1、Mark Twin17Early lifeSamuel Langhorne Clemens, "Mark Twain", was born in Florida, Missouri on November 30, 1835 to a Tennessee country merchant, John Marshall Clemens (August 11, 1798 - March 24, 1847), and Jane Lampton Clemens (Ju ne 18, 1803- October 27, 1890). He wasthe sixth of seve n

2、childre n. Only three of his sibli ngs survived childhood. His brother Orion lived from July 17, 1825 to December 11, 1897. His brother He nry, who died in a riverboat explosio n, lived from July 13, 1838 to June 21, 1858, and his sister Pamela lived from September 19, 1827 to August 31, 1904).His s

3、ister Margaret (May 31, 1830 - August 17, 1839) died when Twain was three years old, and his brother Benjamin (Ju ne 8, 1832 May 12, 1842) died three years later. Ano ther brother, Pleasa nt (1828-1829), diedat the age of six mon ths. He was born two weeks after the closest approach to Earth of Hall

4、ey's Comet (see 1835 comme nt).When Twain was four, his family moved to Hannibal,a port town on the MississippiRiver that served as the inspiration for the fictional town of St. Petersburg in The Adve ntures of Tom Sawyer and Adve ntures of Huckleberry Finn. At that time, Missouri was a slave st

5、ate in the Union, and young Twain became familiar with the institution of slavery, a theme he later explored in his writing.In March 1847, when Twain was 11, his father died of pneumonia. The next year, he became a printer's apprentice. In 1851, he began working as a typesetter and contributor|o

6、f articles and humorous sketches for the Hanni bal Jour nal, a n ewspaper owned by his brother, Orion. When he was 18, he left Hannibal and worked as a printer in New YorkCity, Philadelphia, St. Louis and Cincinn ati. He joined the union and educated himself in|public libraries in the evenings, find

7、ing wider sources of information than he would have at a conventional school. At 22, Twain returned to Missouri. On a voyage to New Orleans dow n the Mississippi, the steamboat pilot, Horace E. Bixby, in spired Twain to pursue a career as a steamboat pilot; it was a richly rewarding occupation with

8、wages set at $250 per mon th, roughly equivale nt to $155,000 a year today.The library of the Mark Twain House, which features hand-stenciled paneling, fireplacesfrom In dia, embossed wallpapers and an eno rmous han d-carved mantel that the Twai n purchased in Scotla nd (HABS photo). A steamboat pil

9、ot n eeded a vast kno wledge of the|ever-cha nging river to be able to stop at any of the hun dreds of ports and wood-lots along|the river ban ks. Twai n meticulously studied 2,000 miles (3,200 km) of the Mississippi for|more than two years before he received his steamboat pilot license in 1859. Whi

10、le | training, Samuel convinced his younger brother Henry to work with him. Henry was killed on June 21, 1858, when the steamboat he was working on, the Pennsylvania, exploded. Twain had foreseen this death in a detailed dream a month earlier,whichin spired his in terest in parapsychology; he was an

11、 early member of the Society for Psychical Research.Twain was guilt-stricken over his brother's death and heldhimself|resp on sible for the rest of his life. He con ti nued to work on the river and served as a river|pilot un til the America n Civil War broke out in 1861 and traffic along the Mis

12、sissippi was|curtailed.TravelsMissouri was a slave state and considered by many to be part of the South, and was represe nted in both the Con federate and Federal gover nments duri ng the Civil War. Years later, Twain wrote a sketch, "The Private History of a Campaig n That Failed", which|

13、claimed he and his friends had bee n Con federate volun teers for two weeks before | disbanding their company. Twain joined his brother, Orion, who had been appointed| secretary to the territorial gover nor of Nevada, James W. Nye, and headed west.1874 Twain and his brother traveled for more tha n t

14、wo weeks on a stagecoach across the|Great Plai ns and the Rocky Mountains, visiti ng the Morm on com munity in Salt Lake City|along the way. These experie nces in spiredRough ing It,and providedmaterialforTheCelebrated Jump ing Frog of CalaverasCoun ty. Twai n's journeyen dedinthesilver- mining

15、tow n of Virginia City, Nevada, wherehe became aminer. Twain failedas aminer and found work at a Virginia Citynewspaper,the TerritorialEnterprise.OnFebruary 3, 1863, he sig ned a humorous travel accoun t "LETTER FROM CARSON - re:|Joe Goodma n; party at Gov. Joh nson's; music" with &quo

16、t;Mark Twain".Twain the n traveled to San Fran cisco, California, where he con ti nued as a journ alist and began lecturing. He met other writers such as Bret Harte, Artemus Ward and Dan DeQuille. An assignment in Hawaii became the basis for his first lectures. In 1867, a local|newspaper funded

17、 a trip to the Mediterranean. During his tour of Europe and the Middle East, he wrote a popular collecti on of travel letters which were compiled as The Innocents Abroad in 1869.Marriage and Childre nTwain met Charles Lan gdo n, who showed him a picture of his sister Olivia; Twa in claimed to have f

18、allen in love at first sight. They met in 1868, were engaged a year later,and married in February 1870 in Elmira, New York. She came from a "wealthy but liberal family," and through her he met aboliti oni sts, "socialists, prin cipled atheists and activists|for women's rights and

19、social equality",includingHarriet Beecher Stowe, FrederickDouglass and the utopia n socialist William Dea n Howells.The couple lived in Buffalo, New York from 1869 to 1871. Twa in owned a stake in the Buffalo Express, and worked as an editor and writer. Their son Langdon died of diphtheria at 1

20、9 mon ths.In 1871,Twain moved his family to Hartford, Connecticut, where starting in 1873 he arran ged the buildi ng of a house for them, which local admirers saved from demoliti on in|1927 and eventually turned into a museum focused on him. There Olivia gave birth to three daughters: Susy (1872-189

21、6), Clara (1874-1962) and Jean (1880-1909). The couple's marriage lasted 34 years, un til Olivia's death in 1904.During his years in Hartford, Twain became friends with fellow author William Dean Howells.Later life and deathMark Twain in his gown (scarlet with grey sleeves and facings) for h

22、is DLitt degree,| awarded to him by Oxford Uni versity. Twain made a sec ond tour of Europe, described in|the 1880 book A Tramp Abroad. His tour included a visit to London where, in the summer of 1900, he was the guest of n ewspaper proprietor Hugh Gilzea n-Reid at Dollis|Hill House and an exte nded

23、 stay in Heidelberg, Germa ny, from May 6th, 1878, un til July|23rd. Twain wrote of Dollis Hill that he had "never seen any place that was so satisfactorily situated, with its noble trees and stretch of country, and everything that went to make life delightful, and all with in a biscuit's t

24、hrow of the metropolis of the world." He retur ned to America in 1900, havi ng earned eno ugh to pay off his debts.In 1906, Twain began his autobiography in the North American Review. Oxford Uni versity awarded him a Doctorate in Letters a year later.Twain outlived Jean and Susy. He passed thro

25、ugh a period of deep depression, which bega n in 1896 when his favorite daughter Susy died of menin gitis. Olivia's death in 1904|and Jea n's death on December 24, 1909 deepe ned his gloom.In 1909, Twain is quoted as say ing:“ I came in with Halley's Comet i n 1835. It is coming aga in n

26、 ext year, and I expect to go out with it. It will be the greatest disappo in tme nt of my life if I don't go out with Halley's Comet. The Almighty has said, no doubt: 'Now here are these two un acco un table freaks;|they came in together, they must go out together.'”His prediction w

27、as accurateTwain died of a heart attack on April 21, 1910 in Redding,Conn ecticut, one day after the comet's closest approach to EarthUpon heari ng of Twai n's death, Preside nt William Howard Taft said:“ Mark Twain gave pleasurereal-intellectual enjoyme ntto millio ns, and his works willcon

28、tinue to give such pleasure to millions yet to come. His humor was American, but he was n early as much appreciated by En glishme n and people of other coun tries as by his own coun tryme n. He has made an en duri ng part of America n literature.”Twain is buried in his wife's family plot at Wood

29、law n Cemetery in Elmira, New York. His grave is marked by a 12-foot monument, placed there by his surviving daughter, Clara.A Dog's TaleChapter IMy father was a St. Bernard, my mother was a collie, but I am a Presbyterian. This is what my mother told me, I do not know these nice dist in cti ons

30、 myself. To me they are only fine large words meaning nothing. My mother had a fondn ess for such; she liked to say them, and see other dogs look surprised and en vious, as won deri ng how she got so much educati on. But, in deed, it was not real educati on; it was only show: she got the words by li

31、ste ning in the dinin g-room and draw in g-room whe n there was compa ny, and by going with the childre n to Sun day-school and liste ning there; and whe never she heard a large word she said it over to herself many times, and so was able to keep it un til there was a dogmatic gathering in the neigh

32、borhood, then she would get it off, and surprise and distress them all, from pocket-pup to mastiff, which rewarded her for all her trouble. If there was a stranger he was nearly sure to be suspicious, and whe n he got his breath aga in he would ask her what it mea nt. And she always told him. He was

33、 n ever expect ing this but thought he would catch her; so whe n she told him, he was the one that looked ashamed, whereas he had thought it was going to be she. The others were always wait ing for this, and glad of it and proud of her, for they knew what was going to happe n, because they had had e

34、xperie nee. When she told the meaning of a big word they were all so take n up with admirati on that it n ever occurred to any dog to doubt if it was the right one; and that was natural, because, for one thing, she an swered up so promptly that it seemed like a dicti onary speak ing, and for ano the

35、r thing, where could they find out whether it was right or not? for she was the only cultivated dog there was. By and by, when I was older, she brought home the word unintellectual, one time, and worked it pretty hard all the week at differe nt gatheri ngs, making much un happ in ess and desp ondenc

36、y; and it was at this time that I no ticed that duri ng that week she was asked for the meaning at eight differe nt assemblages, and flashed out a fresh defi niti on every time, which showed me that she had more prese nee of mind tha n culture, though I said nothing, of course. She had one word whic

37、h she always kept on hand, and ready, like a life-preserver, a kind of emergency word to strap on when she was likely to get washed overboard in a sudde n way-that was the word Synonym ous. When she happe ned to fetch out a long word which had had its day weeks before and its prepared meanings gone

38、to her dump-pile, if there was a stra nger there of course it kno cked him groggy for a couple of minu tes, the n he would come to, and by that time she would be away dow n wind on ano ther tack, and not expect ing any thi ng; so whe n he'd hail and ask her to cash in, I (the only dog on the in

39、side of her game) could see her can vas flicker a mome nt- but only just a mome nt-the n it would belly out taut and full, and she would say, as calm as a summer's day, "It's synonym ous with supererogati on，” or some godless long reptile of a word like that, and go placidly about and s

40、kim away on the n ext tack, perfectly comfortable, you know, and leave that stra nger look ing profa ne and embarrassed, and the in itiated slatt ing the floor with their tails in unison and their faces tran sfigured with a holy joy.And it was the same with phrases. She would drag home a whole phras

41、e, if it had a grand sound, and play it six nights and two matinees, and explain it a new way every time-which she had to, for all she cared for was the phrase; she was n't in terested in what it meant, and knew those dogs had n't wit eno ugh to catch her, any way. Yes, she was a daisy! She

42、got so she was n't afraid of any thi ng, she had such con fide nee in the ignorance of those creatures. She eve n brought an ecdotes that she had heard the family and the dinn er-guests laugh and shout over; and as a rule she got the nub of one chest nut hitched onto ano ther chest nut, where, o

43、f course, it did n't fit and had n't any point; and whe n she delivered the nub she fell over and rolled on the floor and laughed and barked in the most insane way, while I could see that she was won deri ng to herself why it did n't seem as funny as it did when she first heard it. But n

44、o harm was done; the others rolled and barked too, privately ashamed of themselves for not see ing the point, and n ever suspect ing that the fault was not with them and there wasn't any to see.You can see by these things that she was of a rather vain and frivolous character; still, she had virt

45、ues, and eno ugh to make up, I think. She had a kind heart and gen tle ways, and never harbored resentments for injuries done her, but put them easily out of her mind and forgot them; and she taught her childre n her kin dly way, and from her we lear ned also to be brave and prompt in time of dan ge

46、r, and not to run away, but face the peril that threate ned friend or stra nger, and help him the best we could without stopp ing to think what the cost might be to us. And she taught us not by words only, but by example, and that is the best way and the surest and the most lasti ng. Why, the brave

47、things she did, the sple ndid thin gs! she was just a soldier; and so modest about it-well, you could n't help admiri ng her, and you could n't help imitat ing her; not even a King Charles spa niel could rema in en tirely despicable in her society. So, as you see, there was more to her tha n

48、 her educati on.Chapter IIWhen I was well grow n, at last, I was sold and take n away, and I n ever saw her aga in. She was broken-hearted, and so was I, and we cried; but she comforted me as well as she could, and said we were sent into this world for a wise and good purpose, and must do our duties

49、 without repining, take our life as we might find it, live it for the best good of others, and n ever mind about the results; they were not our affair. She said men who did like this would have a n oble and beautiful reward by and by in ano ther world, and although we ani mals would not go there, to

50、 do well and right without reward would give to our brief lives a worth in ess and dig nity which in itself would be a reward. She had gathered these things from time to time whe n she had gone to the Sun day-school with the children, and had laid them up in her memory more carefully than she had do

51、ne with those other words and phrases; and she had studied them deeply, for her good and ours. One may see by this that she had a wise and thoughtful head, for all there was so much light ness and van ity in it.So we said our farewells, and looked our last upon each other through our tears; and the

52、last thing she said-keep ing it for the last to make me remember it the better, I thin k-was, "In memory of me, whe n there is a time of dan ger to ano ther do not think of yourself, think of your mother, and do as she would do."Do you thi nk I could forget that? No.Chapter IIIIt was such

53、a charming home!-my new one; a fine great house, with pictures, and delicate decorati ons, and rich furn iture, and no gloom any where, but all the wilderness of dainty colors lit up with floodi ng sunshine; and the spacious gro unds around it, and the great garde n-oh, gree nsward, and n oble trees

54、, and flowers, no end! And I was the same as a member of the family; and they loved me, and petted me, and did not give me a new n ame, but called me by my old one that was dear to me because my mother had give n it me- Ailee n Mavouree n. She got it out of a song; and the Grays knew that song, and

55、said it was a beautiful n ame.Mrs. Gray was thirty, and so sweet and so lovely, you cannot imagine it; and Sadie was ten, and just like her mother, just a darling slender little copy of her, with auburn tails dow n her back, and short frocks; and the baby was a year old, and plump and dimpled, and f

56、ond of me, and n ever could get eno ugh of hauli ng on my tail, and huggi ng me, and laugh ing out its innocent happ in ess; and Mr. Gray was thirty-eight, and tall and sle nder and han dsome, a little bald in front, alert, quick in his moveme nts, bus in ess-like, prompt, decided, unsen time ntal,

57、and with that kind of trim-chiseled face that just seems to gli nt and sparkle with frosty in tellectuality! He was a renowned scie ntist. I do not know what the word means, but my mother would know how to use it and get effects. She would know how to depress a rat-terrier with it and make a lap-dog

58、 look sorry he came. But that is not the best one; the best one was Laboratory. My mother could orga nize a Trust on that one that would skin the tax-collars off the whole herd. The laboratory was not a book, or a picture, or a place to wash your hands in, as the college preside nt's dog said-no

59、, that is the lavatory; the laboratory is quite different, and is filled with jars, and bottles, and electrics, and wires, and stra nge mach in es; and every week other scie ntists came there and sat in the place, and used the mach in es, and discussed, and made what they called experiments and discoveries; and often I came, too, and stood around and listened, and tried to learn, for the sake of my mother, and in loving memory of her, although it was a pain to me, as realiz ing what she was los ing out of her life and I gaining nothing at all; for try as I might, I was n ever able to