Mark+Twain,+The+Selected+Letters

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=Created by: = =Young Stowe =

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=<span style="font-size: 120%; font-family: Georgia,serif; text-align: center; display: block;">- Mark Twain = ||
 * ====**<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Samuel Clemens was born on November 30, 1<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">835 in Florida, Missouri, the sixth of seven children. At the age of four, Sam and his family moved to the town of Hannibal, Missouri on the Mississippi River. Missouri was a slave state and his father owned a slave. In 1847, when Sam was 11, his father passed away. Having completed the fifth grade he left school to work as a printer's apprentice for a local newspaper. He would arrange the type for each of the newspaper's stories this gave Sam the chance to read the news. <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> He then went back to his roots to work as a steamboat pilot. Steamboat pilots needed a vast knowledge of the ever-changing river to be able to stop at any of the ports along the river.  <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Twain studied 2,000 miles of the Mississippi for three years before he received his steamboat pilot license in 1859.  <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Twain then traveled to San Fransisco where he worked as a journalist and began lecturing. There he met Charles Langdon who showed him a picture of his sister Livy, Twain claimed to have fallen in love at first sight. He Married her in 1807. Olivia gave birth to three daughters, Susan, Clara and Jean. ** <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">  ==== || ====<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica;">   ====
 * <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Twain moved his family to Hartford, Connecticut, where he lived out most of his professional life. In a famous quote Twain said, "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." Mark Twain died exactly one day after the Comet's passing, on April 21st, 1910. Just as he predicted. **

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|| ||  || <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">"For several years I have been intending to stop writing for print as soon as I could afford it. At last I can afford it, and have put the potboiler pen away. What I have been wanting is a chance to write a book without reserves, a book which should take account of no one's feelings and no one's prejudices, opinions, beliefs, hopes, illusions, delusions, a book which should say my say right out of my heart in the plainest language and without limitation of any sort. I judged that would be an unimaginable luxury, heaven on earth." <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">"Peace by compulsion. That seems a better idea than the other. Peace by persuasion has a pleasant sound but I think we should not be able to work it. We should have to tame the human race first, and history seems to show that that cannot be done." <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">**This is Twain's response to a question on his opinion of the Czar's plan for world disarmament. It is clear that Twain has very a very rigid opinion of the human race. Though Twain strives for peace, he has been convinced by the world around him that this is ultimately impossible. This response sheds light on Twain's way of dealing with a common conflict of the time: the duel,** **<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">"I thoroughly disapprove of duels. If a man should challenge me, I would take him kindly and forgivingly by the hand and lead him to a quiet place and kill him." ** || <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">"Last night at 9:20 I entered Mrs. Clemen's room to say the usual goodnight--and she was dead--though no one knew it. She had been talking a moment before. She was sitting up in bed... I was suprised that she did not notice me. Then we understood, and our hearts broke... I wish [she] were here." =<span style="font-size: 120%; font-family: Georgia,serif; text-align: center; display: block;">your mouth closed = =<span style="font-size: 120%; font-family: Georgia,serif; text-align: center; display: block;">and let people think = =<span style="font-size: 120%; font-family: Georgia,serif; text-align: center; display: block;">you are a fool = =<span style="font-size: 120%; font-family: Georgia,serif; text-align: center; display: block;">than to open it = =<span style="font-size: 120%; font-family: Georgia,serif; text-align: center; display: block;">and remove all doubt. = =<span style="font-size: 120%; font-family: Georgia,serif; text-align: center; display: block;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> = =<span style="font-size: 120%; font-family: Georgia,serif; text-align: center; display: block;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">- Mark Twain = ||  || **<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">In the process of studying Mark Twain I have learned about the tremendous impact he has had on American history and culture. Not only is he seen as a brilliant American icon, but he is also attributed with granting America it's own voice through his timeless works. Twain's stories tell of slavery, southern ignorance and life in a changing and expanding nation and many other issues found in the history books, only seen through the eyes of his beloved characters, such as Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn. He stories tell of hope, fear and what one might see while floating down the Mississippi on a makeshift raft. ** ||
 * <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">"As you describe me I can picture myself as I was 22 years ago. The portrait is correct. You think I have grown some. Upon my word there was room for it. You have described a callow fool, a self sufficient ass, a mere human tumble-bag imagining that he is remodeling the world and is entirely capable of doing it right. Ignorance, intolerance, egotism, self-assertion, opaque perception, dense and pitiful chuckle-headedness and an almost pathetic unconsciousness of it all. That is what I was at 19 and 20 and that is what the average southerner is today."
 * <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">This is a response to an old friend of Twain's who is recollection to him the old Samuel Clemens at age twenty. This quote shows Twain's views on his past ignorance and his gaining of wisdom. This also shows the humbling that comes with age and Twain's ability to reflect on a less-than-admiral stage of his life. Twain also pokes fun at the southerners his own age, saying that they still dwell in the ignorance that he has abandoned. (93) ** || [[image:mark-twain.jpg width="257" height="395" align="center" caption="(mark-twain.jpg)"]] || <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">"I bought a revolver once and traveled twelve hundred miles to kill a man. He was away. He was gone a day. With nothing else to do, I //had// to stop and think, and I did. Within an hour, within half of it, I was ashamed of myself and felt unspeakably ridiculous. I do not know what to call it if I were not insane."
 * <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">In a response to a question concerning President McKinley's assassination, Twain gives this short but very strange tale of his futile, yet regretted plot to kill a man twelve hundred miles away. Though Twain is know for his razor-sharp wit and sarcasm, this story is presented in all seriousness and shows a raw, yet honest side of the adored author. In telling this, Twain speaks on the irrationality and thoughtlessness that goes into committing such a crime. For instance, the murder of a president. (266) ** ||
 * <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">In this passage, Twain explains his urge to write a book without any limitations, a book for himself. In calling the chance to do this "heaven on earth" Twain portrays his deep and constant passion for his art and a longing to solidify his thoughts. Twain eventually did write this book, "The Mysterious Stranger", and finish it only days before his death. ** || media type="youtube" key="mHSlyyzUR78" height="265" width="320" ||
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 * <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">This is an excerpt from a letter to a friend in which Twain explains how he found his wife of thirty-four years dead the previous night. This eerie but touching passage is free of the deep thought and wit usually found in Twain's writings but a truly human reflection on the passing of the love of his life. ** || <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Night caught us yesterday where we had to take quarters in a peasant's house which was occupied by the family and a lot of cows and calves, also several rabbits. The latter had a ball and I was the ballroom but they were very friendly and didn't bite. The peasants were mighty kind and hearty and flew around and did their best to make us comfortable. This morning I had breakfast on the shore in the open air with two sociable dogs and a cat. Clean cloth, napkin and table furniture, white sugar, a vast hunk of excellent butter, good bread, first class coffee with pure milk, fried fish just caught. Wonderful that so much cleanliness should come out of such a phenomenally dirty place.
 * <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">This is simply Twain telling the story of a very interesting stay at a peasant's house. This quote shows his respect for the simple pleasures in life and for simple hospitality **. ||
 * =<span style="font-size: 120%; font-family: Georgia,serif; text-align: center; display: block;">It is better to keep =
 * Work Cited:

"459009eeec08e50f873c73142db6d33a.jpg." 1 Dec. 2008 <http://lifememory.com/upload/marktwain/images/ 459009eeec08e50f873c73142db6d33a.jpg>. "HelenAnnieMarkTwainLawerenceHutton1902.jpg." 2 Dec. 2008 <http://anniesullivan.org/db2/00131/anniesullivan.org/ _uimages/helenanniemarktwainlawerencehutton1902.jpg>. "Mark Twain." 1 Dec. 2008 <http://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=mhslyyzur78&feature=related>. "Mark-twain.jpg." 3 Dec. 2008. <http://library.duke.edu/exhibits/ pivotal-books/images/mark-twain.jpg>. "Mark-twain-writing-in-bed.jpg." 3 Dec. 2008 <http://wordpress.cequal.com/wp-content/ uploads/2008/01/mark-twain-writing-in-bed.jpg>. Neider, Charles, ed. __The Selected Letters of Mark Twain__. New York, NY: Harper & Row, 1982. Twain, Mark. __Life on the Mississippi__. New York, NY: Harper & Row, 1917."Twain2.jpg." 2 Dec. 2008 <[|http://www.edwardsamuels.com/illustratedstory/] [|chapter%209/twain2.jpg]>. || <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> ||  ||

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