DEATH OF MARK TWAIN.

Wanganui Herald, Volume XXXXV, Issue 13054, 23 April 1910, Page 5

DEATH OF MARK TWAIN.

Press Association.—Telegraph.—Conyright. NEW YORK, April 22.. Mr Samuel Langhorne Clemens (“Mark Twain”) died at Redding at 6.30 this evening. CLOSING SCENES. Cheerful to the End. Received.- April 23, 8.15 a'm. _ NEW YORK, April 22. Mark Twain, despite his extreme weakness,, asked for a writing- pad and his spectacles, and wrote a cheque for 6000 dollars in favour, of the Redding Mark Twain Library. He continued joking with the nurses aud doctors, despite acute angina pectoris and cardiac asthma. He held up a frayed cigar end, saying, “It’s only -2 in. the afternoon, yet here’s the third of four smokes L ani allowed daily, and for years I have been having forty. I would like to-sit here and smoke for ever.” He became unconscious -at 3 o’clock, ■ A SHORT SKETCH OF HIS LIFE. Samuel Langhorn Clemens, generally known by . his pseudonym of ‘.‘Mark Twain,” was born at Florida, Missouri, U.S.A., on November 30th, 1835, and was therefore in. his 75th year at tho time of his death. As a hoy he did not love school, so at the age of thirteen he was apprenticed to tho printing trade. Life in an obscure Western village did not suit him, however, and he left home for New Yorjfc working at his trade there, and also at St, Louis, Cincinatti and Philadelphia. Then the spacious life of tho West called him again, and at 20 years of age he, found his boyish ambition in becoming a Mississippi river pilot in a way to be realised, being bound “cub” or apprentice to one of the pilots on the great river. Ho had six years of piloting, .during which time he had many interesting and some thrilling experiences, which are narrated in his fascinating book, “Life on the Mississippi.” In 1861, he went to Nevada as private secretary to his brother, then Secretary of that territory. Shortly after, he forsook the quill for tho pick,, and after a spell of mining went further west to the Pacific, and was for some time engaged in newspaper work in San Francisco. 1866 found him in. the Hawaiian Islands, and on his return to the States in the following year lie made a lecture tour in the West, and published “The Jumping Frog.” Then came his famous trip to the Mediterranean and the Holy Land, the incidents of which are so splendidly related in “The ■ Innocents Abroad.” More newspaper work, this time at Buffalo, N.Y., followed and during this period Mr. Clemens took to himself a wife, Miss Olivia Langdon, of Elmira, New York, who predeceased him by six years.

lii 1872- ho visited England on a lecturing tour, being by this time fully launched into a literary career. Oho book succeeded another, varied by an occasional spell at lecturing, one tour being undertaken through Australia and New Zealand in 1399, Wanganui being included in the places visited. One of the most striking episodes of Mark Twain’s varied career relates to the failure of the publishing house of C. L. Webster and Co., .of New York, which he helped to establish in 1884. The failure of the business' involved heavy loss on many creditors, and though it occurred through mVfault of his, and lie was not 1 legally'responsible-for-the payment of the debts', Mr. Clemens could not rest while they were unpaid. He set heroically,, to work to write more books, and kept oh (writing, not only till he had restored his own fortune, which had vanished in the crash, but had discharged what he felt to be his duty to the creditors. ■ n-v In addition to “The Jumping Frog,” and “The Innocents Mark Twain wrote the-followung:—“Roughing It,” 1872; “The Gilded' Age,” 18747 “Adventures ~of ’ Tom Sawyer,” 1876: “Punch Brothers, Punch!” 1878; “A Tramp Abroad,” 1880: “The Prince and the Pauper,” 1882:, “Tlie Stolen White Elephant,” 1882; “Life on the Mississippi,” 1883; “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn,” 1885; “Memoirs of General Grant,” jIBB6 (published in conjunction with Mrs. Grant); “A Yankee at the Court of King Arthur,” 1889; “The American Claimant,” 1892; “The £1,000,000 Bank Note.” 1893; “Pink d’nhead Wilson,” and “Tom Sawyei Abroad,” 1894; “Personal Recollectionr of Joan of Arc,” 1896; “More Tramps Abroad,”- 1897; “The Man That Con rupted Hadleyburg,” 1900; “Christian Science,” 1907.

Mark Twain had had sore troubles' during the last few years of his life. Financial worries beset him for some years, and when those passed away, others came. Following the loss of his wife came the tragic drowning of his unmarried daughter and constant companion Failing health and ofd ago also told their tale and for some time prior to his death l he had felt himself getting past work. Yet he remained cheerful through it all, and even on his deathbed, ho joked with those who surrounded him. Nothing could quench his inveterate cheerfulness, and with it all he was also a man of strong commonsense and of the most amiable and kindly nature. He was an extraordinarily heavv smoker; during his waking hours he never ceased burning tobacco, and this finally brought on angina pectoris which caused his death.