OCR Text |
Show s - iiiiil NOTED AUTHOR AND HUMORIST PASSES AWAY AFTER LINGERING LIN-GERING ILLNESS. Man Beloved by All tho People, Who Had Delighted Millions With His Quaint Humor, Is Worn Out by Grief and Agony. Redding, Conn. Samuel l'ing-homo l'ing-homo Clemens (Mark Twain) died painlessly nt 0:30 o'clock Thursday night of angina pectoris. Ho lapsed into coma at 3 o'clock Thursdaj afternoon and never recovered consciousness. con-sciousness. It was tho end of a man outworn by grief and acute agony of body. At the deathbed were Mrs. Gabrilo-wltsch Gabrilo-wltsch (Clara Clemens), her husband, Dr. Robert Halsey, Dr. Qulntnrd, Albert Al-bert Blgelow Paine, who will wrlto Mark Twain's biography, and tho two trained nurses. Mark Twain wns born Samuel Langhorno Clemens, in Florida, Mo., November 30, 1835. "My parents," ho writes In his own burlesquo autobiography, auto-biography, "were neither very poor, S.nKjFMsHHMHHHp jjrssssssssssssssssss MARK TWAIN. nor conspicuously honest. Tho earliest ear-liest ancestor of tho Twnins have any record of was a friend of the family by tho name of Higglns." Tho county chronicles have it that tho elder Clemens failed in business and died, leaving his son the ample world to make his fortune in. Accordingly, Mark Twain's acquaintance ac-quaintance with literature began In putting words into type, not ideas Into words. Educated only In public schools, he was apprenticed to a printer at 13, and worked at his trade in St. Louis, Clnclnati, Philadelphia and New York, until, at 1G, ho could gratify a boyish ambition to become a cub to a Mississippi river pilot. Both these happenings reacted profoundly pro-foundly in his later life. H1b knowledge knowl-edge of river life, acquired when he was a pilot, took form in "Tom Sawyer," Saw-yer," "Hucklpberry Finn" and "Life on the Mississippi," regarded abroad as his first title to fame. It even suggested sug-gested his pseudonym. fOr "Mark Twain" is a leadsman's cry to the pilot in shallow stages. And his familiarity with printing turned him naturally first Into newspaper news-paper work, then into creative writing, writ-ing, nnd finally Into the publishing business, wherein, like Sir Walter Scott, he suffered a bankruptcy disastrous dis-astrous to everything but his honor, ah'd, like Sir Walter again, paid off by 'his pen debts not of his own making. Mark Twain lias been, as described in hfB own -words, "a. silver miner in Nevada; a gold miner in California; next a reporter ' In Sail--Francisco; next a special correspondent In the Sandwich islands; next a roving correspondent cor-respondent in Eurbpo nnd tho east; next an instructional torchbearer on .the lecturo platform; and, filially, I became a scribbler of books and an Immovable, fixture among the other rpeka of Now England." ire waB married In 1872 to Olivia L. Langdon of Elmira, N. Y. Four children chil-dren were born, of whom two, a son and a daughter, died early. Ono othor daughter, Jean, who had been an invalid in-valid for life, was found dead in her bath tub last fall In her homo at Redding, Red-ding, Conn. Her tragic death greatly saddened her father, who declined In health from that moment. A third daughter, Clara, Is Mrs. Ossip Galbrl-lowltsch, Galbrl-lowltsch, wlfo of tho pianist, whom she married last yoar. Mark Twain's first hook was "Tha Jumping Frog." HIb best known in this country possibly was "Innocents Abroad." His surest tltlo to fame generally is belioved to bo "Tom Saw-yer" Saw-yer" and its companion volume, "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn." In all his books had a salo of moro than 500,000 copies and wore translated into six languages. |