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American author and humorist (1835–1910) For other uses, see Mark Twain (disambiguation). Mark TwainTwain in 1907BornSamuel Langhorne Clemens(1835-11-30)November 30, 1835Florida, Missouri, U.S.DiedApril 21, 1910(1910-04-21) (aged 74)Stormfield House, Redding, Connecticut, U.S.Resting placeWoodlawn Cemetery, Elmira, New York, U.S.Pen nameMark TwainJoshThomas Jefferson SnodgrassOccupationWriterhumoristentrepreneurpublisherlecturerLanguageAmerican EnglishPeriodModernGenresAdventure fictionspeculative fictiontravelogueopinion journalismliterary criticismpolemicessayautobiographycorrespondenceorationLiterary movementAmerican RealismYears activefrom 1863EmployersTerritorial EnterpriseThe Sacramento UnionThe Alta CaliforniaNew-York TribuneSpouse Olivia Langdon ​ ​(m. 1870; died 1904)​Children4, including Susy, Clara, and JeanParentsJohn Marshall ClemensJane Lampton ClemensRelativesOrion Clemens (brother)Signature Samuel Langhorne Clemens (November 30, 1835 – April 21, 1910),[1] known by the pen name Mark Twain, was an American writer, humorist and essayist. He was praised as the "greatest humorist the United States has produced,"[2] with William Faulkner calling him "the father of American literature."[3] His novels include The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876) and its sequel, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884),[4] with the latter often called the "Great American Novel." Twain also wrote A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court (1889) and Pudd'nhead Wilson (1894), and co-wrote The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today (1873) with Charles Dudley Warner. Twain was raised in Hannibal, Missouri, which later provided the setting for both Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn. He served an apprenticeship with a printer early in his career, and then worked as a typesetter, contributing articles to his older brother Orion Clemens' newspaper. Twain then became a riverboat pilot on the Mississippi River, which provided him the material for Life on the Mississippi (1883). Soon after, Twain headed west to join Orion in Nevada. He referred humorously to his lack of success at mining, turning to journalism for the Virginia City Territorial Enterprise.[5] He first achieved success as a writer with the humorous story "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County," which was published in 1865; it was based on a story that he heard at Angels Hotel in Angels Camp, California, where he had spent some time while he was working as a miner. The short story brought him international attention.[6] He wrote both fiction and non-fiction. As his fame grew, he became a much sought-after speaker. His wit and satire, both in prose and in speech, earned praise from critics and peers, and Twain was a friend to presidents, artists, industrialists, and European royalty. Although Twain initially spoke out in favor of American interests in the Hawaiian Islands, he later reversed his position,[7] going on to become vice president of the American Anti-Imperialist League from 1901 until his death in 1910, coming out strongly against the Philippine-American War and colonialism.[8][9][10] Twain earned a great deal of money from his writing and lectures, but invested in ventures that lost most of it, such as the Paige Compositor, a mechanical typesetter that failed because of its complexity and imprecision. He filed for bankruptcy in the wake of these financial setbacks, but in time overcame his financial troubles with the help of Standard Oil executive Henry Huttleston Rogers. Twain eventually paid all his creditors in full, even though his declaration of bankruptcy meant he was not required to do so. He was born shortly after an appearance of Halley's Comet, and predicted that his death would accompany it as well, dying a day after the comet was at its closest to Earth.[11] Biography[edit] Early life[edit] Samuel Clemens, age 15 holding metal type in a composing stick that spells out his first name. He understood that the photographic printing process reversed the contents of an image in the same way backwards moveable type was reversed in printing to give clear copy. Samuel Langhorne Clemens was born on November 30, 1835, in Florida, Missouri. He was the sixth of seven children of Jane (née Lampton; 1803–1890), a native of Kentucky, and John Marshall Clemens (1798–1847), a native of Virginia.[citation needed] His parents met when his father, a lawyer called to the bar in Kentucky, tried to help Jane's father and uncle avoid bankruptcy.[12] They were married in 1823.[13] Twain was of English and Scots-Irish descent.[14][15][16][17] Only three of his siblings lived beyond childhood: Orion (1825–1897), Pamela (1827–1904), and Henry (1838–1858). His brother Pleasant Hannibal (1828) died at three weeks of age,[18][19] his sister Margaret (1830–1839) when Twain was three, and his brother Benjamin (1832–1842) three years later.[citation needed] When he was four, Twain's family moved to Hannibal, Missouri,[20] a port town on the Mississippi River that inspired the fictional town of St. Petersburg in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.[21] Slavery was legal in Missouri at the time, and it became a theme in these writings. His father was an attorney and judge who died of pneumonia in 1847, when Twain was 11.[22] The following year, Twain left school after the fifth grade to become a printer's apprentice.[1] In 1851, he began working as a typesetter, contributing articles and humorous sketches to the Hannibal Journal, a newspaper that Orion owned. When he was 18, he left Hannibal and worked as a printer in New York City, Philadelphia, St. Louis, and Cincinnati, joining the newly formed International Typographical Union, the printers trade union. He educated himself in public libraries in the evenings, finding wider information than at a conventional school.[23] Twain describes his boyhood in Life on the Mississippi, stating that "there was but one permanent ambition" among his comrades: to be a steamboatman. "Pilot was the grandest position of all. The pilot, even in those days of trivial wages, had a princely salary – from a hundred and fifty to two hundred and fifty dollars a month, and no board to pay." As Twain described it, the pilot's prestige exceeded that of the captain. The pilot had to "get up a warm personal acquaintanceship with every old snag and one-limbed cottonwood and every obscure wood pile that ornaments the banks of this river for twelve hundred miles; and more than that, must... actually know where these things are in the dark". Steamboat pilot Horace E. Bixby took Twain on as a cub pilot to teach him the river between New Orleans and St. Louis for $500 (equivalent to $18,000 in 2023), payable out of Twain's first wages after graduating. Twain studied the Mississippi, learning its landmarks, how to navigate its currents effectively, and how to read the river and its constantly shifting channels, reefs, submerged snags, and rocks that would "tear the life out of the strongest vessel that ever floated".[24] It was more than two years before he received his pilot's license. Piloting also gave him his pen name from "mark twain", the leadsman's cry for a measured river depth of two fathoms (12 feet), which was safe water for a steamboat.[25][26] As a young pilot, Clemens served on the steamer A. B. Chambers with Grant Marsh, who became famous for his exploits as a steamboat captain on the Missouri River. The two liked and admired each other, and maintained a correspondence for many years after Clemens left the river.[27] While training, Samuel convinced his younger brother Henry to work with him, and even arranged a post of mud clerk for him on the steamboat Pennsylvania. On June 13, 1858, the steamboat's boiler exploded; Henry succumbed to his wounds on June 21. Twain claimed to have foreseen this death in a dream a month earlier,[28]: 275  which inspired his interest in parapsychology; he was an early member of the Society for Psychical Research.[29] Twain was guilt-stricken and held himself responsible for the rest of his life. He continued to work on the river and was a river pilot until the Civil War broke out in 1861, when traffic was curtailed along the Mississippi River. At the start of hostilities, he enlisted briefly in a local Confederate unit. He later wrote the sketch "The Private History of a Campaign That Failed", describing how he and his friends had been Confederate volunteers for two weeks before their unit disbanded.[30] He then left for Nevada to work for his brother Orion, who was Secretary of the Nevada Territory. Twain describes the episode in his book Roughing It.[31][32]: 147  In the American West[edit] Twain, age 31 Orion became secretary to Nevada Territory governor James W. Nye in 1861, and Twain joined him when he moved west. The brothers traveled more than two weeks on a stagecoach across the Great Plains and the Rocky Mountains, visiting the Mormon community in Salt Lake City.[33] Twain's journey ended in the silver-mining town of Virginia City, Nevada, where he became a miner on the Comstock Lode.[30] He failed as a miner and went to work at the Virginia City newspaper Territorial Enterprise,[34] working under a friend, the writer Dan DeQuille. He first used his pen name here on February 3, 1863, when he wrote a humorous travel account titled "Letter From Carson – re: Joe Goodman; party at Gov. Johnson's; music" and signed it "Mark Twain".[35][36] His experiences in the American West inspired Roughing It, written during 1870–71 and published in 1872. His experiences in Angels Camp (in Calaveras County, California) provided material for "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County" (1865).[citation needed] Twain moved to San Francisco in 1864, still as a journalist, and met writers such as Bret Harte and Artemus Ward. He may have been romantically involved with the poet Ina Coolbrith.[37] His first success as a writer came when his humorous tall tale "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County" was published on November 18, 1865, in the New York weekly The Saturday Press, bringing him national attention. A year later, he traveled to the Sandwich Islands (present-day Hawaii) as a reporter for the Sacramento Union. His letters to the Union were popular and became the basis for his first lectures.[38] In 1867, local newspapers The Alta California and New-York Tribune funded his trip to the Mediterranean aboard the Quaker City, including a tour of Europe and the Middle East. He wrote a collection of travel letters which were later compiled as The Innocents Abroad (1869). It was on this trip that he met fellow passenger Charles Langdon, who showed him a picture of his sister Olivia. Twain later claimed to have fallen in love at first sight.[39] Upon returning to the United States, Twain was offered honorary membership in Yale University's secret society Scroll and Key in 1868.[40] Marriage and children[edit] Twain with American Civil War correspondent and author George Alfred Townsend, and David Gray, editor of the rival Buffalo Courier[41] Twain House in Hartford, Connecticut Twain and Olivia Langdon corresponded throughout 1868. She rejected his first marriage proposal, but he continued to court her and managed to overcome her father's initial reluctance.[42] They were married in Elmira, New York in February 1870.[38] She came from a "wealthy but liberal family"; through her, he met abolitionists, "socialists, principled atheists and activists for women's rights and social equality", including Harriet Beecher Stowe, Frederick Douglass, and utopian socialist writer William Dean Howells,[43] who became a long-time friend. The Clemenses lived in Buffalo, New York, from 1869 to 1871. He owned a stake in the Buffalo Express newspaper and worked as an editor and writer.[44][41] While they were living in Buffalo, their son Langdon died of diphtheria at the age of 19 months. They had three daughters: Susy (1872–1896), Clara (1874–1962),[45] and Jean (1880–1909). The Clemenses formed a friendship with David Gray, who worked as an editor of the rival Buffalo Courier, and his wife Martha. Twain later wrote that the Grays were "'all the solace' he and Livy had during their 'sorrowful and pathetic brief sojourn in Buffalo'", and that Gray's "delicate gift for poetry" was wasted working for a newspaper.[41] Starting in 1873, Twain moved his family to Hartford, Connecticut, where he arranged the building of a home next door to Stowe. In the 1870s and 1880s, the family summered at Quarry Farm in Elmira, the home of Olivia's sister, Susan Crane.[46][47] In 1874,[46] Susan had a study built apart from the main house so that Twain would have a quiet place in which to write. Also, he smoked cigars constantly, and Susan did not want him to do so in her house.[citation needed] Twain wrote many of his classic novels during his 17 years in Hartford (1874–1891) and over 20 summers at Quarry Farm. They include The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876), The Prince and the Pauper (1881), Life on the Mississippi (1883), Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884), and A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court (1889).[citation needed] The couple's marriage lasted 34 years until Olivia's death in 1904. All of the Clemens family are buried in Elmira's Woodlawn Cemetery.[citation needed] Love of science and technology[edit] Twain in the laboratory of Nikola Tesla, early 1894 Mark Twain at Stormfield (1909) Twain was fascinated with science and scientific inquiry. He developed a close and lasting friendship with Nikola Tesla, and the two spent much time together in Tesla's laboratory.[48] Twain patented three inventions, including an "Improvement in Adjustable and Detachable Straps for Garments" (to replace suspenders) and a history trivia game.[49][50] Most commercially successful was a self-pasting scrapbook; a dried adhesive on the pages needed only to be moistened before use.[49] Over 25,000 were sold.[49] Twain was an early proponent of fingerprinting as a forensic technique, featuring it in a tall tale in Life on the Mississippi (1883) and as a central plot element in the novel Pudd'nhead Wilson (1894).[citation needed] Twain's novel A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court (1889) features a time traveler from the contemporary U.S., using his knowledge of science to introduce modern technology to Arthurian England. This type of historical manipulation became a trope of speculative fiction as alternate histories.[citation needed] In 1909, Thomas Edison visited Twain at Stormfield, his home in Redding, Connecticut and filmed him. Part of the footage was used in The Prince and the Pauper (1909), a two-reel short film. It is the only known existing film footage of Twain.[51] Financial troubles[edit] Twain made a substantial amount of money through his writing, but he lost a great deal through investments. He invested mostly in new inventions and technology, particularly the Paige typesetting machine. It was considered a mechanical marvel that amazed viewers when it worked, but it was prone to breakdowns. Twain spent $300,000 (equivalent to $9,471,724 in 2023) on it between 1880 and 1894,[52] but before it could be perfected it was rendered obsolete by the Linotype. He lost the bulk of his book profits, as well as a substantial portion of his wife's inheritance.[53] Twain also lost money through his publishing house, Charles L. Webster and Company, which enjoyed initial success selling the memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant but failed soon afterward, losing money on a biography of Pope Leo XIII. Fewer than 200 copies were sold.[53] Twain and his family closed down their expensive Hartford home in response to the dwindling income and moved to Europe in June 1891. William M. Laffan of The New York Sun and the McClure Newspaper Syndicate offered him the publication of a series of six European letters. Twain, Olivia, and their daughter Susy were all faced with health problems, and they believed that it would be of benefit to visit European baths.[54]: 175  The family stayed mainly in France, Germany, and Italy until May 1895, with longer spells at Berlin (winter 1891–92), Florence (fall and winter 1892–93), and Paris (winters and springs 1893–94 and 1894–95). During that period, Twain returned four times to New York due to his enduring business troubles. He rented "a cheap room" in September 1893 at $1.50 per day (equivalent to $51 in 2023) at The Players Club, which he had to keep until March 1894; meanwhile, he became "the Belle of New York," in the words of biographer Albert Bigelow Paine.[54]: 176–190  Twain's writings and lectures enabled him to recover financially, combined with the help of his friend Henry Huttleston Rogers.[55] In 1893, he began a friendship with the financier, a principal of Standard Oil, that lasted the remainder of his life. Rogers first made him file for bankruptcy in April 1894, then had him transfer the copyrights on his written works to his wife to prevent creditors from gaining possession of them. Finally, Rogers took absolute charge of Twain's money until all his creditors were paid.[54]: 188  Twain accepted an offer from Robert Sparrow Smythe[56] and embarked on a year-long around-the-world lecture tour in July 1895[57] to pay off his creditors in full, although he was no longer under any legal obligation to do so.[58] It was a long, arduous journey, and he was sick much of the time, mostly from a cold and a carbuncle. The first part of the itinerary took him across northern America to British Columbia, Canada, until the second half of August. For the second part, he sailed across the Pacific Ocean. His scheduled lecture in Honolulu, Hawaii, had to be canceled due to a cholera epidemic.[54]: 188 [59] Twain went on to Fiji, Australia, New Zealand, Sri Lanka, India, Mauritius, and South Africa. His three months in India became the centerpiece of his 712-page book Following the Equator. In the second half of July 1896, he sailed back to England, completing his circumnavigation of the world begun 14 months before.[54]: 188  Twain and his family spent four more years in Europe, mainly in England and Austria (October 1897 to May 1899), with longer spells in London and Vienna. Clara had wished to study the piano under Theodor Leschetizky in Vienna.[54]: 192–211  However, Jean's health did not benefit from consulting with specialists in Vienna, the "City of Doctors".[60] The family moved to London in spring 1899, following a lead by Poultney Bigelow, who had a good experience being treated by Dr. Jonas Henrik Kellgren, a Swedish osteopathic practitioner in Belgravia. They were persuaded to spend the summer at Kellgren's sanatorium by the lake in the Swedish village of Sanna. Coming back in fall, they continued the treatment in London, until Twain was convinced by lengthy inquiries in America that similar osteopathic expertise was available there.[61] In mid-1900, he was the guest of newspaper proprietor Hugh Gilzean-Reid at Dollis Hill House, located on the north side of London. Twain wrote that he had "never seen any place that was so satisfactorily situated, with its noble trees and stretch of country, and everything that went to make life delightful, and all within a biscuit's throw of the metropolis of the world."[62] He then returned to America in October 1900, having earned enough to pay off his debts. In winter 1900/01, he became his country's most prominent opponent of imperialism, raising the issue in his speeches, interviews, and writings. In January 1901, he began serving as vice-president of the Anti-Imperialist League of New York.[63][10] Speaking engagements[edit] Plaque on Sydney Writers Walk commemorating the visit of Twain in 1895 Twain was in great demand as a featured speaker, performing solo humorous talks similar to modern stand-up comedy.[64] He gave paid talks to many men's clubs, including the Authors' Club, Beefsteak Club, Vagabonds, White Friars, and Monday Evening Club of Hartford.[citation needed] In the late 1890s, he spoke to the Savage Club in London and was elected an honorary member. He was told that only three men had been so honored, including the Prince of Wales, and he replied: "Well, it must make the Prince feel mighty fine."[54]: 197  He visited Melbourne and Sydney in 1895 as part of a world lecture tour. In 1897, he spoke to the Concordia Press Club in Vienna as a special guest, following the diplomat Charlemagne Tower, Jr. He delivered the speech "Die Schrecken der Deutschen Sprache" ("The Horrors of the German Language")—in German—to the great amusement of the audience.[32]: 50  In 1901, he was invited to speak at Princeton University's Cliosophic Literary Society, where he was made an honorary member.[65] Canadian visits[edit] In 1881, Twain was honored at a banquet in Montreal, Canada where he made reference to securing a copyright.[66] In 1883, he paid a brief visit to Ottawa,[67] and he visited Toronto twice in 1884 and 1885 on a reading tour with George Washington Cable, known as the "Twins of Genius" tour.[67][68][69] The reason for the Toronto visits was to secure Canadian and British copyrights for his upcoming book Adventures of Huckleberry Finn,[67][69] to which he had alluded in his Montreal visit. The reason for the Ottawa visit had been to secure Canadian and British copyrights for Life on the Mississippi.[67] Publishers in Toronto had printed unauthorized editions of his books at the time, before an international copyright agreement was established in 1891.[67] These were sold in the United States as well as in Canada, depriving him of royalties. He estimated that Belford Brothers' edition of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer alone had cost him $10,000 (equivalent to $340,000 in 2023).[67] He had unsuccessfully attempted to secure the rights for The Prince and the Pauper in 1881, in conjunction with his Montreal trip.[67] Eventually, he received legal advice to register a copyright in Canada (for both Canada and Britain) prior to publishing in the United States, which would restrain the Canadian publishers from printing a version when the American edition was published.[67][69] There was a requirement that a copyright be registered to a Canadian resident; he addressed this by his short visits to the country.[67][69] Later life and death[edit] The report of my death was an exaggeration. — Twain[70][71] Twain lived in his later years at 14 West 10th Street in Manhattan.[72] He passed through a period of deep depression which began in 1896 when his daughter Susy died of meningitis. Olivia's death in 1904 and Jean's on December 24, 1909, deepened his gloom.[1] On May 20, 1909, his close friend Henry Rogers died suddenly.[73] In April 1906, he heard that his friend Ina Coolbrith had lost nearly all that she owned in the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, and he volunteered a few autographed portrait photographs to be sold for her benefit. To further aid Coolbrith, George Wharton James visited Twain in New York and arranged for a new portrait session. He was resistant initially, but he eventually admitted that four of the resulting images were the finest ones ever taken of him.[74] In September, Twain started publishing chapters from his autobiography in the North American Review.[75] The same year, Charlotte Teller, a writer living with her grandmother at 3 Fifth Avenue, began an acquaintanceship with him which "lasted several years and may have included romantic intentions" on his part.[76] Twain photographed in 1908 via the Autochrome Lumiere process In 1906, Twain formed the Angel Fish and Aquarium Club, for girls whom he viewed as surrogate granddaughters. Its dozen or so members ranged in age from 10 to 16. He exchanged letters with his "Angel Fish" girls and invited them to concerts and the theatre and to play games. Twain wrote in 1908 that the club was his "life's chief delight".[32]: 28  In 1907, he met Dorothy Quick (aged 11) on a transatlantic crossing, beginning "a friendship that was to last until the very day of his death".[77] Twain in academic regalia for acceptance of the D.Litt. degree awarded him by Oxford University in 1907 Twain was awarded an honorary Doctor of Letters (D.Litt.) by Yale University in 1901 and a Doctor of Law by the University of Missouri in 1902. Oxford University awarded him a Doctorate of Law in 1907.[78]: 52 : 58  Twain was born two weeks after Halley's Comet's closest approach in 1835; he said in 1909:[54] I came in with Halley's Comet in 1835. It is coming again next year, and I expect to go out with it. It will be the greatest disappointment of my life if I don't go out with Halley's Comet. The Almighty has said, no doubt: "Now here are these two unaccountable freaks; they came in together, they must go out together". Twain's prediction was eerily accurate; he died of a heart attack on April 21, 1910, in Stormfield, one month before the comet passed Earth that year.[79] Twain and his wife are buried side by side in Elmira's Woodlawn Cemetery. Upon hearing of Twain's death, President William Howard Taft said:[80][81] Mark Twain gave pleasure – real intellectual enjoyment – to millions, and his works will continue to give such pleasure to millions yet to come … His humor was American, but he was nearly as much appreciated by Englishmen and people of other countries as by his own countrymen. He has made an enduring part of American literature. Twain's funeral was at the Brick Presbyterian Church on Fifth Avenue, New York.[82] He is buried in his wife's family plot at Woodlawn Cemetery in Elmira, New York. The Langdon family plot is marked by a 12-foot monument (two fathoms, or "mark twain") placed there by his surviving daughter Clara.[83] There is also a smaller headstone. He expressed a preference for cremation (for example, in Life on the Mississippi), but he acknowledged that his surviving family would have the last word. Officials in Connecticut and New York estimated the value of Twain's estate at $471,000 ($11,000,000 in 2023).[84] Writing[edit] Overview[edit] Twain began his career writing light, humorous verse, but he became a chronicler of the vanities, hypocrisies, and murderous acts of mankind. At mid-career, he combined rich humor, sturdy narrative, and social criticism in Huckleberry Finn. He was a master of rendering colloquial speech and helped to create and popularize a distinctive American literature built on American themes and language. Many of his works have been suppressed at times for various reasons. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn has been repeatedly restricted in American high schools, not least for its frequent use of the word "nigger",[85] a slur commonly used for Black people in the nineteenth century. A complete bibliography of Twain's works is nearly impossible to compile because of the vast number of pieces he wrote (often in obscure newspapers) and his use of several different pen names. Additionally, a large portion of his speeches and lectures have been lost or were not recorded; thus, the compilation of Twain's works is an ongoing process. Researchers have rediscovered published material as recently as 1995 and 2015.[53][86] Early journalism and travelogues[edit] Twain was writing for the Virginia City newspaper the Territorial Enterprise in 1863 when he met lawyer Tom Fitch, editor of the competing newspaper Virginia Daily Union and known as the "silver-tongued orator of the Pacific".[87]: 51  He credited Fitch with giving him his "first really profitable lesson" in writing. "When I first began to lecture, and in my earlier writings," Twain later commented, "my sole idea was to make comic capital out of everything I saw and heard."[88] In 1866, he presented his lecture on the Sandwich Islands to a crowd in Washoe City, Nevada.[89][90] Afterwards, Fitch told him: Clemens, your lecture was magnificent. It was eloquent, moving, sincere. Never in my entire life have I listened to such a magnificent piece of descriptive narration. But you committed one unpardonable sin – the unpardonable sin. It is a sin you must never commit again. You closed a most eloquent description, by which you had keyed your audience up to a pitch of the intensest interest, with a piece of atrocious anti-climax which nullified all the really fine effect you had produced.[88] Cabin where Twain wrote "Jumping Frog of Calaveras County", Jackass Hill, Tuolumne County. Click on historical marker and interior view. It was in these days that Twain became a writer of the Sagebrush School; he was known later as its most famous member.[91] His first important work was "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County," published in the New York Saturday Press on November 18, 1865. After a burst of popularity, the Sacramento Union commissioned him to write letters about his travel experiences. The first journey that he took for this job was to ride the steamer Ajax on its maiden voyage to the Sandwich Islands (Hawaii). All the while, he was writing letters to the newspaper that were meant for publishing, chronicling his experiences with humor. These letters proved to be the genesis to his work with the San Francisco Alta California newspaper, which designated him a traveling correspondent for a trip from San Francisco to New York City via the Panama isthmus. On June 8, 1867, he set sail on the pleasure cruiser Quaker City for five months, and this trip resulted in The Innocents Abroad or The New Pilgrims' Progress. In 1872, he published his second piece of travel literature, Roughing It, as an account of his journey from Missouri to Nevada, his subsequent life in the American West, and his visit to Hawaii. The book lampoons American and Western society in the same way that Innocents critiqued the various countries of Europe and the Middle East. His next work was The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today, his first attempt at writing a novel. The book, written with his neighbor Charles Dudley Warner, is also his only collaboration. Twain's next work drew on his experiences on the Mississippi River. Old Times on the Mississippi was a series of sketches published in the Atlantic Monthly in 1875 featuring his disillusionment with Romanticism.[92] Old Times eventually became the starting point for Life on the Mississippi. Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn[edit] This section needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources in this section. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed.Find sources: "Mark Twain" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (March 2017) (Learn how and when to remove this template message) Twain's next major publication was The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, which draws on his youth in Hannibal. Tom Sawyer was modeled on Twain as a child, with traces of schoolmates John Briggs and Will Bowen.[citation needed] The book also introduces Huckleberry Finn in a supporting role, based on Twain's boyhood friend Tom Blankenship. The Prince and the Pauper was not as well received, despite a storyline that is common in film and literature today. The book tells the story of two boys born on the same day who are physically identical, acting as a social commentary as the prince and pauper switch places. Twain had started Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (which he consistently had problems completing)[93] and had completed his travel book A Tramp Abroad, which describes his travels through central and southern Europe. Twain's next major published work was the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, which confirmed him as a noteworthy American writer. Some have called it the first Great American Novel, and the book has become required reading in many schools throughout the United States. Huckleberry Finn was an offshoot from Tom Sawyer and had a more serious tone than its predecessor. Four hundred manuscript pages were written in mid-1876, right after the publication of Tom Sawyer. The last fifth of Huckleberry Finn is subject to much controversy. Some say that Twain experienced a "failure of nerve," as critic Leo Marx puts it. Ernest Hemingway once said of Huckleberry Finn: If you read it, you must stop where the Nigger Jim is stolen from the boys. That is the real end. The rest is just cheating. Hemingway also wrote in the same essay: All modern American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called Huckleberry Finn.[94] Near the completion of Huckleberry Finn, Twain wrote Life on the Mississippi, which is said to have heavily influenced the novel.[53] The travel work recounts Twain's memories and new experiences after a 22-year absence from the Mississippi River. In it, he also explains that "Mark Twain" was the call made when the boat was in safe water, indicating a depth of two (or twain) fathoms (12 feet or 3.7 metres). McDowell's cave—now known as Mark Twain Cave in Hannibal, Missouri, and frequently mentioned in Twain's book The Adventures of Tom Sawyer—has "Sam Clemens", Twain's real name, engraved on the wall by Twain himself.[95] Later writing[edit] Twain produced President Ulysses S. Grant's Memoirs through his fledgling publishing house, Charles L. Webster and Company, which he co-owned with Charles L. Webster, his nephew by marriage.[96] At this time he also wrote "The Private History of a Campaign That Failed" for The Century Magazine.[97] This piece detailed his two-week stint in a Confederate militia during the Civil War. He next focused on A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, written with the same historical fiction style as The Prince and the Pauper. A Connecticut Yankee showed the absurdities of political and social norms by setting them in the court of King Arthur. The book was started in December 1885, then shelved a few months later until the summer of 1887, and eventually finished in the spring of 1889.[citation needed] His next large-scale work was Pudd'nhead Wilson, which he wrote rapidly, as he was desperately trying to stave off bankruptcy. From November 12 to December 14, 1893, Twain wrote 60,000 words for the novel.[53] Critics[who?] have pointed to this rushed completion as the cause of the novel's rough organization and constant disruption of the plot. This novel also contains the tale of two boys born on the same day who switch positions in life, like The Prince and the Pauper. It was first published serially in Century Magazine and, when it was finally published in book form, Pudd'nhead Wilson appeared as the main title; however, the "subtitles" make the entire title read: The Tragedy of Pudd'nhead Wilson and the Comedy of The Extraordinary Twins.[53] Twain's next venture was a work of straight fiction that he called Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc and dedicated to his wife. He had long said[where?] that this was the work that he was most proud of, despite the criticism that he received for it. The book had been a dream of his since childhood, and he claimed that he had found a manuscript detailing the life of Joan of Arc when he was an adolescent.[53] This was another piece that he was convinced would save his publishing company. His financial adviser Henry Huttleston Rogers quashed that idea and got Twain out of that business altogether, but the book was published nonetheless.[citation needed] To pay the bills and keep his business projects afloat, Twain had begun to write articles and commentary furiously, with diminishing returns, but it was not enough. He filed for bankruptcy in 1894. During this time of dire financial straits, he published several literary reviews in newspapers to help make ends meet. He famously derided James Fenimore Cooper in his article detailing Cooper's "Literary Offenses". He became an extremely outspoken critic of other authors and other critics; he suggested that, before praising Cooper's work, Thomas Lounsbury, Brander Matthews, and Wilkie Collins "ought to have read some of it".[98] George Eliot, Jane Austen, and Robert Louis Stevenson also fell under Twain's attack during this time period, beginning around 1890 and continuing until his death.[99] He outlines what he considers to be "quality writing" in several letters and essays, in addition to providing a source for the "tooth and claw" style of literary criticism. He places emphasis on concision, utility of word choice, and realism; he complains, for example, that Cooper's Deerslayer purports to be realistic but has several shortcomings. Ironically, several of his own works were later criticized for lack of continuity (Adventures of Huckleberry Finn) and organization (Pudd'nhead Wilson). Twain's wife died in 1904 while the couple were staying at the Villa di Quarto in Florence. After some time had passed, he published some works that his wife, his de facto editor and censor throughout her married life, had looked down upon. The Mysterious Stranger is perhaps the best known, depicting various visits of Satan to earth. This particular work was not published in Twain's lifetime. His manuscripts included three versions, written between 1897 and 1905: the so-called Hannibal, Eseldorf, and Print Shop versions. The resulting confusion led to extensive publication of a jumbled version, and only recently have the original versions become available as Twain wrote them. Twain's last work was his autobiography, which he dictated and thought would be most entertaining if he went off on whims and tangents in non-chronological order. Some archivists and compilers have rearranged the biography into a more conventional form, thereby eliminating some of Twain's humor and the flow of the book. The first volume of the autobiography, over 736 pages, was published by the University of California in November 2010, 100 years after his death, as Twain wished.[100][101] It soon became an unexpected best-seller,[102] making Twain one of a very few authors publishing new best-selling volumes in the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries. Censorship[edit] Twain's works have been subjected to censorship efforts. According to Stuart (2013), "Leading these banning campaigns, generally, were religious organizations or individuals in positions of influence – not so much working librarians, who had been instilled with that American "library spirit" which honored intellectual freedom (within bounds of course)". In 1905, the Brooklyn Public Library banned both The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer from the children's department because of their language.[103] Publishers[edit] Mark Twain lived for two decades in a house in Hartford, Connecticut (1871–1891), and the American Publishing Company in that city published the first edition of several of his books.[104] The same can be said about a number of New York-based companies, such as Harper & Brothers and his nephew's Charles L. Webster and Company.[104] Other memorable editions were created by The Ash Ranch Press of San Diego and Barry Moser's Pennyroyal Press.[104] Views[edit] Twain's views became more radical as he grew older. In a letter to friend and fellow writer William Dean Howells in 1887, he acknowledged that his views had changed and developed over his lifetime, referring to one of his favorite works: When I finished Carlyle's French Revolution in 1871, I was a Girondin; every time I have read it since, I have read it differently – being influenced and changed, little by little, by life and environment ... and now I lay the book down once more, and recognize that I am a Sansculotte! And not a pale, characterless Sansculotte, but a Marat.[105][106] Politics[edit] Twain was a staunch supporter of technological progress and commerce. He was against welfare measures, because he believed that society in the "business age" is governed by "exact and constant" laws that should not be "interfered with for the accommodation of any individual or political or religious faction".[107] He opined that "there is no good government at all & none possible".[107] In the opinion of Washington University professor Guy A. Cardwell: By present standards Mark Twain was more conservative than liberal. He believed strongly in laissez faire, thought personal political rights secondary to property rights, admired self-made plutocrats, and advocated a leadership to be composed of men of wealth and brains. Among his attitudes now more readily recognized as liberal were a faith in progress through technology and a hostility towards monarchy, inherited aristocracy, the Roman Catholic church, and, in his later years, imperialism.[108] Labor[edit] Twain wrote glowingly about unions in the river boating industry in Life on the Mississippi, which was read in union halls decades later.[109] He supported the labor movement, especially one of the most important unions, the Knights of Labor.[43] In a speech to them, he said: Who are the oppressors? The few: the King, the capitalist, and a handful of other overseers and superintendents. Who are the oppressed? The many: the nations of the earth; the valuable personages; the workers; they that make the bread that the soft-handed and idle eat.[110] He further wrote "Why is it right that there is not a fairer division of the spoil all around? Because laws and constitutions have ordered otherwise. Then it follows that laws and constitutions should change around and say there shall be a more nearly equal division."[111] Imperialism[edit] Before 1899, Twain was largely in favor of imperialism. In the late 1860s and early 1870s, he spoke out strongly in favor of American interests in the Hawaiian Islands.[112] He said the war with Spain in 1898 was "the worthiest" war ever fought.[113] In 1899, however, he reversed course. In the New York Herald, October 16, 1900, Twain describes his transformation and political awakening, in the context of the Philippine–American War, to anti-imperialism: I wanted the American eagle to go screaming into the Pacific ... Why not spread its wings over the Philippines, I asked myself? ... I said to myself, Here are a people who have suffered for three centuries. We can make them as free as ourselves, give them a government and country of their own, put a miniature of the American Constitution afloat in the Pacific, start a brand new republic to take its place among the free nations of the world. It seemed to me a great task to which we had addressed ourselves. But I have thought some more, since then, and I have read carefully the treaty of Paris (which ended the Spanish–American War), and I have seen that we do not intend to free, but to subjugate the people of the Philippines. We have gone there to conquer, not to redeem. It should, it seems to me, be our pleasure and duty to make those people free, and let them deal with their own domestic questions in their own way. And so I am an anti-imperialist. I am opposed to having the eagle put its talons on any other land.[114][115] During the Boxer Rebellion, Twain said that "the Boxer is a patriot. He loves his country better than he does the countries of other people. I wish him success."[116] From 1901, soon after his return from Europe, until his death in 1910, Twain was vice-president of the American Anti-Imperialist League,[117] which opposed the annexation of the Philippines by the United States and had "tens of thousands of members".[43] He wrote many political pamphlets for the organization. The Incident in the Philippines, posthumously published in 1924, was in response to the Moro Crater Massacre, in which six hundred Moros were killed. He wrote "In what way was it a battle? It has no resemblance to a battle...We cleaned up our four days' work and made it complete by butchering these helpless people."[118][119] Many of his neglected and previously uncollected writings on anti-imperialism appeared for the first time in book form in 1992.[117] Twain was critical of imperialism in other countries as well. In Following the Equator, Twain expresses "hatred and condemnation of imperialism of all stripes".[43] He was highly critical of European imperialists such as Cecil Rhodes and King Leopold II of Belgium, both of whom attempted to establish colonies on the African continent during the Scramble for Africa.[43] King Leopold's Soliloquy is a political satire about the monarch's private colony, the Congo Free State. Reports of outrageous exploitation and grotesque abuses led to widespread international outcry in the early 1900s, arguably the first large-scale human rights movement. In the soliloquy, the King argues that bringing Christianity to the colony outweighs "a little starvation". The abuses against Congolese forced laborers continued until the movement forced the Belgian government to take direct control of the colony.[120][121] During the Philippine–American War, Twain wrote a short pacifist story titled The War Prayer, which makes the point that humanism and Christianity's preaching of love are incompatible with the conduct of war. It was submitted to Harper's Bazaar for publication, but on March 22, 1905, the magazine rejected the story as "not quite suited to a woman's magazine". Eight days later, Twain wrote to his friend Daniel Carter Beard, to whom he had read the story, "I don't think the prayer will be published in my time. None but the dead are permitted to tell the truth." Because he had an exclusive contract with Harper & Brothers, Twain could not publish The War Prayer elsewhere; it remained unpublished until 1916.[122] It was republished in the 1960s as campaigning material by anti-war activists.[43] Twain acknowledged that he had originally sympathized with the more moderate Girondins of the French Revolution and then shifted his sympathies to the more radical Sansculottes, indeed identifying himself as "a Marat" and writing that the Reign of Terror paled in comparison to the older terrors that preceded it.[123] Twain supported the revolutionaries in Russia against the reformists, arguing that the Tsar must be got rid of by violent means, because peaceful ones would not work.[124] He summed up his views of revolutions in the following statement: I am said to be a revolutionist in my sympathies, by birth, by breeding and by principle. I am always on the side of the revolutionists, because there never was a revolution unless there were some oppressive and intolerable conditions against which to revolute.[125] Civil rights[edit] Twain was an adamant supporter of the abolition of slavery and the emancipation of slaves, even going so far as to say, "Lincoln's Proclamation ... not only set the black slaves free, but set the white man free also".[126] He argued that non-whites did not receive justice in the United States, once saying, "I have seen Chinamen abused and maltreated in all the mean, cowardly ways possible to the invention of a degraded nature ... but I never saw a Chinaman righted in a court of justice for wrongs thus done to him".[127] He paid for at least one black person to attend Yale Law School and for another black person to attend a southern university to become a minister.[128] Twain was also a supporter of women's suffrage, as evidenced by his "Votes for Women" speech, given in 1901.[129] Helen Keller benefited from Twain's support as she pursued her college education and publishing despite her disabilities and financial limitations. The two were friends for roughly 16 years.[130] Through Twain's efforts, the Connecticut legislature voted a pension for Prudence Crandall, since 1995 Connecticut's official heroine, for her efforts towards the education of young African-American women in Connecticut. Twain also offered to purchase for her use her former house in Canterbury, home of the Canterbury Female Boarding School, but she declined.[131]: 528  At 62, he wrote in his travelogue Following the Equator (1897) that in colonized lands all over the world, "savages" have always been wronged by "whites" in the most merciless ways, such as "robbery, humiliation, and slow, slow murder, through poverty and the white man's whiskey"; his conclusion is that "there are many humorous things in this world; among them the white man's notion that he is less savage than the other savages".[132] Describing his travels, he wrote, "So far as I am able to judge nothing has been left undone, either by man or Nature, to make India the most extraordinary country that the sun visits on his rounds. Where every prospect pleases, and only man is vile."[133] Native Americans[edit] Twain's earlier writings on American Indians reflected his view of essentialized racial difference. Twain wrote in "The Noble Red Man" in 1870: His heart is a cesspool of falsehood, of treachery, and of low and devilish instincts. With him, gratitude is an unknown emotion; and when one does him a kindness, it is safest to keep the face toward him, lest the reward be an arrow in the back. To accept of a favor from him is to assume a debt which you can never repay to his satisfaction, though you bankrupt yourself trying. The scum of the earth![134] In the same tract, he advocates genocide, describing the "Noble Aborigine" as : "nothing but a poor filthy, naked scurvy vagabond, whom to exterminate were a charity to the Creator's worthier insects and reptiles which he oppresses"[135] This piece sought to undermine the sympathy felt on the "Atlantic seabord" for Native Americans.[136][137] In 1895, Twain was still ridiculing the author of Last of the Mohicans, saying in "Fenimore Cooper's Literary Offenses" that Cooper "[...] was almost always in error about his Indians. There was seldom a sane one among them."[138] Political parties[edit] Twain was a Republican for most of his life. However, in 1884 he publicly broke with his party and joined the Mugwumps to support the Democratic nominee, Grover Cleveland, over the Republican nominee, James G. Blaine, whom he considered a corrupt politician.[139] Twain spoke at rallies in favor of Cleveland. In the early 20th century, he began decrying both Democrats and Republicans as "insane" and proposed, in his 1907 book Christian Science, that while each party recognized the other's insanity, only the Mugwumps (that is, those who eschewed party loyalties in favor of voting for "the best man") could perceive the overall madness linking the two.[139] Religion[edit] See also: Twain–Ament indemnities controversy Twain was a Presbyterian.[140] He was critical of organized religion and certain elements of Christianity through his later life. He wrote, for example, "Faith is believing what you know ain't so", and "If Christ were here now there is one thing he would not be – a Christian".[141] With anti-Catholic sentiment rampant in 19th century America, Twain noted he was "educated to enmity toward everything that is Catholic".[142] As an adult, he engaged in religious discussions and attended services, his theology developing as he wrestled with the deaths of loved ones and with his own mortality.[143] Twain generally avoided publishing his most controversial[144] opinions on religion in his lifetime, and they are known from essays and stories that were published later. In the essay Three Statements of the Eighties in the 1880s, Twain stated that he believed in an almighty God, but not in any messages, revelations, holy scriptures such as the Bible, Providence, or retribution in the afterlife. He did state that "the goodness, the justice, and the mercy of God are manifested in His works", but also that "the universe is governed by strict and immutable laws", which determine "small matters", such as who dies in a pestilence.[145] At other times, he plainly professed a belief in Providence.[146] In some later writings in the 1890s, he was less optimistic about the goodness of God, observing that "if our Maker is all-powerful for good or evil, He is not in His right mind". At other times, he conjectured sardonically that perhaps God had created the world with all its tortures for some purpose of His own, but was otherwise indifferent to humanity, which was too petty and insignificant to deserve His attention anyway.[147] In 1901, Twain criticized the actions of the missionary Dr. William Scott Ament (1851–1909) because Ament and other missionaries had collected indemnities from Chinese subjects in the aftermath of the Boxer Uprising of 1900. Twain's response to hearing of Ament's methods was published in the North American Review in February 1901: To the Person Sitting in Darkness, and deals with examples of imperialism in China, South Africa, and with the U.S. occupation of the Philippines.[148] A subsequent article, "To My Missionary Critics" published in The North American Review in April 1901, unapologetically continues his attack, but with the focus shifted from Ament to his missionary superiors, the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions.[149] After his death, Twain's family suppressed some of his work that was especially irreverent toward conventional religion, including Letters from the Earth, which was not published until his daughter Clara reversed her position in 1962 in response to Soviet propaganda about the withholding.[150] The anti-religious The Mysterious Stranger was published in 1916. Little Bessie, a story ridiculing Christianity, was first published in the 1972 collection Mark Twain's Fables of Man.[151] He raised money to build a Presbyterian Church in Nevada in 1864.[152] Twain created a reverent portrayal of Joan of Arc, a subject over which he had obsessed for forty years, studied for a dozen years and spent two years writing about.[153] In 1900 and again in 1908 he stated, "I like Joan of Arc best of all my books, it is the best".[153][154] Those who knew Twain well late in life recount that he dwelt on the subject of the afterlife, his daughter Clara saying: "Sometimes he believed death ended everything, but most of the time he felt sure of a life beyond."[155] Twain's frankest views on religion appeared in his final work Autobiography of Mark Twain, the publication of which started in November 2010, 100 years after his death. In it, he said:[156]There is one notable thing about our Christianity: bad, bloody, merciless, money-grabbing, and predatory as it is – in our country particularly and in all other Christian countries in a somewhat modified degree – it is still a hundred times better than the Christianity of the Bible, with its prodigious crime – the invention of Hell. Measured by our Christianity of to-day, bad as it is, hypocritical as it is, empty and hollow as it is, neither the Deity nor his Son is a Christian, nor qualified for that moderately high place. Ours is a terrible religion. The fleets of the world could swim in spacious comfort in the innocent blood it has spilled. Twain was a Freemason.[157][158] He belonged to Polar Star Lodge No. 79 A.F.&A.M., based in St. Louis. He was initiated an Entered Apprentice on May 22, 1861, passed to the degree of Fellow Craft on June 12, and raised to the degree of Master Mason on July 10. Twain visited Salt Lake City for two days and met there members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. They also gave him a Book of Mormon.[159] He later wrote in Roughing It about that book:[160][161]The book seems to be merely a prosy detail of imaginary history, with the Old Testament for a model; followed by a tedious plagiarism of the New Testament. Pen names[edit] Twain used different pen names before deciding on "Mark Twain". He signed humorous and imaginative sketches as "Josh" until 1863. Additionally, he used the pen name "Thomas Jefferson Snodgrass" for a series of humorous letters.[162] He maintained that his primary pen name came from his years working on Mississippi riverboats, where two fathoms, a depth indicating water safe for the passage of boat, was a measure on the sounding line. Twain is an archaic term for "two", as in "The veil of the temple was rent in twain."[163] The riverboatman's cry was "mark twain" or, more fully, "by the mark twain", meaning "according to the mark [on the line], [the depth is] two [fathoms]"; that is, "The water is 12 feet (3.7 m) deep and it is safe to pass." Twain said that his famous pen name was not entirely his invention. In Life on the Mississippi, he wrote: Captain Isaiah Sellers was not of literary turn or capacity, but he used to jot down brief paragraphs of plain practical information about the river, and sign them "MARK TWAIN", and give them to the New Orleans Picayune. They related to the stage and condition of the river, and were accurate and valuable; ... At the time that the telegraph brought the news of his death, I was on the Pacific coast. I was a fresh new journalist, and needed a nom de guerre; so I confiscated the ancient mariner's discarded one, and have done my best to make it remain what it was in his hands – a sign and symbol and warrant that whatever is found in its company may be gambled on as being the petrified truth; how I have succeeded, it would not be modest in me to say.[164] Twain's story about his pen name has been questioned by some,[165] with the suggestion that "mark twain" refers to a running bar tab that Twain would regularly incur while drinking at John Piper's saloon in Virginia City, Nevada. Samuel Clemens himself responded to this suggestion by saying, "Mark Twain was the nom de plume of one Captain Isaiah Sellers, who used to write river news over it for the New Orleans Picayune. He died in 1863 and as he could no longer need that signature, I laid violent hands upon it without asking permission of the proprietor's remains. That is the history of the nom de plume I bear."[166] In his autobiography, Twain writes further of Captain Sellers' use of "Mark Twain": I was a cub pilot on the Mississippi River then, and one day I wrote a rude and crude satire which was leveled at Captain Isaiah Sellers, the oldest steamboat pilot on the Mississippi River, and the most respected, esteemed, and revered. For many years he had occasionally written brief paragraphs concerning the river and the changes which it had undergone under his observation during fifty years, and had signed these paragraphs "Mark Twain" and published them in the St. Louis and New Orleans journals. In my satire I made rude game of his reminiscences. It was a shabby poor performance, but I didn't know it, and the pilots didn't know it. The pilots thought it was brilliant. They were jealous of Sellers, because when the gray-heads among them pleased their vanity by detailing in the hearing of the younger craftsmen marvels which they had seen in the long ago on the river, Sellers was always likely to step in at the psychological moment and snuff them out with wonders of his own which made their small marvels look pale and sick. However, I have told all about this in "Old Times on the Mississippi." The pilots handed my extravagant satire to a river reporter, and it was published in the New Orleans True Delta. That poor old Captain Sellers was deeply wounded. He had never been held up to ridicule before; he was sensitive, and he never got over the hurt which I had wantonly and stupidly inflicted upon his dignity. I was proud of my performance for a while, and considered it quite wonderful, but I have changed my opinion of it long ago. Sellers never published another paragraph nor ever used his nom de guerre again.[167] Legacy and depictions[edit] Main article: Mark Twain in popular culture Caricature of Twain by Spy in the London magazine Vanity Fair, May 1908 While Twain is often depicted wearing a white suit, modern representations suggesting that he wore them throughout his life are unfounded. Evidence suggests that Twain began wearing white suits on the lecture circuit, after the death of his wife in 1904. However, there is also evidence showing him wearing a white suit before 1904. In 1882, he sent a photograph of himself in a white suit to 18-year-old Edward W. Bok, later publisher of the Ladies Home Journal, with a handwritten dated note. The white suit did eventually become his trademark, as illustrated in anecdotes about this eccentricity (such as the time he wore a white summer suit to a Congressional hearing during the winter).[53] McMasters' The Mark Twain Encyclopedia states that Twain did not wear a white suit in his last three years, except at one banquet speech.[168] In his autobiography, Twain writes of his early experiments with wearing white out-of-season:[169] Next after fine colors, I like plain white. One of my sorrows, when the summer ends, is that I must put off my cheery and comfortable white clothes and enter for the winter into the depressing captivity of the shapeless and degrading black ones. It is mid-October now, and the weather is growing cold up here in the New Hampshire hills, but it will not succeed in freezing me out of these white garments, for here the neighbors are few, and it is only of crowds that I am afraid.[169] See also[edit] Mark Twain bibliography Mark Twain in popular culture National Tom Sawyer Days References[edit] ^ a b c "Biography of Mark Twain". Archived from the original on June 3, 2017. Retrieved October 28, 2017. ^ "Mark Twain is Dead at 74; End Comes Peacefully at His New England Home After a Long Illness". The New York Times. April 22, 1910. ISSN 0362-4331. Archived from the original on August 28, 2023. Retrieved August 28, 2023. ^ Jelliffe, Robert A. (1956). Faulkner at Nagano. Tokyo: Kenkyusha, Ltd. ^ World Book Encyclopedia. Chicago: World Book, Inc. 1999. ^ Thomson, David, In Nevada: The Land, The People, God, and Chance, New York: Vintage Books, 2000. ISBN 0-679-77758-X p. 35 ^ Twain, Mark (1903). The Jumping Frog: The Jumping Frog, in English, Then in French, Then Clawed Back Into a Civilized Language Once More by Patient, Unremunerated Toil. New York: Harper & Brothers. ^ Caron, James E. (2008). "The Blessings of Civilization: Mark Twain's Anti-Imperialism and the Annexation of the Hawai'ian Islands". The Mark Twain Annual (6): 51–52. JSTOR 41582240. Archived from the original on October 31, 2023. Retrieved October 31, 2023 – via JSTOR. ^ "Mark Twain – The World of 1898: The Spanish-American War". Hispanic Division, Library of Congress. Archived from the original on October 26, 2022. Retrieved October 26, 2022. ^ Stone, Oliver; Kuznick, Peter (2013). The Untold History of the United States. ^ a b Thurber, Dani. "Research Guides: World of 1898: International Perspectives on the Spanish American War: Mark Twain". Library of Congress. Archived from the original on October 31, 2023. Retrieved October 31, 2023. During the Spanish-American War, Twain became a fervent anti-imperialist, even joining the Anti-Imperialist League. His sentiments about the war and the war in the Phillippines were published nationwide. ^ "Mark Twain's weird but perfect ending". PBS NewsHour. April 21, 2022. Archived from the original on July 2, 2023. Retrieved July 2, 2023. ^ Hoffman, Andrew J. (1997). Inventing Mark Twain. William Morrow. ISBN 978-0688127695. Archived from the original on January 19, 2017. ^ Kaplan, Fred (2007). "Chapter 1: The Best Boy You Had 1835–1847". The Singular Mark Twain. Doubleday. ISBN 978-0-385-47715-4. Cited in "Excerpt: The Singular Mark Twain". About.com: Literature: Classic. Archived from the original on March 2, 2006. Retrieved October 11, 2006. ^ Jeffrey L. (Ed) Egge. The Pennsylvania Genealogical Magazine, Volume 41. p. 1. ^ Michelle K Smith (December 31, 2014). "Mark Twain's ancestor was "witchfinder general" in Belfast trial". Archived from the original on April 19, 2015. Retrieved April 16, 2015. ^ Kathryn Stelmach Artuso. Transatlantic Renaissances: Literature of Ireland and the American South. p. 5. ^ Lyman Horace Weeks. Genealogy Volume 1–2; a weekly journal of American ancestry. p. 202. ^ Powers, Ron (2006). Mark Twain: A Life. Free Press. ISBN 9780743248990. ^ "Welcome to the Mark Twain House & Museum – Clemens Family Tree". www.marktwainhouse.org. Archived from the original on February 10, 2017. Retrieved August 17, 2017. ^ "Mark Twain, American Author and Humorist". Archived from the original on October 29, 2006. Retrieved October 25, 2006. ^ Lindborg, Henry J. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Archived from the original on October 28, 2009. Retrieved November 11, 2006. ^ "John Marshall Clemens". State Historical Society of Missouri. Archived from the original on September 23, 2013. Retrieved October 29, 2007. ^ Philip S. Foner, Mark Twain: Social Critic (New York: International Publishers, 1958), p. 13, cited in Helen Scott's "The Mark Twain they didn't teach us about in school" (2000) in the International Socialist Review 10, Winter 2000, pp. 61–65, at [1] Archived June 16, 2002, at the Wayback Machine ^ Clemens, Samuel L. Life on the Mississippi, pp. 32, 37, 45, 57, 78, Harper & Brothers, New York and London, 1917. ^ "Nautical Dictionary, Glossary and Terms directory: Search Results". www.seatalk.info. Archived from the original on August 17, 2017. Retrieved August 17, 2017. ^ "What do Mark Twain and your depth sounder have in common?". www.boatsafe.com/index.html. Archived from the original on June 23, 2018. Retrieved September 10, 2018. ^ Hanson, Joseph Mills. The Conquest of the Missouri: Being the Story of the Life and Exploits of Captain Grant Marsh, pp. 24–29, Murray Hill Books, Inc., New York and Toronto, 1909. ^ Smith, Harriet Elinor, ed. (2010). Autobiography of Mark Twain: Volume 1. University of California Press. ISBN 978-0-520-26719-0. ^ For a further account of Twain's involvement with parapsychology, see Blum, Deborah, Ghost Hunters: William James and the Search for Scientific Proof of Life After Death (Penguin Press, 2006). ^ a b "Mark Twain Biography". The Hannibal Courier-Post. Archived from the original on November 20, 2008. Retrieved November 25, 2008. ^ Clemens, Samuel L. Roughing It, p. 19, American Publishing Company, Hartford, CT, 1872. ISBN 0-87052-707-X. ^ a b c J. R. Lemaster (1993). The Mark Twain Encyclopedia. Taylor & Francis. ISBN 978-0824072124. ^ Powell, Allan Kent (April 22, 2016). "Mark Twain's Utah". Utah Division of State History. Archived from the original on November 7, 2022. Retrieved November 7, 2022. ^ Comstock Commotion: The Story of the Territorial Enterprise and Virginia City News, Chapter 2. ^ "Mark Twain quotations". Archived from the original on August 13, 2021. Retrieved January 3, 2007. ^ For further information, see Mark Twain in Nevada. ^ Dickson, Samuel. Isadora Duncan (1878–1927). The Virtual Museum of the City of San Francisco. Archived from the original on June 29, 2017. Retrieved July 9, 2009. ^ a b "Samuel Clemens". PBS:The West. Archived from the original on September 11, 2007. Retrieved August 25, 2007. ^ Gunderman, Richard (February 12, 2018). "Mark Twain's adventures in love: How a rough-edged aspiring author courted a beautiful heiress". The Conversation. Archived from the original on February 12, 2018. Retrieved February 12, 2018. ^ Mark Twain; Edgar Marquess Branch; Michael B. Frank; Kenneth M. Sanderson (1990). Mark Twain's Letters: 1867–1868. University of California Press. ISBN 978-0520906075. ^ a b c "David Gray biography". Mark Twain Project. Archived from the original on February 1, 2021. Retrieved December 18, 2020. ^ "Concerning Mark Twain". 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Retrieved July 9, 2008. ^ Mark Twain, "The Noble Red Man", 1870 ^ Clark, Beverly Lyon (2020). "Mark Twain among the Indians and Other Indigenous People by Kerry Driscoll (review)". Great Plains Quarterly. 40 (1). doi:10.1353/gpq.2020.0004. ^ Harris, Helen L. (1975). "Mark Twain's Response to the Native American" (PDF). American Literature. 46 (4). Duke University Press: 495–505. doi:10.2307/2924574. JSTOR 2924574. ^ Mark Twain (1895). "Fenimore Cooper's Literary Offenses". Mark Twain in his Times. ^ a b Leonard, James S. (2020), Bird, John (ed.), "Politics", Mark Twain in Context, Literature in Context, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 151–160, ISBN 978-1-108-47260-9, retrieved July 7, 2022 ^ Twain, Mark (January 2013). The wit and wisdom of Mark Twain. Blaisdell, Robert. Mineola, NY: Dover Publications. p. 20. ISBN 978-0486489230. OCLC 761852687. ^ Huberman, Jack (2007). The Quotable Atheist. Nation Books. pp. 303–304. 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What is man?: and other philosophical writings. pp.10, 486 ^ Mark Twain, "To the Person Sitting in Darkness", The North American Review 182:531 (February 1901):161–176; JSTOR 25105120 ^ Mark Twain, "To My Missionary Critics", The North American Review 172 (April 1901):520–534; JSTOR 25105150 ^ Gelb, Arthur (August 24, 1962). "Anti-Religious Work by Twain, Long Withheld, to Be Published". The New York Times. p. 23. ISSN 0362-4331. Archived from the original on July 25, 2008. Retrieved April 22, 2008. ^ Twain, Mark (1972). "Little Bessie". In John S. Tuckey; Kenneth M. Sanderson; Bernard L. Stein; Frederick Anderson (eds.). Mark Twain's Fables of Man. California: University of California Press. ISBN 978-0-520-02039-9.[permanent dead link] ^ "Church Aided by Twain Is in a Demolition Dispute". The New York Times. Associated Press. April 2, 2006. Archived from the original on April 15, 2009. Retrieved October 5, 2008. ^ a b Paine, Albert Bigelow, The Adventures of Mark Twain Archived April 6, 2023, at the Wayback Machine, p. 281, Kessinger 2004 ^ Goy-Blanquet, Dominique, Joan of Arc, a saint for all reasons: studies in myth and politics Archived April 6, 2023, at the Wayback Machine, p. 132, 2003 Ashgate Publishing ^ Phipps, William E., Mark Twain's Religion Archived April 18, 2023, at the Wayback Machine, p. 304, 2003 Mercer Univ. Press ^ PBS NewsHour (July 7, 2010). "Mark Twain's Autobiography Set for Unveiling, a Century After His Death". PBS. Archived from the original on January 21, 2014. Retrieved July 7, 2010. ^ "Brother Samuel Langhorne Clemens: A Missouri Freemason – Mert Sahinoglu". mertsahinoglu.com. Archived from the original on October 5, 2013. Retrieved October 30, 2009. ^ Masonic Information Center. "MIC Mark Twain Award". Archived from the original on October 28, 2017. Retrieved October 28, 2017. ^ Kathryn Jenkins Gordon (August 18, 2015). "What Mark Twain Really Thought About Mormons". LDS Living. Archived from the original on January 3, 2016. Retrieved October 27, 2015. ^ Roughing It – Chapter 16 ^ Adam Gopnik (August 13, 2012). "I, Nephi". The New Yorker. Archived from the original on November 7, 2015. Retrieved October 27, 2015. ^ Thomas Jefferson Snodgrass, (Charles Honce, James Bennet, ed.), Pascal Covici, Chicago, 1928 ^ "Matthew 27:51 at that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. The earth shook, the rocks split". Bible.cc. Archived from the original on May 9, 2013. Retrieved December 7, 2013. ^ Life on the Mississippi, chapter 50 ^ Williams, III, George (1999). "Mark Twain Leaves Virginia City for San Francisco". Mark Twain and the Jumping Frog of Calaveras County: How Mark Twain's humorous frog story launched his legendary career. Tree by the River Publishing. ISBN 0-935174-45-1. Cited in "Excerpt: The Singular Mark Twain". Archived from the original on May 6, 2007. Retrieved June 26, 2007. ^ Fatout, Paul. "Mark Twain's Nom de Plume." American Literature, v 34, n 1 (March 1962), pp. 1–7. doi:10.2307/2922241. JSTOR 2922241. ^ "Autobiography of Mark Twain Archived October 16, 2015, at the Wayback Machine." Volume 2; 10 September 1906, (2013, 2008), Paragraph 4. ^ Lemaster, J. R; Wilson, James Darrell; Hamric, Christie Graves (1993). The Mark Twain encyclopedia. Garland Publishing. p. 390. ISBN 978-0-8240-7212-4. Retrieved October 16, 2009. ^ a b Next after fine colors, I like plain white. One of my sorrows, when the summer ends, is that I must put off my cheery and comfortable white clothes and enter for the winter into the depressing captivity of the shapeless and degrading black ones. It is mid-October now, and the weather is growing cold up here in the New Hampshire hills, but it will not succeed in freezing me out of these white garments, for here the neighbors are few, and it is only of crowds that I am afraid. I made a brave experiment, the other night, to see how it would feel to shock a crowd with these unseasonable clothes, and also to see how long it might take the crowd to reconcile itself to them and stop looking astonished and outraged. On a stormy evening I made a talk before a full house, in the village, clothed like a ghost, and looking as conspicuous, all solitary and alone on that platform, as any ghost could have looked; and I found, to my gratification, that it took the house less than ten minutes to forget about the ghost and give its attention to the tidings I had brought.I am nearly seventy-one, and I recognize that my age has given me a good many privileges; valuable privileges; privileges which are not granted to younger persons. Little by little I hope to get together courage enough to wear white clothes all through the winter, in New York. It will be a great satisfaction to me to show off in this way; and perhaps the largest of all the satisfactions will be the knowledge that every scoffer, of my sex, will secretly envy me and wish he dared to follow my lead. "Autobiography of Mark Twain Archived October 16, 2015, at the Wayback Machine", Volume 2, October 8, 1906 (2013, 2008), Paragraph 14 Further reading[edit] Nathan G. Alexander, "Unclasping the Eagle's Talons: Mark Twain, American Freethought, and the Responses to Imperialism." Archived August 1, 2018, at the Wayback Machine The Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era 17, no. 3 (2018): 524–545. doi:10.1017/S1537781418000099. Lucius Beebe. Comstock Commotion: The Story of the Territorial Enterprise and Virginia City News, Stanford University Press, 1954 ISBN 1-122-18798-X Louis J. Budd, ed. Mark Twain, Collected Tales, Sketches, Speeches & Essays 1891–1910 (Library of America, 1992) (ISBN 978-0-940450-73-8) Ken Burns, Dayton Duncan, and Geoffrey C. Ward, Mark Twain: An Illustrated Biography. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2001 (ISBN 0-375-40561-5) Philip S. Foner. Mark Twain: Social Critic. New York: International Publishers. 1966. Gregg Camfield. The Oxford Companion to Mark Twain. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002 (ISBN 0-19-510710-1) Guy Cardwell, ed. Mark Twain, Mississippi Writings, (Library of America, 1982) (ISBN 978-0-940450-07-3) Guy Cardwell, ed. Mark Twain, The Innocents Abroad & Roughing It, (Library of America, 1984) ISBN 978-0-940450-25-7 James M. Cox. Mark Twain: The Fate of Humor, Princeton University Press, 1966 (ISBN 0-8262-1428-2) Everett Emerson. Mark Twain: A Literary Life, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2000 (ISBN 0-8122-3516-9) Shelley Fisher Fishkin Archived February 28, 2013, at the Wayback Machine, ed. A Historical Guide to Mark Twain. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002 (ISBN 0-19-513293-9) Shelley Fisher Fishkin, Lighting Out for the Territory: Reflections on Mark Twain and American Culture. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996 (ISBN 0-19-510531-1) Benjamin Griffin, ed., Mark Twain's Civil War: "The Private History of a Campaign That Failed". Berkeley, California: Heyday, 2019 (ISBN 9781597144780) Susan K. Harris, ed. Mark Twain, Historical Romances (Library of America, 1994) (ISBN 9780-940450-82-0) Hamlin L. Hill, ed. Mark Twain, The Gilded Age and Later Novels (Library of America, 2002) ISBN 978-1-931082-10-5 Jason Gary Horn. Mark Twain: A Descriptive Guide to Biographical Sources, Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 1999 (ISBN 0-8108-3630-0) William Dean Howells. My Mark Twain, Mineloa, NY: Dover Publications, 1997 [1910] (ISBN 0-486-29640-7) Fred Kaplan. The Singular Mark Twain: A Biography, New York: Doubleday, 2003 (ISBN 0-385-47715-5) Justin Kaplan. Mr. Clemens and Mark Twain: A Biography, New York: Simon and Schuster, 1966 (ISBN 0-671-74807-6) J. R. LeMaster and James D. Wilson, eds. The Mark Twain Encyclopedia, New York: Garland, 1993 (ISBN 0-8240-7212-X) Andrew Levy, Huck Finn's America: Mark Twain and the Era that Shaped His Masterpiece. New York: Simon and Schuster, 2015. Jerome Loving, Mark Twain: The Adventures of Samuel L. Clemens. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2010. (ISBN 978-0-520-26985-9) Bruce Michelson, Mark Twain on the Loose, Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1995 (ISBN 0-87023-967-8) Patrick Ober, Mark Twain and Medicine: "Any Mummery Will Cure" Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 2003 (ISBN 0-8262-1502-5) George Orwell, "Mark Twain – The Licensed Jester," The Collected Essays, Journalism and Letters of George Orwell, vol. 2: My Country Right or Left, 1940–1943, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1968. Archived February 21, 2022, at the Wayback Machine Albert Bigelow Paine, Mark Twain, A Biography: The Personal and Literary Life of Samuel Langhorne Clemens, Harper & Bros., 1912. ISBN 1-84702-983-3 Mark Perry, Grant and Twain: The Story of a Friendship that Changed American; also published as Grant and Twain: The Story of an American Friendship, New York: Random House, 2004. ISBN 0679642730 Ron Powers, Dangerous Water: A Biography of the Boy Who Became Mark Twain, New York: Da Capo Press, 1999. ISBN 0-306-81086-7 Ron Powers. Mark Twain: A Life, New York: Random House, 2005. (ISBN 0-7432-4899-6) Radavich, David (2004). "Twain, Howells, and the Origins of Midwestern Drama". MidAmerica. XXXI: 25–42. R. Kent Rasmussen, Critical Companion to Mark Twain: A Literary Reference to His Life and Work, Facts On File, 2007. Revised edition of Mark Twain A to Z ISBN 0-8160-6225-0 R. Kent Rasmussen, ed., The Quotable Mark Twain: His Essential Aphorisms, Witticisms and Concise Opinions, Contemporary Books, 1997 ISBN 0-8092-2987-0 Gary Scharnhorst, ed., Mark Twain: The Complete Interviews, Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2006. ISBN 9780817315221 Gary Scharnhorst, ed., Mainly the Truth: Interviews with Mark Twain, Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2009. ISBN 9780817355395 Gary Scharnhorst, ed., Twain in His Own Time: A Biographical Chronicle of His Life, Drawn from Recollections, Interviews, and Memoirs by Family, Friends, and Associates, Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 2010. ISBN 9781587299148 Gary Scharnhorst, ed., Mark Twain on Potholes and Politics: Letters to the Editor, Columbia, Missouri: University of Missouri Press, 2014. ISBN 9780826220462 Gary Scharnhorst, The Life of Mark Twain: The Early Years, 1835–1871, Columbia, Missouri: University of Missouri Press, 2018. ISBN 9780826221445 Gary Scharnhorst, The Life of Mark Twain: The Middle Years, 1871–1891, Columbia, Missouri: University of Missouri Press, 2019. ISBN 9780826274304 Gary Scharnhorst, The Life of Mark Twain: The Final Years, 1891–1910, Columbia, Missouri: University of Missouri Press, 2022. ISBN 9780826222411 Paul A. Shackel, "America's home town: fiction, Mark Twain, and the re‐creation of Hannibal, Missouri." International Journal of Heritage Studies 17.3 (2011): 197–213. online Archived January 16, 2023, at the Wayback Machine Ben Tarnoff, The Bohemians: Mark Twain and the San Francisco Writers Who Reinvented American Literature. New York: The Penguin Press, 2014 Mark Twain (November 1874). "A True Story, Repeated Word for Word As I Heard It". The Atlantic Monthly. Boston: Atlantic Monthly Co. pp. 591–594. Archived from the original on February 20, 2009. Retrieved January 22, 2009. Larzer Ziff, Mark Twain, New York: Oxford University Press, 2004. ISBN 0195170199 Anonymous (1873). "Mark Twain". Cartoon portraits and biographical sketches of men of the day. Illustrated by Frederick Waddy. London: Tinsley Brothers. p. 122. Archived from the original on May 11, 2011. Retrieved March 13, 2011. External links[edit] Wikimedia Commons has media related to Mark Twain. Wikiquote has quotations related to Mark Twain. Wikisource has original works by or about:Mark Twain Mark Twain at Curlie Western American Literature Journal: Mark Twain Mark Twain at Enciclopedia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. Mark Twain at The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction. 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Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library. vteMark TwainBibliographyNovels The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today The Adventures of Tom Sawyer The Prince and the Pauper Adventures of Huckleberry Finn A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court The American Claimant Tom Sawyer Abroad Pudd'nhead Wilson Tom Sawyer, Detective Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc A Double Barrelled Detective Story A Horse's Tale The Mysterious Stranger Hellfire Hotchkiss Short stories "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County" "Cannibalism in the Cars" "A Literary Nightmare" "A Murder, a Mystery, and a Marriage" "The Great Revolution in Pitcairn" "1601" "The Stolen White Elephant" "Luck" "The Million Pound Bank Note" "A Double Barrelled Detective Story" "Those Extraordinary Twins" "The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg" "A Dog's Tale" "Extracts from Adam's Diary" "The War Prayer" "Eve's Diary" "Extract from Captain Stormfield's Visit to Heaven" "My Platonic Sweetheart" "Advice for Good Little Girls" Collections Mark Twain's (Burlesque) Autobiography and First Romance Sketches New and Old Mark Twain's Library of Humor Merry Tales The £1,000,000 Bank Note and Other New Stories The $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories Plays Is He Dead? Essays "The Awful German Language" "On the Decay of the Art of Lying" "Advice to Youth" How to Tell a Story and Other Essays "Concerning the Jews" "To the Person Sitting in Darkness" "Edmund Burke on Croker and Tammany" "What Is Man?" "The United States of Lyncherdom" "Fenimore Cooper's Literary Offenses" Letters from the Earth Non-fiction Territorial Enterprise letters Letters from Hawaii The Innocents Abroad Roughing It Old Times on the Mississippi A Tramp Abroad Life on the Mississippi Following the Equator Is Shakespeare Dead? Autobiography of Mark Twain (Chapters from My Autobiography) King Leopold's Soliloquy The Private History of a Campaign That Failed Christian Science Speeches "Some Thoughts on the Science of Onanism" "Votes for Women" Placesand events Family cabin Birthplace State Historic Site State Park Boyhood home and museum Mark Twain Cave Mark Twain in Nevada Territorial Enterprise Sagebrush School Quarry Farm Mark Twain House Stormfield Twain–Ament indemnities controversy Popular culture Mark Twain Prize for American Humor Mark Twain Tonight! The Adventures of Mark Twain (1944) The Adventures of Mark Twain (1985) Mark Twain (2001 documentary) Twain and Shaw Do Lunch (2011 play) Mark Twain: The Musical Family Olivia Langdon Clemens (wife) Susy Clemens (daughter) Clara Clemens (daughter) Jean Clemens (daughter) John M. Clemens (father) Jane Lampton Clemens (mother) Orion Clemens (brother) Related Jap Herron Center For Mark Twain Studies National Tom Sawyer Days vteTom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn by Mark TwainCharacters Huckleberry Finn Tom Sawyer Jim Books The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876) Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884) Tom Sawyer Abroad (1894) Tom Sawyer, Detective (1896) Schoolhouse Hill (1916) Film Tom Sawyer (1907) Tom Sawyer (1917) Huck and Tom (1918) Huckleberry Finn (1920) Tom Sawyer (1930) Huckleberry Finn (1931) The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1938) The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1939) The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1960) Hopelessly Lost (1973) Tom Sawyer (1973) Huckleberry Finn (1974) The Adventures of Huck Finn (1993) Tom and Huck (1995) Tom Sawyer (2000) Tom Sawyer & Huckleberry Finn (2014) Band of Robbers (2015) Television "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" (1955) The New Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1968) Huckleberry Finn (1975) Huckleberry no Bōken (1976) Huckleberry Finn and His Friends (1979) The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1980) Rascals and Robbers: The Secret Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn (1982) Back to Hannibal: The Return of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn (1990) "Tom and Huck" (Simpsons Tall Tales) (2001) Video games The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1989) Square's Tom Sawyer (1989) Stage Big River The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (musical) Tom Sawyer: A Ballet in Three Acts (ballet) Other Tom Sawyer (album) Huckleberry Finn (EP) The Thin Executioner "Tom Sawyer" (song) Related Mark Twain Boyhood Home & Museum Mark Twain Cave National Tom Sawyer Days vteMark Twain's A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's CourtFilms A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court (1921 silent) A Connecticut Yankee (1931) A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court (1949) Knight-mare Hare (1955) Unidentified Flying Oddball (1979) New Adventures of a Yankee in King Arthur's Court (1988) A Kid in King Arthur's Court (1995) A Knight in Camelot (1998) Musical A Connecticut Yankee "To Keep My Love Alive" "Thou Swell" "My Heart Stood Still" Other "The Once and Future Duck" vteMark Twain's The Prince and the PauperCharacters Prince Edward Tudor Tom Canty Films The Prince and the Pauper (1915) The Prince and the Pauper (1920) The Prince and the Pauper (1937) Raju Peda (1954) Raja Aur Runk (1968) The Prince and the Pauper (1977) The Prince and the Surfer (1999) The Prince and the Pauper (2000) The Pooch and the Pauper (2000) Beethoven's 4th (2001) The Twins (2005) Garfield: A Tail of Two Kitties (2006) A Modern Twain Story: The Prince and the Pauper (2007) Frenemies (2012) I Am the King (2012) Animated The Prince and the Pauper (1990) "The Princess and the Pauper" (2000) Doraemon: Nobita and the Legend of the Sun King (2000) Barbie as the Princess and the Pauper (2004) "Double, Double, Boy in Trouble" (2008) "Princess and the Popstar" (2011) Barbie: The Princess & the Popstar (2012) Related List of adaptations Cultural depictions of Edward VI of England Coronation of Edward VI Jake & Blake Beggar Prince "The Shepherd" "The Principal and the Pauper" The Princess Switch Authority control databases International FAST ISNI 2 3 4 VIAF National Norway Chile Spain 2 France BnF data Argentina 2 3 Catalonia Germany Italy Israel Finland Belgium United States 2 3 Sweden Latvia Japan Czech Republic 2 Australia Greece 2 Korea Croatia Netherlands 2 Poland Portugal Russia Vatican Academics CiNii Artists MusicBrainz RKD Artists ULAN People Deutsche Biographie Trove Other NARA 2 SNAC 2 IdRef

THE MILLION POUND BANK NOTE

"The End of the Beginning" by Wayne Rafiki Morris is licensed under CC by-NC 2.0.

When I was twenty-seven years old, I was a mining-broker's clerk in San Francisco, and an expert in all the details of stock traffic. I was alone in the world, and had nothing to depend upon but my wits and a clean reputation; but these were setting my feet in the road to eventual fortune, and I was content with the prospect.

My time was my own after the afternoon board, Saturdays, and I was accustomed to put it in on a little sail-boat on the bay. One day I ventured too far, and was carried out to sea. Just at nightfall, when hope was about gone, I was picked up by a small brig which was bound for London. It was a long and stormy voyage, and they made me work my passage without pay, as a common sailor. When I stepped ashore in London my clothes were ragged and shabby, and I had only a dollar in my pocket. This money fed and sheltered me twenty-four hours. During the next twenty-four I went without food and shelter.

About ten o'clock on the following morning, seedy and hungry, I was dragging myself along Portland Place, when a child that was passing, towed by a nurse-maid, tossed a luscious big pear - minus one bite - into the gutter. I stopped, of course, and fastened my desiring eye on that muddy treasure. My mouth watered for it, my stomach craved it, my whole being begged for it. But every time I made a move to get it some passing eye detected my purpose, and of course I straightened up then, and looked indifferent, and pretended that I hadn't been thinking about the pear at all. This same thing kept happening and happening, and I couldn't get the pear. I was just getting desperate enough to brave all the shame, and to seize it, when a window behind me was raised, and a gentleman spoke out of it, saying:

"Step in here, please."

I was admitted by a gorgeous flunkey, and shown into a sumptuous room where a couple of elderly gentlemen were sitting. They sent away the servant, and made me sit down. They had just finished their breakfast, and the sight of the remains of it almost overpowered me. I could hardly keep my wits together in the presence of that food, but as I was not asked to sample it, I had to bear my trouble as best I could.

***

Now, something had been happening there a little before, which I did not know anything about until a good many days afterwards, but I will tell you about it now. Those two old brothers had been having a pretty hot argument a couple of days before, and had ended by agreeing to decide it by a bet, which is the English way of settling everything.

You will remember that the Bank of England once issued two notes of a million pounds each, to be used for a special purpose connected with some public transaction with a foreign country. For some reason or other only one of these had been used and canceled; the other still lay in the vaults of the Bank. Well, the brothers, chatting along, happened to get to wondering what might be the fate of a perfectly honest and intelligent stranger who should be turned adrift in London without a friend, and with no money but that million-pound bank-note, and no way to account for his being in possession of it. Brother A said he would starve to death; Brother B said he wouldn't. Brother A said he couldn't offer it at a bank or anywhere else, because he would be arrested on the spot. So they went on disputing till Brother B said he would bet twenty thousand pounds that the man would live thirty days, anyway, on that million, and keep out of jail, too. Brother A took him up. Brother B went down to the Bank and bought that note. Just like an Englishman, you see; pluck to the backbone. Then he dictated a letter, which one of his clerks wrote out in a beautiful round hand, and then the two brothers sat at the window a whole day watching for the right man to give it to.

They saw many honest faces go by that were not intelligent enough; many that were intelligent, but not honest enough; many that were both, but the possessors were not poor enough, or, if poor enough, were not strangers. There was always a defect, until I came along; but they agreed that I filled the bill all around; so they elected me unanimously, and there I was now waiting to know why I was called in. They began to ask me questions about myself, and pretty soon they had my story. Finally they told me I would answer their purpose. I said I was sincerely glad, and asked what it was. Then one of them handed me an envelope, and said I would find the explanation inside. I was going to open it, but he said no; take it to my lodgings, and look it over carefully, and not be hasty or rash. I was puzzled, and wanted to discuss the matter a little further, but they didn't; so I took my leave, feeling hurt and insulted to be made the butt of what was apparently some kind of a practical joke, and yet obliged to put up with it, not being in circumstances to resent affronts from rich and strong folk.

***

I would have picked up the pear now and eaten it before all the world, but it was gone; so I had lost that by this unlucky business, and the thought of it did not soften my feeling towards those men. As soon as I was out of sight of that house I opened my envelope, and saw that it contained money! My opinion of those people changed, I can tell you! I lost not a moment, but shoved note and money into my vest pocket, and broke for the nearest cheap eating house. Well, how I did eat! When at last I couldn't hold any more, I took out my money and unfolded it, took one glimpse and nearly fainted. Five millions of dollars! Why, it made my head swim.

I must have sat there stunned and blinking at the note as much as a minute before I came rightly to myself again. The first thing I noticed, then, was the landlord. His eye was on the note, and he was petrified. He was worshiping, with all his body and soul, but he looked as if he couldn't stir hand or foot. I took my cue in a moment, and did the only rational thing there was to do. I reached the note towards him, and said, carelessly:

"Give me the change, please."

Then he was restored to his normal condition, and made a thousand apologies for not being able to break the bill, and I couldn't get him to touch it. He wanted to look at it, and keep on looking at it; he couldn't seem to get enough of it to quench the thirst of his eye, but he shrank from touching it as if it had been something too sacred for poor common clay to handle. I said:

"I am sorry if it is an inconvenience, but I must insist. Please change it; I haven't anything else."

But he said that wasn't any matter; he was quite willing to let the trifle stand over till another time. I said I might not be in his neighborhood again for a good while; but he said it was of no consequence, he could wait, and, moreover, I could have anything I wanted, any time I chose, and let the account run as long as I pleased. He said he hoped he wasn't afraid to trust as rich a gentleman as I was, merely because I was of a merry disposition, and chose to play larks on the public in the matter of dress. By this time another customer was entering, and the landlord hinted to me to put the monster out of sight; then he bowed me all the way to the door, and I started straight for that house and those brothers, to correct the mistake which had been made before the police should hunt me up, and help me do it. I was pretty nervous; in fact, pretty badly frightened, though, of course, I was no way in fault; but I knew men well enough to know that when they find they've given a tramp a million-pound bill when they thought it was a one-pounder, they are in a frantic rage against him instead of quarreling with their own near-sightedness, as they ought. As I approached the house my excitement began to abate, for all was quiet there, which made me feel pretty sure the blunder was not discovered yet. I rang. The same servant appeared. I asked for those gentlemen.

***

"They are gone." This in the lofty, cold way of that fellow's tribe.

"Gone? Gone where?"

"On a journey."

"But whereabouts?"

"To the Continent, I think."

"The Continent?"

"Yes, sir."

"Which way - by what route?"

"I can't say, sir."

"When will they be back?"

"In a month, they said."

"A month! Oh, this is awful! Give me some sort of idea of how to get a word to them. It's of the last importance."

"I can't, indeed. I've no idea where they've gone, sir."

"Then I must see some member of the family."

"Family's away, too; been abroad months - in Egypt and India, I think."

"Man, there's been an immense mistake made. They'll be back before night. Will you tell them I've been here, and that I will keep coming till it's all made right, and they needn't be afraid?"

"I'll tell them, if they come back, but I am not expecting them. They said you would be here in an hour to make inquiries, but I must tell you it's all right, they'll be here on time and expect you."

So I had to give it up and go away. What a riddle it all was! I was like to lose my mind. They would be here "on time." What could that mean? Oh, the letter would explain, maybe. I had forgotten the letter; I got it out and read it. This is what it said:

"You are an intelligent and honest man, as one may see by your face. We conceive you to be poor and a stranger. Enclosed you will find a sum of money. It is lent to you for thirty days, without interest. Report at this house at the end of that time. I have a bet on you. If I win it you shall have any situation that is in my gift - any, that is, that you shall be able to prove yourself familiar with and competent to fill."

Well, here was a coil to be in! You are posted on what had preceded all this, but I was not. It was just a deep, dark puzzle to me. I hadn't the least idea what the game was, nor whether harm was meant me or a kindness. I went into a park, and sat down to try to think it out, and to consider what I had best do.

At the end of an hour my reasonings had crystallized into this verdict.

Maybe those men mean me well, maybe they mean me ill; no way to decide that - let it go. They've got a game, or a scheme, or an experiment, of some kind on hand; no way to determine what it is - let it go. There's a bet on me; no way to find out what it is - let it go. That disposes of the indeterminable quantities; the remainder of the matter is tangible, solid, and may be classed and labeled with certainty. If I ask the Bank of England to place this bill to the credit of the man it belongs to, they'll do it, for they know him, although I don't; but they will ask me how I came in possession of it, and if I tell the truth, they'll put me in the asylum, naturally, and a lie will land me in jail. The same result would follow if I tried to bank the bill anywhere or to borrow money on it. I have got to carry this immense burden around until those men come back, whether I want to or not. It is useless to me, as useless as a handful of ashes, and yet I must take care of it, and watch over it, while I beg my living. I couldn't give it away, if I should try, for neither honest citizen nor highwayman would accept it or meddle with it for anything. Those brothers are safe. Even if I lose their bill, or burn it, they are still safe, because they can stop payment, and the Bank will make them whole; but meantime I've got to do a month's suffering without wages or profit - unless I help win that bet, whatever it may be, and get that situation that I am promised. I should like to get that; men of their sort have situations in their gift that are worth having.

***

I got to thinking a good deal about that situation. My hopes began to rise high. Without doubt the salary would be large. It would begin in a month; after that I should be all right. Pretty soon I was feeling first-rate. By this time I was tramping the streets again. The sight of a tailor-shop gave me a sharp longing to shed my rags, and to clothe myself decently once more. Could I afford it? No; I had nothing in the world but a million pounds. So I forced myself to go on by. But soon I was drifting back again. The temptation persecuted me cruelly. I must have passed that shop back and forth six times during that manful struggle. At last I gave in; I had to. I asked if they had a misfit suit that had been thrown on their hands. The fellow I spoke to nodded his head towards another fellow, and gave me no answer. I went to the indicated fellow, and he indicated another fellow with his head, and no words. I went to him, and he said:

"Tend to you presently."

I waited till he was done with what he was at, then he took me into a back room, and overhauled a pile of rejected suits, and selected the rattiest one for me. I put it on. It didn't fit, and wasn't in any way attractive, but it was new, and I was anxious to have it; so I didn't find any fault, but said, with some diffidence:

"It would be an accommodation to me if you could wait some days for the money. I haven't any small change about me."

The fellow worked up a most sarcastic expression of countenance, and said:

"Oh, you haven't? Well, of course, I didn't expect it. I'd only expect gentlemen like you to carry large change."

I was nettled, and said:

"My friend, you shouldn't judge a stranger always by the clothes he wears. I am quite able to pay for this suit; I simply didn't wish to put you to the trouble of changing a large note."

He modified his style a little at that, and said, though still with something of an air:

"I didn't mean any particular harm, but as long as rebukes are going, I might say it wasn't quite your affair to jump to the conclusion that we couldn't change any note that you might happen to be carrying around. On the contrary, we can."

I handed the note to him, and said:

"Oh, very well; I apologize."

He received it with a smile, one of those large smiles which goes all around over, and has folds in it, and wrinkles, and spirals, and looks like the place where you have thrown a brick in a pond; and then in the act of his taking a glimpse of the bill this smile froze solid, and turned yellow, and looked like those wavy, wormy spreads of lava which you find hardened on little levels on the side of Vesuvius. I never before saw a smile caught like that, and perpetuated. The man stood there holding the bill, and looking like that, and the proprietor hustled up to see what was the matter, and said, briskly:

"Well, what's up? what's the trouble? what's wanting?"

I said: "There isn't any trouble. I'm waiting for my change."

"Come, come; get him his change, Tod; get him his change."

Tod retorted: "Get him his change! It's easy to say, sir; but look at the bill yourself."

The proprietor took a look, gave a low, eloquent whistle, then made a dive for the pile of rejected clothing, and began to snatch it this way and that, talking all the time excitedly, and as if to himself:

"Sell an eccentric millionaire such an unspeakable suit as that! Tod's a fool - a born fool. Always doing something like this. Drives every millionaire away from this place, because he can't tell a millionaire from a tramp, and never could. Ah, here's the thing I am after. Please get those things off, sir, and throw them in the fire. Do me the favor to put on this shirt and this suit; it's just the thing, the very thing - plain, rich, modest, and just ducally nobby; made to order for a foreign prince - you may know him, sir, his Serene Highness the Hospodar of Halifax; had to leave it with us and take a mourning-suit because his mother was going to die - which she didn't. But that's all right; we can't always have things the way we - that is, the way they - there! trousers all right, they fit you to a charm, sir; now the waistcoat; aha, right again! now the coat - Lord! look at that, now! Perfect - the whole thing! I never saw such a triumph in all my experience."

I expressed my satisfaction.

"Quite right, sir, quite right; it'll do for a makeshift, I'm bound to say. But wait till you see what we'll get up for you on your own measure. Come, Tod, book and pen; get at it. Length of leg, 32" - and so on. Before I could get in a word he had measured me, and was giving orders for dress-suits, morning suits, shirts, and all sorts of things. When I got a chance I said:

"But, my dear sir, I can't give these orders, unless you can wait indefinitely, or change the bill."

"Indefinitely! It's a weak word, sir, a weak word. Eternally - that's the word, sir. Tod, rush these things through, and send them to the gentleman's address without any waste of time. Let the minor customers wait. Set down the gentleman's address and-"

"I'm changing my quarters. I will drop in and leave the new address."

"Quite right, sir, quite right. One moment - let me show you out, sir. There - good day, sir, good day."

Well, don't you see what was bound to happen? I drifted naturally into buying whatever I wanted, and asking for change. Within a week I was sumptuously equipped with all needful comforts and luxuries, and was housed in an expensive private hotel in Hanover Square. I took my dinners there, but for breakfast I stuck by Harris's humble feeding house, where I had got my first meal on my million-pound bill. I was the making of Harris. The fact had gone all abroad that the foreign crank who carried million-pound bills in his vest pocket was the patron saint of the place. That was enough. From being a poor, struggling, little hand-to-mouth enterprise, it had become celebrated, and overcrowded with customers. Harris was so grateful that he forced loans upon me, and would not be denied; and so, pauper as I was, I had money to spend, and was living like the rich and the great. I judged that there was going to be a crash by and by, but I was in now and must swim across or drown. You see there was just that element of impending disaster to give a serious side, a sober side, yes, a tragic side, to a state of things which would otherwise have been purely ridiculous. In the night, in the dark, the tragedy part was always to the front, and always warning, always threatening; and so I moaned and tossed, and sleep was hard to find. But in the cheerful daylight the tragedy element faded out and disappeared, and I walked on air, and was happy to giddiness, to intoxication, you may say.

And it was natural; for I had become one of the notorieties of the metropolis of the world, and it turned my head, not just a little, but a good deal. You could not take up a newspaper, English, Scotch, or Irish, without finding in it one or more references to the "vest-pocket million-pounder" and his latest doings and saying. At first, in these mentions, I was at the bottom of the personal-gossip column; next, I was listed above the knights, next above the baronets, next above the barons, and so on, and so on, climbing steadily, as my notoriety augmented, until I reached the highest altitude possible, and there I remained, taking precedence of all dukes not royal, and of all ecclesiastics except the primate of all England. But mind, this was not fame; as yet I had achieved only notoriety. Then came the climaxing stroke - the accolade, so to speak - which in a single instant transmuted the perishable dross of notoriety into the enduring gold of fame: Punch caricatured me! Yes, I was a made man now; my place was established. I might be joked about still, but reverently, not hilariously, not rudely; I could be smiled at, but not laughed at. The time for that had gone by. Punch pictured me all a-flutter with rags, dickering with a beef-eater for the Tower of London. Well, you can imagine how it was with a young fellow who had never been taken notice of before, and now all of a sudden couldn't say a thing that wasn't taken up and repeated everywhere; couldn't stir abroad without constantly overhearing the remark flying from lip to lip, "There he goes; that's him!" couldn't take his breakfast without a crowd to look on; couldn't appear in an operabox without concentrating there the fire of a thousand lorgnettes. Why, I just swam in glory all day long - that is the amount of it.

You know, I even kept my old suit of rags, and every now and then appeared in them, so as to have the old pleasure of buying trifles, and being insulted, and then shooting the scoffer dead with the million-pound bill. But I couldn't keep that up. The illustrated papers made the outfit so familiar that when I went out in it I was at once recognized and followed by a crowd, and if I attempted a purchase the man would offer me his whole shop on credit before I could pull my note on him.

***

About the tenth day of my fame I went to fulfill my duty to my flag by paying my respects to the American minister. He received me with the enthusiasm proper in my case, upbraided me for being so tardy in my duty, and said that there was only one way to get his forgiveness, and that was to take the seat at his dinner-party that night made vacant by the illness of one of his guests. I said I would, and we got to talking. It turned out that he and my father had been schoolmates in boyhood, Yale students together later, and always warm friends up to my father's death. So then he required me to put in at his house all the odd time I might have to spare, and I was very willing, of course.

In fact, I was more than willing; I was glad. When the crash should come, he might somehow be able to save me from total destruction; I didn't know how, but he might think of a way, maybe. I couldn't venture to unbosom myself to him at this late date, a thing which I would have been quick to do in the beginning of this awful career of mine in London. No, I couldn't venture it now; I was in too deep; that is, too deep for me to be risking revelations to so new a friend, though not clear beyond my depth, as I looked at it. Because, you see, with all my borrowing, I was carefully keeping within my means - I mean within my salary. Of course, I couldn't know what my salary was going to be, but I had a good enough basis for an estimate in the fact, that if I won the bet I was to have choice of any situation in that rich old gentleman's gift provided I was competent - and I should certainly prove competent; I hadn't any doubt about that. And as to the bet, I wasn't worrying about that; I had always been lucky. Now my estimate of the salary was six hundred to a thousand a year; say, six hundred for the first year, and so on up year by year, till I struck the upper figure by proved merit. At present I was only in debt for my first year's salary. Everybody had been trying to lend me money, but I had fought off the most of them on one pretext or another; so this indebtedness represented only £300 borrowed money, the other £300 represented my keep and my purchases. I believed my second year's salary would carry me through the rest of the month if I went on being cautious and economical, and I intended to look sharply out for that. My month ended, my employer back from his journey, I should be all right once more, for I should at once divide the two years' salary among my creditors by assignment, and get right down to my work.

***

It was a lovely dinner-party of fourteen. The Duke and Duchess of Shoreditch, and their daughter the Lady Anne-Grace-Eleanor-Celeste-and-so-forth-and-so-forth-de-Bohun, the Earl and Countess of Newgate, Viscount Cheapside, Lord and Lady Blatherskite, some untitled people of both sexes, the minister and his wife and daughter, and his daughter's visiting friend, an English girl of twenty-two, named Portia Langham, whom I fell in love with in two minutes, and she with me - I could see it without glasses. There was still another guest, an American - but I am a little ahead of my story. While the people were still in the drawing-room, whetting up for dinner, and coldly inspecting the late comers, the servant announced:

"Mr. Lloyd Hastings."

The moment the usual civilities were over, Hastings caught sight of me, and came straight with cordially outstretched hand; then stopped short when about to shake, and said, with an embarrassed look:

"I beg your pardon, sir, I thought I knew you."

"Why, you do know me, old fellow."

"No. Are you the - the -"

"Vest-pocket monster? I am, indeed. Don't be afraid to call me by my nickname; I'm used to it."

"Well, well, well, this is a surprise. Once or twice I've seen your own name coupled with the nickname, but it never occurred to me that you could be the Henry Adams referred to. Why, it isn't six months since you were clerking away for Blake Hopkins in Frisco on a salary, and sitting up nights on an extra allowance, helping me arrange and verify the Gould and Curry Extension papers and statistics. The idea of your being in London, and a vast millionaire, and a colossal celebrity! Why, it's the Arabian Nights come again. Man, I can't take it in at all; can't realize it; give me time to settle the whirl in my head."

"The fact is, Lloyd, you are no worse off than I am. I can't realize it myself."

"Dear me, it is stunning, now isn't it? Why, it's just three months today since we went to the Miners' restaurant -"

"No; the What Cheer."

"Right, it was the What Cheer; went there at two in the morning, and had a chop and coffee after a hard six-hours grind over those Extension papers, and I tried to persuade you to come to London with me, and offered to get leave of absence for you and pay all your expenses, and give you something over if I succeeded in making the sale; and you would not listen to me, said I wouldn't succeed, and you couldn't afford to lose the run of business and be no end of time getting the hang of things again when you got back home. And yet here you are. How odd it all is! How did you happen to come, and whatever did give you this incredible start?"

incredible start?"

"Oh, just an accident. It's a long story - a romance, a body may say. I'll tell you all about it, but not now."

"When?"

"The end of this month."

"That's more than a fortnight yet. It's too much of a strain on a person's curiosity. Make it a week."

"I can't. You'll know why, by and by. But how's the trade getting along?"

His cheerfulness vanished like a breath, and he said with a sigh:

"You were a true prophet, Hal, a true prophet. I wish I hadn't come. I don't want to talk about it."

"But you must. You must come and stop with me to-night, when we leave here, and tell me all about it."

"Oh, may I? Are you in earnest?" and the water showed in his eyes.

"Yes; I want to hear the whole story, every word."

"I'm so grateful! Just to find a human interest once more, in some voice and in some eye, in me and affairs of mine, after what I've been through here - lord! I could go down on my knees for it!"

He gripped my hand hard, and braced up, and was all right and lively after that for the dinner - which didn't come off. No; the usual thing happened, the thing that is always happening under that vicious and aggravating English system - the matter of precedence couldn't be settled, and so there was no dinner. Englishmen always eat dinner before they go out to dinner, because they know the risks they are running; but nobody ever warns the stranger, and so he walks placidly into trap. Of course, nobody was hurt this time, because we had all been to dinner, none of us being novices excepting Hastings, and he having been informed by the minister at the time that he invited him that in deference to the English custom he had not provided any dinner. Everybody took a lady and processioned down to the dining-room, because it is usual to go through the motions; but there the dispute began. The Duke of Shoreditch wanted to take precedence, and sit at the head of the table, holding that he outranked a minister who represented merely a nation and not a monarch; but I stood for my rights, and refused to yield. In the gossip column I ranked all dukes not royal, and said so, and claimed precedence of this one. It couldn't be settled, of course, struggle as we might and did, he finally (and injudiciously) trying to play birth and antiquity, and I "seeing" his Conqueror and "raising" him with Adam, whose direct posterity I was, as shown by my name, while he was of a collateral branch, as shown by his, and by his recent Norman origin; so we all processioned back to the drawing-room again and had a perpendicular lunch - plate of sardines and a strawberry, and you group yourself and stand up and eat it. Here the religion of precedence is not so strenuous; the two persons of highest rank chuck up a shilling, the one that wins has first go at his strawberry, and the loser gets the shilling. The next two chuck up, then the next two, and so on. After refreshment, tables were brought, and we all played cribbage, sixpence a game. The English never play any game for amusement. If they can't make something or lose something - they don't care which - they won't play.

***

We had a lovely time; certainly two of us had, Miss Langham and I. I was so bewitched with her that I couldn't count my hands if they went above a double sequence; and when I struck home I never discovered it, and started up the outside row again, and would have lost the game every time, only the girl did the same, she being in just my condition, you see; and consequently neither of us ever got out, or cared to wonder why we didn't; we only just knew we were happy, and didn't wish to know anything else, and didn't want to be interrupted. And I told her - I did, indeed - told her I loved her; and she - well, she blushed till her hair turned red, but she liked it; she said she did. Oh, there was never such an evening! Every time I pegged I put on a postscript; every time she pegged she acknowledged receipt of it, counting the hands the same. Why, I couldn't even say "Two for his heels" without adding, "My, how sweet you do look!" and she would say, "Fifteen two, fifteen four, fifteen six, and a pair are eight, and eight are sixteen - do you think so?" - peeping out aslant from under her lashes, you know, so sweet and cunning. Oh, it was just too-too!

Well, I was perfectly honest and square with her; told her I hadn't a cent in the world but just the million-pound note she'd heard so much talk about, and it didn't belong to me, and that started her curiosity; and then I talked low, and told her the whole history right from the start, and it nearly killed her laughing. What in the nation she could find to laugh about I couldn't see, but there it was; every half-minute some new detail would fetch her, and I would have to stop as much as a minute and a half to give her a chance to settle down again. Why, she laughed herself lame - she did, indeed; I never saw anything like it. I mean I never saw a painful story - a story of a person's troubles and worries and fears - produce just that kind of effect before. So I loved her all the more, seeing she could be so cheerful when there wasn't anything to be cheerful about; for I might soon need that kind of wife, you know, the way things looked. Of course, I told her we should have to wait a couple of years, till I could catch up on my salary; but she didn't mind that, only she hoped I would be as careful as possible in the matter of expenses, and not let them run the least risk of trenching on our third year's pay. Then she began to get a little worried, and wondered if we were making any mistake, and starting the salary on a higher figure for the first year than I would get. This was good sense, and it made me feel a little less confident than I had been feeling before; but it gave me a good business idea, and I brought it frankly out.

"Portia, dear, would you mind going with me that day, when I confront those old gentlemen?"

She shrank a little, but said:

"N-o; if my being with you would help hearten you. But - would it be quite proper, do you think?"

"No, I don't know that it would - in fact, I'm afraid it wouldn't; but, you see, there's so much dependent upon it that -"

"Then I'll go anyway, proper or improper," she said, with a beautiful and generous enthusiasm. "Oh, I shall be so happy to think I'm helping!"

"Helping, dear? Why, you'll be doing it all. You're so beautiful and so lovely and so winning, that with you there I can pile our salary up till I break those good old fellows, and they'll never have the heart to struggle."

Sho! you should have seen the rich blood mount, and her happy eyes shine!

"You wicked flatterer! There isn't a word of truth in what you say, but still I'll go with you. Maybe it will teach you not to expect other people to look with your eyes."

Were my doubts dissipated? Was my confidence restored? You may judge by this fact: privately I raised my salary to twelve hundred the first year on the spot. But I didn't tell her; I saved it for a surprise.

***

All the way home I was in the clouds, Hastings talking, I not hearing a word. When he and I entered my parlor, he brought me to myself with his fervent appreciations of my manifold comforts and luxuries.

"Let me just stand here a little and look my fill. Dear me! it's a palace - it's just a palace! And in it everything a body could desire, including cozy coal fire and supper standing ready. Henry, it doesn't merely make me realize how rich you are; it makes me realize, to the bone, to the marrow, how poor I am - how poor I am, and how miserable, how defeated, routed, annihilated!"

Plague take it! this language gave me the cold shudders. It scared me broad awake, and made me comprehend that I was standing on a half-inch crust, with a crater underneath. I didn't know I had been dreaming - that is, I hadn't been allowing myself to know it for a while back; but now - oh, dear! Deep in debt, not a cent in the world, a lovely girl's happiness or woe in my hands, and nothing in front of me but a salary which might never - oh, would never - materialize! Oh, oh, oh! I am ruined past hope! nothing can save me!

"Henry, the mere unconsidered drippings of your daily income would -"

"Oh, my daily income! Here, down with this hot Scotch, and cheer up your soul. Here's with you! Or, no - you're hungry; sit down and -"

"Not a bite for me; I'm past it. I can't eat, these days; but I'll drink with you till I drop. Come!"

"Barrel for barrel, I'm with you! Ready? Here we go! Now, then, Lloyd, unreel your story while I brew."

"Unreel it? What, again?"

"Again? What do you mean by that?"

"Why, I mean do you want to hear it over again?"

"Do I want to hear it over again? This is a puzzler. Wait; don't take any more of that liquid. You don't need it."

"Look here, Henry, you alarm me. Didn't I tell you the whole story on the way here?"

"You?"

"Yes, I."

"I'll be hanged if I heard a word of it."

"Henry, this is a serious thing. It troubles me. What did you take up yonder at the minister's?"

Then it all flashed on me, and I owned up like a man.

"I took the dearest girl in this world - prisoner!"

So then he came with a rush, and we shook, and shook, and shook till our hands ached; and he didn't blame me for not having heard a word of a story which had lasted while we walked three miles. He just sat down then, like the patient, good fellow he was, and told it all over again. Synopsized, it amounted to this: He had come to England with what he thought was a grand opportunity; he had an "option" to sell the Gould and Curry Extension for the "locators" of it, and keep all he could get over a million dollars. He had worked hard, had pulled every wire he knew of, had left no honest expedient untried, had spent nearly all the money he had in the world, had not been able to get a solitary capitalist to listen to him, and his option would run out at the end of the month. In a word, he was ruined. Then he jumped up and cried out:

"Henry, you can save me! You can save me, and you're the only man in the universe that can. Will you do it? Won't you do it?"

"Tell me how. Speak out, my boy."

"Give me a million and my passage home for my 'option'! Don't, don't refuse!"

I was in a kind of agony. I was right on the point of coming out with the words, "Lloyd, I'm a pauper myself - absolutely penniless, and in debt!" But a white-hot idea came flaming through my head, and I gripped my jaws together, and calmed myself down till I was as cold as a capitalist. Then I said, in a commercial and self-possessed way:

"I will save you, Lloyd-"

"Then I'm already saved! God be merciful to you forever! If ever I-"

"Let me finish, Lloyd. I will save you, but not in that way; for that would not be fair to you, after your hard work, and the risks you've run. I don't need to buy mines; I can keep my capital moving, in a commercial center like London, without that; it's what I'm at, all the time; but here is what I'll do. I know all about that mine, of course; I know its immense value, and can swear to it if anybody wishes it. You shall sell out inside of the fortnight for three millions cash, using my name freely, and we'll divide, share and share alike."

Do you know, he would have danced the furniture to kindling-wood in his insane joy, and broken everything on the place, if I hadn't tripped him up and tied him.

Then he lay there, perfectly happy, saying:

"I may use your name! Your name - think of it! Man, they'll flock in droves, these rich Londoners; they'll fight for that stock! I'm a made man, I'm a made man forever, and I'll never forget you as long as I live!"

In less than twenty-four hours London was abuzz! I hadn't anything to do, day after day, but sit at home, and say to all comers:

"Yes; I told him to refer to me. I know the man, and I know the mine. His character is above reproach, and the mine is worth far more than he asks for it."

Meantime I spent all my evenings at the minister's with Portia. I didn't say a word to her about the mine; I saved it for a surprise. We talked salary; never anything but salary and love; sometimes love, sometimes salary, sometimes love and salary together. And my! the interest the minister's wife and daughter took in our little affair, and the endless ingenuities they invented to save us from interruption, and to keep the minister in the dark and unsuspicious - well, it was just lovely of them!

When the month was up at last, I had a million dollars to my credit in the London and County Bank, and Hastings was fixed in the same way. Dressed at my level best, I drove by the house in Portland Place, judged by the look of things that my birds were home again, went on towards the minister's and got my precious, and we started back, talking salary with all our might. She was so excited and anxious that it made her just intolerably beautiful. I said:

"Dearie, the way you're looking it's a crime to strike for a salary a single penny under three thousand a year."

"Henry, Henry, you'll ruin us!"

"Don't you be afraid. Just keep up those looks, and trust to me. It'll all come out right."

So, as it turned out, I had to keep bolstering up her courage all the way. She kept pleading with me, and saying:

"Oh, please remember that if we ask for too much we may get no salary at all; and then what will become of us, with no way in the world to earn our living?"

We were ushered in by that same servant, and there they were, the two old gentlemen. Of course, they were surprised to see that wonderful creature with me, but I said:

"It's all right, gentlemen; she is my future stay and helpmate."

And I introduced them to her, and called them by name. It didn't surprise them; they knew I would know enough to consult the directory. They seated us, and were very polite to me, and very solicitous to relieve her from embarrassment, and put her as much at her ease as they could. Then I said:

"Gentlemen, I am ready to report."

"We are glad to hear it," said my man, "for now we can decide the bet which my brother Abel and I made. If you have won for me, you shall have any situation in my gift. Have you the million-pound note?"

"Here it is, sir," and I handed it to him.

"I've won!" he shouted, and slapped Abel on the back. "Now what do you say, brother?"

"I say he did survive, and I've lost twenty thousand pounds. I never would have believed it."

"I've a further report to make," I said, "and a pretty long one. I want you to let me come soon, and detail my whole month's history; and I promise you it's worth hearing. Meantime, take a look at that."

"What, man! Certificate of deposit for £200,000. Is it yours?"

"Mine. I earned it by thirty days' judicious use of that little loan you let me have. And the only use I made of it was to buy trifles and offer the bill in change."

"Come, this is astonishing! It's incredible, man!"

"Never mind, I'll prove it. Don't take my word unsupported."

But now Portia's turn was come to be surprised. Her eyes were spread wide, and she said:

"Henry, is that really your money? Have you been fibbing to me?"

"I have, indeed, dearie. But you'll forgive me, I know."

She put up an arch pout, and said:

"Don't you be so sure. You are a naughty thing to deceive me so!"

"Oh, you'll get over it, sweetheart, you'll get over it; it was only fun, you know. Come, let's be going."

"But wait, wait! The situation, you know. I want to give you the situation," said my man.

"Well," I said, "I'm just as grateful as I can be, but really I don't want one."

"But you can have the very choicest one in my gift."

"Thanks again, with all my heart; but I don't even want that one."

"Henry, I'm ashamed of you. You don't half thank the good gentleman. May I do it for you?"

"Indeed, you shall, dear, if you can improve it. Let us see you try."

She walked to my man, got up in his lap, put her arm round his neck, and kissed him right on the mouth. Then the two old gentlemen shouted with laughter, but I was dumfounded, just petrified, as you may say. Portia said:

"Papa, he has said you haven't a situation in your gift that he'd take; and I feel just as hurt as-"

"My darling, is that your papa?"

"Yes; he's my step-papa, and the dearest one that ever was. You understand now, don't you, why I was able to laugh when you told me at the minister's, not knowing my relationships, what trouble and worry papa's and Uncle Abel's scheme was giving you?"

Of course, I spoke right up now, without any fooling, and went straight to the point.

"Oh, my dearest dear sir, I want to take back what I said. You have got a situation open that I want."

"Name it."

"Son-in-law."

"Well, well, well! But you know, if you haven't ever served in that capacity, you, of course, can't furnish recommendations of a sort to satisfy the conditions of the contract, and so-"

Try me - oh, do, I beg of you! Only just try me thirty or forty years, and if-"

"Oh, well, all right; it's but a little thing to ask, take her along."

***

Happy, we two? There are not words enough in the unabridged to describe it. And when London got the whole history, a day or two later, of my month's adventures with that bank-note, and how they ended, did London talk, and have a good time? Yes.

My Portia's papa took that friendly and hospitable bill back to the Bank of England and cashed it; then the Bank canceled it and made him a present of it, and he gave it to us at our wedding, and it has always hung in its frame in the sacredest place in our home ever since. For it gave me my Portia. But for it I could not have remained in London, would not have appeared at the minister's, never should have met her. And so I always say, "Yes, it's a million-pounder, as you see; but it never made but one purchase in its life, and then got the article for only about a tenth part of its value."

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GRADE:9

Additional Information:

Rating: A Words in the Passage: 910 Unique Words: 1,688 Sentences: 606
Noun: 2586 Conjunction: 942 Adverb: 597 Interjection: 40
Adjective: 498 Pronoun: 1301 Verb: 1494 Preposition: 860
Letter Count: 33,018 Sentiment: Positive / Positive / Positive Tone: Conversational Difficult Words: 1074
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