Complete Letters of Mark Twain | Page 4

in those letters wrought out of the press of
circumstances, and with no idea of print in mind. A collection of such
documents, written by one whose life has become of interest to
mankind at large, has a value quite aside from literature, in that it
reflects in some degree at least the soul of the writer.
The letters of Mark Twain are peculiarly of the revealing sort. He was a
man of few restraints and of no affectations. In his correspondence, as
in his talk, he spoke what was in his mind, untrammeled by literary
conventions.
Necessarily such a collection does not constitute a detailed life story,
but is supplementary to it. An extended biography of Mark Twain has
already been published. His letters are here gathered for those who
wish to pursue the subject somewhat more exhaustively from the
strictly personal side. Selections from this correspondence were used in
the biography mentioned. Most of these are here reprinted in the belief
that an owner of the "Letters" will wish the collection to be reasonably
complete.
[Etext Editor's Note: A. B. Paine considers this compendium a
supplement to his "Mark Twain, A Biography", I have arranged the
volumes of the "Letters" to correspond as closely as possible with the
dates of the Project Gutenberg six volumes of the "Biography". D.W.]

MARK TWAIN'S LETTERS
MARK TWAIN--A BIOGRAPHICAL SUMMARY
SAMUEL LANGHORNE CLEMENS, for nearly half a century known
and celebrated as "Mark Twain," was born in Florida, Missouri, on
November 30, 1835. He was one of the foremost American
philosophers of his day; he was the world's most famous humorist of
any day. During the later years of his life he ranked not only as
America's chief man of letters, but likewise as her best known and best

loved citizen.
The beginnings of that life were sufficiently unpromising. The family
was a good one, of old Virginia and Kentucky stock, but its
circumstances were reduced, its environment meager and disheartening.
The father, John Marshall Clemens--a lawyer by profession, a merchant
by vocation--had brought his household to Florida from Jamestown,
Tennessee, somewhat after the manner of judge Hawkins as pictured in
The Gilded Age. Florida was a small town then, a mere village of
twenty-one houses located on Salt River, but judge Clemens, as he was
usually called, optimistic and speculative in his temperament, believed
in its future. Salt River would be made navigable; Florida would
become a metropolis. He established a small business there, and located
his family in the humble frame cottage where, five months later, was
born a baby boy to whom they gave the name of Samuel--a family
name--and added Langhorne, after an old Virginia friend of his father.
The child was puny, and did not make a very sturdy fight for life. Still
he weathered along, season after season, and survived two stronger
children, Margaret and Benjamin. By 1839 Judge Clemens had lost
faith in Florida. He removed his family to Hannibal, and in this
Mississippi River town the little lad whom the world was to know as
Mark Twain spent his early life. In Tom Sawyer we have a picture of
the Hannibal of those days and the atmosphere of his boyhood there.
His schooling was brief and of a desultory kind. It ended one day in
1847, when his father died and it became necessary that each one
should help somewhat in the domestic crisis. His brother Orion, ten
years his senior, was already a printer by trade. Pamela, his sister; also
considerably older, had acquired music, and now took a few pupils.
The little boy Sam, at twelve, was apprenticed to a printer named
Ament. His wages consisted of his board and clothes--"more board than
clothes," as he once remarked to the writer.
He remained with Ament until his brother Orion bought out a small
paper in Hannibal in 1850. The paper, in time, was moved into a part of
the Clemens home, and the two brothers ran it, the younger setting
most of the type. A still younger brother, Henry, entered the office as
an apprentice. The Hannibal journal was no great paper from the
beginning, and it did not improve with time. Still, it managed to
survive--country papers nearly always manage to survive--year after

year, bringing in some sort of return. It was on this paper that young
Sam Clemens began his writings--burlesque, as a rule, of local
characters and conditions-- usually published in his brother's absence;
generally resulting in trouble on his return. Yet they made the paper
sell, and if Orion had but realized his brother's talent he might have
turned it into capital even then.
In 1853 (he was not yet eighteen) Sam Clemens grew tired of his
limitations and pined for the wider horizon of the world. He gave