Autobiography of Mark Twain

The Autobiography of Mark Twain.
Ed. Charles Neider.
New York: Harper and Brothers, Publishers, 19197/1959.

Twain wrote at a time when America was young and optimistic. But his autobiography reflects his cynicism and in the end a preoccupation with death, the deliverer. Says he discusses events with which ordinary people can identify. Writes about what is interesting to him, then writes about the next thing of interest to him. No other design to his writing of this autobiography.

Twain is literally speaking from his grave. Now he can speak freely. It won’t be published in his lifetime. Christian children have been taught the value of forbidden fruit. Twain’s mother felt sorry for the Devil because he was the only sinner no one ever prayed for. There are two kinds of slaves; those who assent to it [i.e., slaves to drink] and those who are slaves by compulsion; the former is baser. His brother was what we would call today a manic-depressive or bi-polar. Governor Nye of the Territory of Nevada could remember the name and face of every person he met; as a result, he could do anything he wanted, with their complete support.

Twain was a good speller, but he wasn’t proud of it because it was a talent, not an acquirement. In Biblical times, committing a sin resulted in the extermination of the whole surrounding nation. Twain didn’t feel good about himself and therefore he didn’t feel good about the human race. Repetition is a powerful ingredient in humor. Everyone who speaks and writes commits plagiarism every time he speaks and writes. Used to introduce himself as if somebody else were the lecturer; the trick worked until the newspapers printed it.

Mark Twain’s view of life: A myriad of men are born; they labor and sweat and struggle for bread; they squabble and scold and fight; they scramble for little mean advantages over each other; age creeps upon them; infirmities follow; shames and humiliations bring down their prides and their vanities; those they love are taken from them and the joy of life is turned to aching grief; the burden of pain, care, misery grows heavier year by year; at length ambition is dead; pride is dead; vanity is dead; longing for release in their place; it comes at last—the only unpoisoned gift earth ever had for them—and they vanish from a world where they were of no consequence; where they achieved nothing; where they were a mistake and a failure and a foolishness; where they have left no sign that they have existed—a world which will lament them a day and forget them forever; then another myriad takes their place and copies all they did and goes along the same profitless road and vanishes as they vanished—to make room for another and another and a million other myriads to follow the same arid path through the same arid desert and accomplish what the first myriad and all the myriads that came after it accomplished—nothing!