and afterwards national fame. Notable among such sketches were “ The Undertaker’s Chat, ’ “The Petrified Man” and “The Marvellous Bloody Massacre.” the appearance of his classic fable, ‘ The Jumping Frog,” achieved wide celebrity. This and “ The Innocents Abroad ” are the two books on which his -great reputation was originally founded. _ They contain medleys of fact and imagination, the facts, of course, being exaggerated to the limits of absurdity. A sense of the absurd, indeed, was Mark Twain s greatest asset, even when it told against himself. At Delhi, for instance, two monkeys got into his room. He writes; « When I woke one of them was before the glass brushing his hair, and the other one had my notebook and was reading a page of humorous notes and crying. [ did not mind the one with the hairbrush, but the conduct of the other one hurt me; it hurts me yet.” “•Mark Twain’s letters to the Alta California,” says Noah Brooks, “made him famous.” He was one of the supreme masters of lecturing and also wrote many humorous articles and sketches, notably, “The Facts in the Case of the Great Beef Contract.” During his lifetime Mark Twain was a printer, a pilot, a soldier, a miner, a reporter, a lecturer, a publisher, and an author. Into this pageant of rich western drama, into his own eventful life he dipped his pen and created his immortal characters. Mark Twain’s humour endeared him to juvenile readers, but it was also the dry, incisive humour of the man of the world, who, having gone through life with his eyes wide open, has cheered himself by laughing, not merely at the follies of his fellowmen, but by implication at himself as well. His humour was sometimes exaggerated to the point of .burlesque, but there was no sting in his wit, which usually had a shrewd lesson in it. A critic once implied that Mark Twain’s writing was not high.and fine. "High and fine literature,” he said, “is wine,” Mark retorted (confidentially to himself) : “ Yes, high and fine literature is wine and mine is only water, but everybody likes water.” In the presence of art Mark Twain always felt, as he said, “Like a bar-keeper in heaven.” "He is, above all,” said the Spectator, “ the fearless upholder of all that is clean, noble, straightforward, innocent and manly.” Oxford for the first time conferred the coveted honour of its degree upon a humorist when it bestowed one on him. Germany awarded him honours, hitherto paid to no German writer. Critics regarded him as second only to Dickens in the production of comic situations and depth of feeling. There was, too, in h's case, that gallant struggle to pay off a tremendous debt accomplished after years of self-denial and the most spectacular and remarkable lecture tour in history. Twain got to the heart of human problems, and his views on slavery through the medium of his books revealed him as a remarkable psychologist. Bret Harte described Mark Twain as he appeared in their first meeting; “His head was striking. He had the curlv hair, the aquiline nose and even the aquiline eye—and eye so eagle like that even a second lid would not have_ surprised me—of an unusual and dominant nature. His eyebrow's were very thick and bushy. His dress was careless, and his general manner one of supremo indifference to surroundings and circumstances. He spoke in a slow, satirical drawl, which was in itself irresistible. His traits were, an uncritical and uncalculating, a desire for an expansive and expensive all-round life, a habit of accepting from his surroundings the prevailing modes of action, a naive worship of success and prestige, an eager and inveterate interest in mechanical inventions and commercial speculation, and instinctive habit of subjugating all loyalties to personal and domestic loyalties.”

The secret of his style remained as P began—journalistic, untamed, primitive. We have a pen picture of Twain in l.'s old age, a venerable children’s Santa Claus with his halo of snowy hair. His wife always called him “ youth ” for the spirit of eternal youth was always his. Samuel Clemens, master of all the post civil war humorists, died at Padding, Connecticut, on April 21, 1910.