(1835-)
Samuel L. Clemens has made the name he assumed in his earliest
"sketches" for newspapers so completely to usurp his own in public and
private, that until recently the world knew him by no other; his world
of admirers rarely use any other in referring to the great author, and
even to his intimate friends the borrowed name seems the more real. The
pseudonym so lightly picked up has nearly universal recognition, and it
is safe to say that the name "Mark Twain" is known to more people of all
conditions, the world over, than any other in this century, except that
of some reigning sovereign or great war captain. The term is one used by
the Mississippi River pilots to indicate the depth of water (two
fathoms) when throwing the lead. It was first employed by a river
correspondent in reporting the state of the river to a New Orleans
newspaper. This reporter died just about the time Mr. Clemens began to
write, and he "jumped" the name.
Mr. Clemens was born in Hannibal, Missouri, a small town on the west
bank of the Mississippi, in 1835. He got the rudiments of an education
at a village school, learned boy-life and human nature in a frontier
community, entered a printing office and became an expert compositor,
traveled and worked as a journeyman printer, and at length reached the
summit of a river boy's ambition in a Mississippi steamboat in learning
the business of a pilot. It is to this experience that the world is
indebted for some of the most amusing, the most real and valuable, and
the most imaginative writing of this century, which gives the character
and interest and individuality to this great Western river that history
has given to the Nile. If he had no other title to fame, he could rest
securely on his reputation as the prose poet of the Mississippi. Upon
the breaking out of the war the river business was suspended. Mr.
Clemens tried the occupation of war for a few weeks, on the Confederate
side, in a volunteer squad which does not seem to have come into
collision with anything but scant rations and imaginary alarms; and then
he went to Nevada with his brother, who had been appointed secretary of
that Territory. Here he became connected with the Territorial
Enterprise, a Virginia City newspaper, as a reporter and sketch-writer,
and immediately opened a battery of good-natured and exaggerated and
complimentary description that was vastly amusing to those who were not
its targets. Afterwards he drifted to the Coast, tried mining, and then
joined that group of young writers who illustrated the early history of
California. A short voyage in the Sandwich Islands gave him new material
for his pen, and he made a successful debut in San Francisco as a
humorous lecturer.
The first writing to attract general attention was 'The Jumping Frog of
Calaveras,' which was republished with several other sketches in book
form in New York. Shortly after this he joined the excursion of the
Quaker City steamship to the Orient, wrote letters about it to American
newspapers, and advertised it quite beyond the expectations of its
projectors. These letters, collected and revised, became 'The Innocents
Abroad,' which instantly gave him a world-wide reputation. This was
followed by 'Roughing It,' most amusing episodes of frontier life. His
pen became immediately in great demand, and innumerable sketches flowed
from it, many of them recklessly exaggerated for the effect he wished to
produce; always laughter-provoking, and nearly always having a wholesome
element of satire of some sham or pretense or folly. For some time he
had charge of a humorous department in the Galaxy Magazine. These
sketches and others that followed were from time to time collected into
volumes which had a great sale. About this time he married, and
permanently settled in Hartford, where he began the collection of a
library, set himself to biographical and historical study, made
incursions into German and French, and prepared himself for the more
serious work that was before him.
A second sojourn in Europe produced 'A Tramp Abroad,' full of stories
and adventures, much in the spirit of his original effort. But with more
reading, reflection, and search into his own experiences, came 'Old
Times on the Mississippi,' 'Tom Sawyer,' and 'Huckleberry Finn,' in
which the author wrote out of his own heart. To interest in social
problems must be attributed the beautiful idyl of 'The Prince and the
Pauper,' and 'The Yankee at the Court of King Arthur,' which latter the
English thought lacked reverence for the traditions of chivalry.
During all this period Mr. Clemens was in great demand as a lecturer and
an after-dinner speaker. His remarks about New England weather, at a New
England dinner in New York, are a favorite example of his humor and his
power of poetic description. As a lecturer, a teller of stories, and
delineator of character, he had scarcely a rival in his ability to draw
and entertain vast audiences. He made a large income from his lectures
in America and in England, and from his books, which always had a
phenomenally large sale. Very remunerative also was the play of 'Colonel
Sellers,' constructed out of a novel called 'The Gilded Age.'
[Illustration: S. L. CLEMENS.]
Since 1890 Mr. Clemens and his family have lived most of the time in
Europe. For some time before he had written little, but since that his
pen has again become active. He has produced many magazine papers, a
story called 'Pudd'nhead Wilson,' and the most serious and imaginative
work of his life in 'The Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc,' feigned
to be translated from a contemporary memoir left by her private
secretary. In it the writer strikes the universal chords of sympathy and
pathos and heroic elevation. In 1895-6 he made a lecturing tour of the
globe, speaking in Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, and India, and
everywhere received an ovation due to his commanding reputation. He is
understood to be making this journey the subject of another book.
Mr. Clemens is universally recognized as the first of living humorists;
but if the fashion of humor changes, as change it may, he will remain
for other qualities--certain primordial qualities such as are exhibited
in his work on the Mississippi--a force to be reckoned with in the
literature of this century. Mr. Clemens's humor has the stamp of
universality, which is the one indispensable thing in all enduring
literary productions, and his books have been translated and very widely
diffused and read in German, French, and other languages. This is a
prophecy of his lasting place in the world of letters.