OBITUARY.

Otago Witness, Issue 2928, 27 April 1910, Page 30

OBITUARY.

"MARK TWAIN." NEW YORK, April 21. " Mark Twain " is now unconscious. April 22. "Mark Twain" died at Redding at 6.30 last evening. Despite his weakness, " Mark Twain " asked for a writing pad and his spectacles, and wrote a cheque for 6000dol (£1200) in favour of the Redding " Mark Twain Library." He continued joking with the nurses and doctors, despite acute angina pectoris and cardiac asthma, and held up a frayed cigar, saying : " It's only two in the afternoon yet. Here's the third of the four smokes I am allowed daily, and for years I have been having forty. I'd like to sit here and smoke for ever." At three o'clock he became unconscious. Messrs Harper Buos., " MaTk Twain's " publishers, estimate that his fortune will exceed a million dollars. Practically all is bequeathed to his daughter. April 24. Many tributes of respect to the memory of " Mark Twain" have been received from all countries. According to " Mark Twain's " own wish, the body was buried dressed in a white serge suit, with a white tie, and a white floAver in the buttonhole. Samuel La.nghorne Clemens (" Mark Twain") was born at Florida, Missouri, on November 30, 1835. He was educated at the common school at Hannibal, and was apprenticed to a printer at 13 years of age, and worked at the trade. For a short time he was a pilot on the Mississippi. Tn 1861 he. became private secretary to his brother, and was appointed territorial secretary for Nevada. He became city editor of the 'Virginia City Enterprise, and alternated between mining and newspaper work until, receiving notice as a humourist, he began lecturing and writing books. In 1881 he founded th& publishing house of C. L. Webeir and Co., the failure of which involved him in heavy losses. He paid the firm's debts by the proceeds of lectures and books. A short conssicutive list of his works is as follows :—" The Jumping Frog," 1f67; "Innocents Abroad," 1869; "Autobiography and First Romance," 1871; "The Gilded Age," 1873 (with C. D. Warner); "Roughing It," 1872; •■Sketches New and Old," 1873; "Adventures of Tom Sawyer," 1876; "Punch, Booth's Punch," 1878; "A Tramp Abroad," 1866; "The Prince and the Pauper," 18£0; '•The Stolen White Elephant," 18S2; "Life on the Mississippi," 1883; "The Adventures of Huck'eberry Finn," 1885; " Memoirs of General and Mrs Grant," 1886; " A Yankee at the Court of King Arthur." 1889; "The American Claimant," 1892; "Merry Tales," 1892; "The £LOOO.OOO Bank Note," 1893; "Pudd'nhead Wilson." 1E94-; "Tom Sawyer Abroad," 1891; "Joan of Arc," 1896; "More Tramps Abroad," 1897; "The Man that Corrupted Hadleybury," 1900; and " Christian Science," 1907.. On June 26, 1907, " Mark Twain" was one of a number on whom honorary degrees were conferred at Oxford. The Chancellor heiralded "Mark Twain" with "Most amiable and charming Sir, you shake the sides of the whole world with your merriment." In a coaxing tone came from the gallery, "Now, Mark, just tell me; you know you had the Ascot Cup." ''"Have you brought your jumping frog 1 "? "Get your hair cut, Mark. Don't rob the barbeir," were other cries. Mark Twain and Mr Kipling received the degree of D.Litt. (Doctor of Letters) ; . M. Saint-Saiens, Doctor of Music; and the others D.C.L. (Doctor of Civil Law). After luncheon at All Soul's Lord Curzon, in his flowing golden robes, held an informal reception on the lawn. "Mark Twain," smiling and happy, strolled in his Doctor's robes, with the orthodox mortarboard on his head. Pie confessed to a Daily Mail representative that he was suffering from a bad attack of modesty. On being requested to state his impressions and feelings, he laughingly declared that his modesty stood in the way. " I belieTe I have the honour of addressing ' Mark Twain'"? "Yes." "Well, sir, will you allow me to say how proud I am to have the honour of meeting you? I am the porter of this college." " I greatly appreciate the high compliment you paid me," was the reply. A young man once applied to " Mark Twain " far advice as to the conduct of life, and received the following characteristic reply:—"How can I advise any man wisely out of such a capital as a lite filled with mistakes? Advise him how to avoid ' the like? No—for the opportunities to ! make the same mistakes do not happen | to any two men. Your own experiences ■ may possibly teaoh you, but another man's can't. I do not know anything for a person to do but just peg along, doing the things that offer ' and" regretting them the next day. It is my way and everybody's " : As one studies, however, the career of " Mark Twain," those words (written in 1831, when he was famous and wealthy) seem to contain an under.note of sadness scarcely justified by the facts as seen by ' outsiders. Most high-spirited boys, at any i rate, and some of older growth, too, would give: much to have seen the original " Huck Finn" and creator of "Tom Sawyer." The Clemens family traces its descent from Nicholas Clemens, who lived in Holland at the beginning of the eighteenth century. " Mark Twain's" father came from a Virginian parentage, and migrated to Kentucky and thence to Tennessee, where he married Miss Lang'horne, a lady of English descent. Soon after his marriage • Mr Clemens moved again into Missouri ! and settled in the town of Florida, where i his famous son was born. A year or two I later Mr Clemens once more removed with j his household to Hannibal, a river town on the Mississippi, " a loafing out-at-elbows, down-at-beels, slave-holding community, according to Mr Howell's description. Mark Twain's father was himself a slave-owneir, but one who abhorred the institution. At Hannibal the local justice's functions, often of the most crude, not to say exciting character, were discharged by Mr Clemens, who was a stern and just-dealing man. He died in 1843, and in Mount Olivet Cemetery at Hannibal a monument to his memory, erected , by the dutiful Mark Twain, may be seen.

Young Sam Clemens gave his parents a " deal of trouble with his pranks. Ho used to frequently play truant from school. In after years his mother spoke of those days, and we are told how "his father anil teacher said it was no use to try to teach him anything-, because he was determined not to learn. But I never gave up. He was always a good boy for history, and he never got tired of that kind of reading, but he hadn't any use for schoolhouses and text-books." If anyone desires to know the conditions and surroundings of the boy ho will find them in the local colour of " Huckleberry Finn" and in the pictures of American social life contained in "The Golden Age"—always, of coure*", making allowance for the humorous setting. . ... At Hannibal the great river and its movements fascinated young Clemens and made a lasting impression on his imagination. "When I was a boy, ho tells us, "there was but one permanent ambition among my comrades in our village on the west bank of the Mississippi River lhat was to be a steamboatman. We had transient ambitions of other sorts, but they wero only transient. When a circus came and went it left us all burning .to be clowns. The first ncgi-o minstrel show that came to our section left us all suffering to try that kind of life. Now and then wo had a hope that, if we lived and were good God would permit us to become pirates. These ambitions faded out each In its turn, but the ambition to be a steamboatman always remained." At 12 years of age young Clemens became a printer's devil in the office of the Hannibal Weekly Courier, receiving 50 cents a week for his services. It was, naturally, a most primitive kind of newspaper, and subscriptions were as often as not paid in goods, such as wood ca* corn instead of coin; frequently they were not paid at all. After some three years ot this life the young man resolved to try a wider field. One evening he came home ■and asked his mother for sdol to start out travelling with. Mrs Clemens refused the request, but master hopeful had saved a little of his earnings and started out all the same. He had determined to go to New York to see the Exposition, and he worked his way to the great city as a "tramp printer." staying several weeks at a time in Sandusky and other Ohio towns on route. When he arrived at New York he had 12dol in his pocket. After some three months in New York the lad started to work his way back to the river through Cincinnati, Louisville, and other centres till he arrived at St. Louis, whence he came down by steamer to New Orleans. He had some romantic noi.orof going to South America to explore the upper waters of the Amazon, but with only a few dollars at his command found that course impracticable. In his seventeenth vear the ambition of his bovhocd was realised : he became apprenticed to a Mississippi pilot. Here is the 6torv of how that came about, cs related by'his master. Captain H. E. Blixby: " In 1854 I was chief pilot on the Paid Jones, a boat that made occasional trips from Pittsburg to New Orleans. One dav a tall, (angular, hocsier-like young fellow, whose limbs appeared to be fastened with leather hirrg.es, entered the .pilot-house, and in a peculiar drawling voice said, ' Good mawnin', sir. Don't you want to take er piei-t young fellow and teach him hew to be er pilot?' 'No, sir; there is more bother about it than it's worth!' ' I wish you would, mister; I'm er printer by trade, but it don't 'pear to 'gree with me, and I'm on the way to Central America for my health. I believe I'll make a tolerable wed pilot, 'cause I like the river.' 'What makes you pull your words that way?' 'I don't know, mister; you'll have to ask my ma. She pulls too. Ain't there some, way that we can fix_.it so that you'll teach me how to be a pilot?' 'The only way is. for money.' " Eventually a bargain was struck, so much cash down and the balance—the greater part of it—to be paid out of the new pilot's first earnings. How i voung Clemens Learnt his oilling must 'be read in his own book. "The Mississippi Pilot." The origin of his pseudonym "Mark Twain" will also be found therein'. Take this passage, for example: " Mr B. pulled the cord and two deep, mellow notes floated off on the night. Then a pause, and. one more note was struck. The watchman's voice followed from the hurrij cane deck: ' Labboard lead there! Stari board lead !' The cries of the leadsmen . began to rise out of the distance and were ' prrufflv repeated by the word-p?<.eser=i on ', the hurricane deck: ' M-A-R-K three! M-A-R-K three! Quarter less - three! Half twain! Quarter twain! M-A-R-K twain! Quarter less!' Mr B. pulled two bell-ropes, and was answered by faint jinglings far below in the engine-room, and our speed slackened. The steam bpgan to whistle through the gauge cocks. .The cries of the leadsmen went on, and it is a weird sound always in the night." This cry of "Mark twain" (i.e., two fathoms) was the signal of apprcaching shoal-water, and was so impressed on young Clemens's mind that he later adopted it as a nom de plume. In course of time ho became qualified as a pilot." and for years pursued his calling up and down the river. But the workaday realities of piloting destroyed for him the romantic fascination of the waters. In a .rather pathetic passage! he tells us of this. " Now, when I had come to master the language of this wafer, and had come to know every iirifiing feature that bordered the g-rea't river as familiarly as I know the letters of the alphabet, I had made a valuable acquisition. But I had lost something, too. I had lost something which could never be restored to me while I lived. All the gir<r,ce, the beauty, the poetry had gone out of the river! I still keep in my mind a certain wonderful sunset which I witnessed when steam-boating whs new to me." There follows a description of the beauty of the scene as he then saw it. To the pilot's eye all the glories have vanished; the sun threatens rain, the floating log means the water is rising, the silver streak in the shadow of the forest means a ""break" from a new "snag." Thus do men grow up and learn to moralise. Owing to tbs> great Civil War between the North and South the trade of the Mississippi fell away to alniost nothing, and the pilot's occupation was gone. "Mark Twain " returned to Hannibal, and there enlisted as a three-months volunteer in the Confederate army, under General „ Price. He was captured and pa.roled. Breaking his parole., be was again taken prisoner and sent to' St. Louis, whence he managed to escape. Meanwhile his brother, Mr # orio*n. Clemens, had been appointed Territorial Secretary of Nevada, under General Nye, and he invited " Mark Twain " to

join him as a private or assistant secretary. Glad of an opportunity to leave the States, to travel and see new phases of life, and perchance to males a livelihood, the ex-pilot repaired to ■ Carson "city," Nevada, then a. mere mushroom village of the most primitive type. This was in the year 1861, when Mark was 25 yeans old. He soon found! that there were no secretarial duties to speak of, and not much pay, so he quitted Carson and went prospecting- in the silver mines, going first to the camp called " Aurora." The description of his journey from the Mississippi to Carson city and his subsequent experiences as a miner were afterwards partly related by him in the book entitled "Roughing It," published in 1872; once for a short ten days he was worth a million dollars. He and his partner (there were three of them working together) " struck it rich "—in mining parlance —by discovering what is technically known as a. "blind lead" in the celebrated! Cburstock lode at the carrjp of Esmeralda. Owing to some misunderstanding or other, however, they failed to do a stroke of work within the ten days after posting their claim, as required by the law and custom of the mining camps. The claim thereupon lapsed, and other miners made effectual possession. Not very long afterwards "Mark Twain" had the chagrin of reading that the claim was sold for 3,000,000 dollars to a company with a large capital td work it! The winter of 1361-2 found Mark Twain back in Carson City with his fortune still to seek. Whilst engaged in, mning he had made some use of hii pen, and had sent contributions descriptive of life in the camps to several of the many newspapers which abounded in California. One day as he was pondering; in disconsolate fashion on his bad luck in the spring of 1862 he received a letter offering him the post of "city editor" of the Virginia City Enterprise. The appointment, so described, corresponded to what in England is known as a district or local reporter, but "Mark Twain " was carried to the seventh heaven with the prospect. '' I would have challenged the publisher," he wrote, "in the ' blind lead' days. I wanted to fall down and worship him now. Twenty-five dollars a week; it looked like bloated luxury, a fortune, a sinful and lavish waste of money. But my transports cooled when I thought of my inexperience and consequent unfitness for this position, and straightway on top of this my long array of failures rose up before me. Yet if I refused this place I must presently become dependent upon somebody for my bread, a thing necessarily distasteful to a man who had never experienced such a humiliation since he was 13 years old. Not much to be proud of, since it is so common, but then it was all 1 had to be proud of! So I was scared into being a city editor. I would have declined otherwise. Necessity is the mother of taking chances." Thus did " Mark Twain" become a journalist, luckily for himself and the laughter of the world. In the pages of the Enterprise were first printed "The Jumping Frog of Calaveras" and other humorous teles, and he began to be known as a writer of live copy. In 1£53 Artemus Ward went to see him afc Virginia City. " Strongly built, ruddy in complexion, his hair a sunny hue, his eyes light and twinkling, in manner hearty, and nothing of the student about him, but very much of the miner; one who looked a 9 if he could take his own part in a quarrel, strike a smart blow as readily as he could say a telling thing. bluntly jolly, brusquely cordial, offhandedly goodnatured" Such is the description of the Mark Twain of those days. Irr Virginia City everyone went about j with a revolver at his hip. There is a good story told_ of how "Mark Twain" hoaxed the 'Frisco journals into giving; currency to a statement which, if quietly reported in a country newspaper like the Enterprise, would have been passed by. All kinds of bogus companies sprung up m connection with the mining industry. One of these, in high repute in San Francisco, was paying dividends out of borrowed capital, and Mark Twain wished to advertise the fact. He sat and invented' two or three columns of a horrible tragedy, relating the murder of a wife and family by a frenzied investor in the said company, who had been driven to the murder of his dear ones and to his own suicide by the discovery that the shares in the company were worthless. Then followed the statement of the bogus •dividend. The 'Frifoo papers swallowed the yarn and reproduced it. In 1864 Mark Twain went to San Francisco, and was* for some six months associated with the Morning- Call. Here he made the acquaintance of Bret Harte, Noah Brooks, Charles Henry Welb, and Charles Warren Stoddart. I Another paper for which he worked was ; the Californiian, and he found little fortune in 'reporting, and in 1265 he had a try at geld mining with Bret Hart©, meeting, however, with no success. la the next year he went off to the Hawaiian Islands for some months, and contributed to "Alta California" descriptive accounts of his voyaging. The same .journal gave him the chance which made his name and! assured his literary future. In. 1867 a great popular tour to the Mediterranean and Eastern Islands was organised in America. Such travelling was in those days a novelty, and Mark Twain persuaded' the proprietors of his journal to advance: him the money for a ticket. He was to repay them by a series of letters describing the voyage. This tour was the origin: of that well-known, book, "The Innocents Abroad," published in volume form in l 1869. It was rejected by all the chief pubI 1-shers in New York, Philadelphia, and Boston, but at length it was printed bv the J American Publishing Company, Hartford. i Connecticut, and Mark Twain became | famous. Fortune cow '.began to smile i up*n him. On board ■ the Quaker City, ; the steamship which conveyed the " innocents" on their European tour. Mark Twain j made the acquaintance* of the lady who beI came his wife. In 1870 he married Lizzie, daughter of Judge J. Langdon, of Elmira, i New York State. Her father was ai wealthy man, and owing to the success of the "Innocents Abroad" Mark Twain was comfortably off. Relinquishing nalism, he settled down in his own home irr Hartford, in 1871. from which he hasi given to the world so many laughtermoving books. " Mark Twain " visited England in 1872, ! and gave a series of humorous lectures. "The Gilded Age," written in collaboration with Charles Dudley Warner, was hi 3 next book. It had a great success when dramatised for the stage, chiefly owing to the playing of John T. Raymond in th*'

character of: Colonel Mulberry Sellers. In one year the actor is said to have paid 70,000d0l for the acting rights. "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer" appeared in 1876, and "A Tramp Abroad" in 1880. These last two alone should ensure him a. long lease of popularity. " The Prince and the Pauper," and other tales from the magazines, have been published in book form from time to time. In 1886 "Life on the Mississippi" was published, and two years later that great boys' book, "Huckleberry Finn." The latter book he published on his own account, and made, it is said, nearly 100,000dol by it. On his earlier works the American Publishing Company, of Hartford paid hnr 400,00Cd01, and "Mark Twain's" yearly income was estimated at an enormous figure. As a publisher, however, he afterwards came to grief, much in the same way as Sir Walter 'Scott had done. One of the successful books, published by the firm with which he became connected (0. L. Webster and Co., New York) was General Grant's "Memoirs," Mrs Grant receiving 480,000d0l as her share of the profits. He has been, a ceaseless contributor of tales and short humorous articles to magazines. Many of his books have been translated into European languages. In 1897 he wrote for the-New York Herald a description of the Queen's Jubilee. "Mark Twain's" last Christmas was saddened by the tragic death of his youngest daughter. She was found drowned in her bath on Christmas Eve at their country house at Redding, Connecticut. Misa Clemens was about 28 years of age, and had been her father's constant companion. On the day of her death Miss Clemens rose very early and informed the miirse that she felt like taking a long (ride—she was an expert and daring horsefirst she wanted a cold bath. Half an hour later the nurse, unable to obtain an answer, called servants, who 'broke in the door of the bathroom. Miss Jean was lying in the bath, and the water ■was many inches over her head. Life was quite extinct. The famous humorist, who was terribly grieved over the loss of his daughter, said, "Jean had been leading a very active life. She spent the greater part of her time in looking after the farm which I bought for her, and she did much of my secretarial work besides. Last night she and I chatted until a later bouy than, usual in the library, and she told ime her plans about housekeeping, for she was also my housekeeper. I said everything was going so smoothly that I thought I would make another trip to Bermuda dn February, and she said that if I would put. it off until March she and her maid would go with me. So we made that arrangement ; but she has gone, poor child! She was all that I "had left, except Clara, who married M. Gabrilovitch lately and had just arrived in Europe."