"Total abstinence is so excellent a thing that it cannot be carried to too great an extent. In my passion for it I even carry it so far as to totally abstain from total abstinence itself." - Twain, that's one quote everyone has just got to love.
Samuel Langhorne Clemens was born November 30, 1835. It was a night that Halley's Comet made an appearance; here is what Twain said about that dubious distinction:
"I came in with Halley's comet in 1835. It's coming again next year (1910), and I expect to go out with it. The Almighty has said no doubt, 'Now here are these two unaccountable freaks; they came in together, they must go out together.'"
And so it was, within 2 weeks after the comet's appearance April 21, 1910, Twain passed.
At the age of 22 Sam Clemens was returning to his family home in Hannibal Missouri from a stay in a number of northern cities. He was riding a steamboat when he was convinced to become a steamboat pilot. The idea was very appealing because apparently the pay was $250.00 per month. Clemens studied for 2 years to get his license to work the Mississippi river as a steamboat pilot.
Twain convinced his younger brother to work the steamships with him. Henry did and died when the steamship he was working on exploded. The sad thing was that Twain foresaw his brother's death in detail an entire month prior to Henry's death in 1858. This experience marked the beginning of Twain's interest in parapsychology. He was one of the earliest members of the Society for Psychical Research.
Although Twain felt guilty for his brother's death, he continued to work the river until the start of the Civil War. The war brought about a sharp halt in trade along the river and Twain was without work.
Twain's brother Orion had been appointed secretary to the Governor of the Nevada state. Mark decided to going along with him. His journey ended in Virginia City, Nevada. Twain decided to do what so many before him had already done, he became a miner; an unsuccessful miner, but a miner nonetheless.
Before long however, Twain realized that mining was not for him. So he got a job at the Virginia City newspaper, the Territorial Enterprise. Eventually he travelled to San Francisco and then Hawaii. Later he found a newspaper to pay his way through Europe.
The name Mark Twain was something he got while he was working the steamboats. It had to do with how deep the water was and if it was safe for a steamer to continue. So one of the things he would hear from those taking measurements was the call of mark twain. Mark twain essentially meant 12 feet deep but Clemens must have thought it to be a great name.
Apparently, the young Clemens was a poor student and didn't finish public school. He made up for it in his early 20's when he was up north and he began to educate himself in the public libraries of some of the larger cities in some of the northern states. Samuel Clemens, as we know, wrote under the pen name Mark Twain. Clemens was also known to have written under the following pseudonym Thomas Jefferson Snodgrass.
Clemens had an odd fondness for cats. Everywhere he went he had to have the company of cats. He was even known to have rented cats when he wanted or needed their company.
During the civil war he formed a confederate regiment, but they disbanded within a couple of weeks. There was very likely a severe lack of commitment.
Huckleberry Finn is claimed by the American Library Association to be the 5th most frequently challenged book in the United States. It seems there are many who don't want to deal with the kind of colloquial realism that is found in Huckleberry Finn. That is a shame because Twain wrote one of the greatest American books of all time in Huck Finn.
Samuel Clemens was an interesting and curious fellow. Some might say he was eccentric, but he seems to have had one heck of a life.