MARK TWAIN.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXI, Issue 19, 7 September 1911, Page 3

MARK TWAIN.

Possibly the most wonderful thing about Mark Twain is that, as lately announced in American papers, be left an estate valued at £94,000. Wonderful, because thirteen years before his death, when lie was already sixtythree years of ago, lie found himself, by the failure of the publishing firm in which ho was a partner, not merely penniless, hut involved in liabilities amounting to £IOO,OOO. The parallel with Sir Walter Scott, is close, so far as the misfortune and the determination to pay off debts for which he was not legally liable arc concerned. But there, or about there, the parallel ends. Scott’s heroic and pathetic oxr ertions to discharge a debt of honour were successful, though not wholly so during his life; Mark Twain not only paid a fortune, as he held, to cleat his name, hut he made another one. The lecturing tour round the world enabled him to clear off his linn’s debts, and then he set. to work to retrieve his personal fortunes. His enormous popularity, of course, was of splendid help to him, hut much must he placed to the credit of his stout and resolute heart.