{"id":1327,"date":"2019-01-23T01:10:56","date_gmt":"2019-01-23T01:10:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kurtbusscoloradofreelancewriter.com\/?p=1327"},"modified":"2024-02-14T19:32:37","modified_gmt":"2024-02-14T19:32:37","slug":"mark-twain-an-american-storyteller","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kurtbusscoloradofreelancewriter.com\/?p=1327","title":{"rendered":"Mark Twain: An American Storyteller"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\u201cPatriotism is supporting your country all the time, and your government when it deserves it.\u201d <\/em> Mark Twain<\/p>\n\n\n\n

  Samuel Langhorne Clemens (November 30, 1835 \u2013 April 21, 1910), better known by his pen name Mark Twain, was an American writer, humorist, entrepreneur, publisher, and lecturer. Among his novels are The Adventures of Tom Sawyer<\/em><\/a> (1876) and its sequel, The <\/em>Adventures of Huckleberry Finn<\/em><\/a> <\/em>(1885), the latter often called “The Great American Novel<\/a>“.  (Wikipedia)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

  I enjoy a good quote\nas much as anything, and much more than most things. I believe that in order\nfor something to become quoted by strangers for generations on end, it must\nhave an element of truth to it. And it has to be said in such a way that it\u2019s\neasy to remember. It needs to be witty. Mark Twain was a master at making\nobservations on the world around him, and putting it in a language that we can\nall understand. He\u2019s known for writing books and telling stories to audiences\nwho filled auditoriums across America. He\u2019s been dubbed the first American rock\nstar for doing so, at an inexhaustible pace. So much of what he has said and\nwritten with such great wit and wisdom has filled books with just quotes. I\nknow, because I have one. I consult it often. It\u2019s one of my favorite reads.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

  Twain wrote many books about many things, some quite short, and others very long. He was also one of the original writers of the modern short story, with The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County <\/em>(1865) being his first great success as a writer. It made him famous in one quick stroke, and launched him on his journey into infamy. But throughout that long, strange trip to perpetual notoriety he never took himself too seriously. He was highly sought and easily recognizable with his long, shocked hair – red in youth and white in his later years – but he maintained a sense of humility in the face of his fame that is almost extinct today. He said:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

  \u201cIt is better to keep your mouth shut and appear stupid than open it and remove all doubt.\u201d<\/em> And:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

   \u201cNever argue with a fool, onlookers may not be able to tell the difference.\u201d<\/em> Also:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

   \u201cDon\u2019t go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you nothing. It was here first.\u201d  <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

  Regarding his books\nand other writings, he said:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

  \u201cMy books are water; those of the great geniuses is wine. Everybody drinks water.\u201d<\/em> And:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

  \u201c\u2019Classic\u2019 \u2013 a book which people praise but don\u2019t read.\u201d<\/em> Also:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

  \u201cWriting is easy. All you have to do is cross out the wrong words.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

   Young Samuel grew\nup on the Mississippi River, in the town of Hannibal, Missouri, and witnessed\nmany things that no longer exist \u2013 some things that were amazing, and some\nthings abhorrent. He was amazed most by the big paddle wheel steamboats that\nplied their way through the murky, muscular currents and eddies of the river\ncalled the Big Muddy and Ol\u2019 Man River. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

  He and his friends fished\nand swam in the river, built rafts and camped on its banks. Some of the town\nkids drowned with tragic regularity, sucked beneath the surface in\nundercurrents and whirlpools, their bodies washed on down toward New Orleans\nand the Gulf of Mexico. Twain claims to have nearly drowned nine times before\nlearning how to swim adequately. But whenever a steamboat approached, belching\nblack smoke and silver steam, rhythmically slapping the water with its paddle\nwheel, young Sam would stop and stare, dreaming of someday piloting one up and\ndown the Mississippi. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

  He made his dream come true by apprenticing as a cub pilot and continuing to become a full riverboat pilot in the St. Louis to New Orleans trade. \u201cI loved the profession far better than any other I\u2019ve followed.\u201d He would go on to write Life on the Mississippi<\/em> based on this experience. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

   What young Sam also saw as a youth in Missouri before the Civil War was slave trading. The dark faces of men and women bound in chains at auctions and awaiting shipment to southern plantations haunted him, \u201cThe saddest faces I\u2019ve ever seen.\u201d The men who profited as slave traders simply revolted him. He regarded them as \u201ca sort of human devil who bought and conveyed poor, helpless souls to hell.\u201d Twain and Harriet Beecher Stowe (author of Uncle Tom\u2019s Cabin<\/em>) were two primary American authors who gave life to slaves in their books, and treated them as equals. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

   As a youth, Twain\u2019s limitless energy also drew him to newspapers, following his older brother Orion who had gone into the business before him. Again, he rose through apprenticeship, this time as a printer and typesetter, before becoming a contributor of articles to the Hannibal Journal,<\/em> owned by Orion. It was his first experience with seeing his words in print, though he used a pseudonym to hide the nepotism, and Samuel Clemens started to become Mark Twain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

  But first, there was an issue that had exploded and was impossible to ignore. The Civil War broke out and the riverboats stopped running. Twain and some of his friends volunteered for the Confederacy, though the state was divided between both sides, and was made a Second Lieutenant, but left after two weeks, \u201cincapacitated by fatigue through persistent retreat.\u201d The experience affected him to later say, \u201cThere has never been a just war or an honorable one. I can see a million years ahead, and this rule will never change.\u201d Twain described this experience in a sketch called The Private History of a Campaign That Failed<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

   After the war Twain headed west to join Orion who had just become the Secretary of the Nevada Territory. Silver had been discovered in Virginia City and he vowed to stake a claim and \u201cdig for his treasure\u201d on the Comstock Lode. But mining didn\u2019t suit Twain, so he went back to writing, becoming a colorful contributor to the Territorial Enterprise<\/em> and using the pen name Mark Twain (a term used to measure water depth on steamboats) for the first time. He would later describe these events in his book Roughing It. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

  The young Twain relished his time in the West, and was introduced to whiskey, gunslingers, prostitutes and all the other trappings of the time. His notoriety as a humorous reporter drew him farther west to bigger markets and he found work with the Sacramento Union<\/em>, which sent him to the Sandwich Islands (present day Hawaii) and furthered his infamy while sparking his wanderlust. This is when he gained fame and some fortune for writing about the jumping frog. As with all things he witnessed, Twain had an opinion, often cynical. Of newspapers, he said:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

  \u201cGet your facts first, and then you can distort them as much as you please.\u201d<\/em> And:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

  \u201cIf you don\u2019t read the newspaper, you\u2019re uninformed. If you do read the newspaper, your mis-informed.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

  Twain\u2019s next adventure, for another newspaper, took him by ship (a side-wheel steamer called the Quaker City) to the Mediterranean, where he visited Rome and other European destinations, eventually culminating the trip in The Holy Land of the Middle East. His dispatches back to the paper were Twain at his sardonic best, in which he humorously ridiculed the attitudes and mannerisms of his wealthier fellow American travelers. Later, in Tom Sawyer Abroad<\/em>, Twain wrote, \u201cI have found out that there ain\u2019t no surer way to find out whether you like people or hate them than to travel with them.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

  His wit and candor were sharpened even further by the disparities of wealth he saw in the Vatican between the opulent Roman Catholic aristocracy and the Italian peasantry. His own Protestant upbringing was tweaked by teachings in the Old Testament that contrasted sharply with his observations in terms of what he had been told and what he observed, the myth versus the reality. He would later say, \u201cThe easy confidence with which I know another man\u2019s religion is folly teaches me to suspect that my own is also.\u201d The assembly of his writings on this journey constituted his book The Innocents Abroad<\/em> (aka The New Pilgrims\u2019 Progress<\/em>), which was the best-selling work during his lifetime, as well as one of the best-selling travel books of all time. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

  But Twain\u2019s greatest\n\u201cdiscovery\u201d on this journey occurred when a fellow passenger showed Twain a\npicture of his sister, whose name was Olivia Langdon. For Twain, as he later recounted,\nit was love at first sight. He would court and eventually marry her, and was\nforever smitten by his darling Livy: a loyal wife, loving mother who also served\nas an encouraging and stern reader of his books and lectures. He expressed\nthese faculties by describing her as a \u201cfaithful, judicious, and painstaking\neditor.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

  The pieces were\nfalling into place for this unfettered son of Dixie who was acquiring a world\nview beyond his country\u2019s borders. He worked the lecture circuit to sold out\naudiences in venues wherever he appeared and acquired a fortune that had evaded\nhim in his previous endeavors. He and Livy lived and vacationed in upstate New\nYork, where her wealthy, liberal family had its roots. They started their own\nfamily, and Twain focused on his great novels after building his dream home in\nHartford, Connecticut, which remains today as a museum and testament to his\nmyriad journeys and discoveries. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

  He continued\ntraveling at the behest of paying publications, and his reputation reached the\nfancy of monarchs in Europe, as well as presidents and wealthy industrialists\nin his nation of origin during its vaunted Gilded Age, many of whom were\nsatirized in his writings – fat-cat fodder for his piercing pen. He never could\nforget his humble roots, set in the banks of that big river that never stops,\ndraining springs and creeks from northern Minnesota and dropping silt in the\ndelta of the Big Easy, taking on the effluent of everything along its path.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

  He indulged an\ninclination for entrepreneurs, however, and invested heavily in the many\ninventions that were incumbent upon those times. These were the days of the\nWright Brothers, Thomas Edison, Henry Ford and Nikola Tesla, and Twain was\nacquainted with many of them. He admired their impresario daring, and they\nenjoyed his colorful company. He squandered money on good ideas with bad\nbacking and turned down opportunities he shouldn\u2019t have. A young man presented Twain\na ground-floor piece of a new invention he carried, offering whatever share the\nauthor\/investor wanted. Twain declined, explaining that he had been burned too\nmany times by similar propositions. Before the young man gave his leave, Twain\ninquired his name. \u201cBell,\u201d he answered. \u201cAlexander Graham Bell.\u201d  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

  Twain found the\nstraw that could break the camel\u2019s back by investing heavily in a mechanical\ntypesetter, again holding to his origins. He was forced to file for bankruptcy,\nbut was bailed out by one of the class of wealthy financiers he often lampooned\nin general, although his benefactor had no obligation to do so, other than a\nliking for Twain, and the financial ability to be philanthropic. Twain took it\nall in stride, and advised, \u201cTo succeed in business, avoid my advice.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

  Samuel Clemens was\nborn into a big family, that withered on the vine. He was preceded by a brother\nwho died at three weeks of age, he lost a sister when he was three and another\nbrother when he was six. Only three of his siblings survived childhood: Orion,\na younger brother Henry and an older sister Pamela. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

  Henry had followed Sam into the riverboat profession, as Sam had followed his older brother Orion into publishing. Sam had helped secure Henry with the entry level (unpaid) position of being a \u201cmud clerk\u201d on a side wheeler called the Pennsylvania, where Sam was a cub pilot. After an altercation with the pilot, Sam jumped ship in New Orleans, but his brother continued on the journey back toward St. Louis. A boiler explosion occurred near Memphis and Henry was in the wrong place at the wrong time, while the ship\u2019s engineer had left his post in the engine room and was reported by eye witnesses as \u201cbeing in the company of some women.\u201d 250 of the 450 passengers and crew on the manifest lost their lives. Henry was severely wounded, his skin and lungs terribly scalded by boiling water and his mind addled by the concussion of the blast. Sam rushed to Memphis after hearing the news and spent the next week at his brother\u2019s side, and was there when his younger brother succumbed to his wounds. Sam was haunted for the rest of his life by the incident, blaming himself for Henry\u2019s death, which he claims to have foreseen in a dream a month prior, prompting his interest in parapsychology.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

  Unfortunately,\nSamuel Clemens\u2019 familial misfortunes followed Mark Twain, and visited upon Livy\nand him sufferings hard to imagine. Their son Langdon died of diphtheria at 19\nmonths of age, but they went on to have three daughters: Susy, Clara and Jean.\nThese were the years of Mark Twain\u2019s greatest happiness, and he basked in the\nglow of his girls\u2019 radiance – all four of them – and they became his universe.\nHe read his works to them, including passages for the delight of his daughters,\nknowing Livy would edit it accordingly. Life was grand for the Clemens family\nat their Hartford mansion, surrounded by the laughter of the sisters and the\nrich and ubiquitous memorabilia of their world travels. This is when Mark Twain\nwrote his master works. Then the sky fell crashing down.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

  Their oldest\ndaughter, Susy, died of meningitis in 1896, at 24 years old, sending Twain, at\n61, into a deep depression. His darling Livy, who had health issues throughout\nher life, died of heart failure in 1904, at 58 years of age. Twain spiraled\nfurther down. He hit rock bottom on Christmas Eve, 1909, when his youngest\ndaughter, Jean, drowned in a bathtub, apparently from an epileptic seizure. She\nwas 19 years old.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

  Mark Twain\u2019s life\nwould never be the same. His muses had passed on and depression tapped its roots.\nThe humorist had lost all reason to be humorous and make an audience laugh. He had\nmoved out of the home that provided so much joy, and into Manhattan for his\nremaining years. Here, he regained some of his original grit and responded to\nan erroneous obituary with his pronouncement that \u201cThe reports of my death are\ngreatly exaggerated.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

  Halley\u2019s Comet\npasses near Earth with celestial consistency, and is the only comet of its kind\nthat is visible to the naked eye. Samuel Clemens was born two weeks after it\nappeared, and in 1909 he said: \u201cI came in with Halley\u2019s Comet in 1835. It is\ncoming again next year, and I expect to go out with it. It will be the greatest\ndisappointment of my life if I don\u2019t go out with Halley\u2019s Comet. The Almighty\nhas said, no doubt: \u2018Now here are these two unaccountable freaks; they came in\ntogether, they must go out together.\u2019\u201d His parapsychology must have been\nworking when he said that. Mark Twain died of a heart attack on April 21, 1910,\none day after the comet\u2019s closest approach to Earth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

  I relate to Samuel\nClemens as a boy who grew up on a Midwestern river and frolicked, fished, built\nrafts and swam in its dirty waters, camped on its banks, surviving\nnear-drownings and gaining respect for the unforgiving turbulence of currents\nand eddies. But I admire Mark Twain for his literary industry and boundless\nenergy, his sense of adventure and observation, his acute ability to capture\nthe language of the common man with colloquial dialog and descriptions of his\nenvironment. He was many things to many people, worldwide. To me, he is simply\nAmerica\u2019s greatest storyteller.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here are some of my favorite Mark Twain quotes. I hope you\nfind a few that you enjoy. Thanks for reading!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On Dogs: <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe more I learn about people, the more I like my dog.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIf you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous he will not bite you. This is the principal difference between a dog and man.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHeaven goes by favor. If it went by merit, you would stay out and your dog would go in.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

On Education:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cEducation: the path from cocky ignorance to miserable uncertainty.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cEducation consists mainly of what we have unlearned.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI have never let my schooling interfere with my education.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

On Truth:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIf you tell the truth, you don\u2019t have to remember anything.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI was gratified to be able to answer promptly, and I did. I said I didn\u2019t know.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cA lie can travel around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

On Government and Politics:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cPoliticians and diapers must be changed often, and for the same reason.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe government is merely a servant\u2015merely a temporary servant; it cannot be its prerogative to determine what is right and what is wrong, and decide who is a patriot and who isn’t. Its function is to obey orders, not originate them.\u201d <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cReader, suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of congress. But I repeat myself.\u201d <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

On Everything Else:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cKeep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI do not fear death. I had been dead for billions and billions of years before I was born, and had not suffered the slightest inconvenience from it.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen I was a boy of 14, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be 21, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years.\u201d<\/em> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat would men be without women? Scarce, sir…mighty scarce.\u201d <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cClothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on society.\u201d <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cCourage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear – not absence of fear.\u201d<\/em> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cKindness is a language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see.\u201d<\/em> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI’ve lived through some terrible things in my life, some of which actually happened.\u201d<\/em> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe secret to getting ahead is getting started.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAll you need in this life is ignorance and confidence; then success is sure.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHistory doesn\u2019t repeat itself, but it does rhyme.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

 \u201cForgiveness is the fragrance that the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cA banker is a fellow who lends you his umbrella when the sun is shining, but wants it back the minute it begins to rain.\u201d<\/em> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOf all the things I have lost, I miss my mind the most.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen angry, count four. When very angry, swear.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cContinuous improvement is better than delayed perfection.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt is curious that physical courage should be so common in the world and moral courage so rare.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAnger is an acid that can do more harm to the vessel in which it is stored than to anything on which it is poured.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cGiving up smoking is the easiest thing in the world. I know because I’ve done it thousands of times.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI’ve had a lot of worries in my life, most of which never happened.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cCensorship is telling a man he can’t have a steak just because a baby can’t chew it.\u201d <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cLet us live so that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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