As long as I’m in a Twain state of mind, let’s revisit
Susy. She was, as Sam wrote, at times much given to retiring within
herself and trying to search out the hidden meanings of the deep things that
make the puzzle and pathos of human existence and in all the ages have baffled
the inquirer and mocked him.
He continuers to write, in his autobiography… as a little child aged seven she was
oppressed and perplexed by the maddening repetition of the stock incidents of
our race’s fleeting sojourn here, just as the same thing has oppressed and
perplexed mature minds from the beginning of time. 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 is
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 that same arid path through the same desert and
accomplish what the first myriad and all the myriads that came after It accomplished
– nothing!
“Mamma, what is it all
for?” asked Susy, preliminarily stating the above details in her own halting
language, after long brooding over them alone in the privacy of the nursery…at
the age of seven!
So why does Clemens, in his twilight years, paint such a
dismal picture of life? Why present
himself as a bitter old man? What
happened to arguably the most famous person in America (and perhaps the world
at that time), and certainly its most popular humorist? For the answer, we have only to look at what
life presented to Sam Clemens.
Clemens was immensely talented, as everyone knows. That alone should contribute to happiness,
but doesn’t. He had the good fortune to
fall in love with a very rich girl, one Olivia Langdon of Elmira, NY. Again, a
false precursor of happiness. After an
unusual (to say the least) courtship, they married.
Clemens wed Olivia in February of 1870, at her home in
Elmira, NY. They had four children. First born and only son Langdon arrived prematurely,
in November, 1870. Olivia Susan (Susy),
born 1872, Clara in 1874, and Jane Lampton (Jean) in 1880. Wife Olivia, born in 1845, was only 3 days
removed from being exactly 10 years his junior.
In those days, that all but guaranteed she would far outlive him.
 |
| The Clemens Family, at home in Hartford, CT |
But Sam was destined to be kicked, and then when down and
hurting, kicked yet again, and again.
The stage lights were shining on him, but they cast a long shadow no one
ever saw.
There are really two principal things that can utterly
destroy one’s perception of life. One is
financial distress and the other is sickness (and its tragic sibling, death). Sam Clemens, thanks to his all consuming fear
of being poor, was always looking for a way to get rich – fast. This flaw helped him lose everything during
his life, yet ultimately he would work his way back to financial security in
his last years. Those stories are well
known and destined for another post.
What really destroyed Clemens, and turned him into a morose and
despondent old man, was sickness and death.
Son Langdon died in 1872, at 19 months of age. The cause was diphtheria, and Sam blamed
himself for the rest of his life, for you see he took him for a stroll on a
cold and blustery day, and the child was exposed to frigid temperatures when
his blanket slipped off him and no one noticed. The first domino had fallen.
Susy was next, dying a horrible death at the age of 24, from
spinal meningitis. Sam was in Europe
when she passed, and the news that his favorite daughter was gone was almost
more than he could stand. As he said, it is one of the mysteries of our nature
that a man, all unprepared, can receive a thunder-stroke like that and live.
Livy died in 1904, of heart failure, while in Florence,
Italy. The love of Sam’s life was
gone. The final blow came on Christmas
Eve day, 1909, when Jean, at 29, suffered an epileptic seizure in her bath, had
a heart attack, and drowned. She was
living with Sam at her passing.
Four months later, the great Samuel Clemens could take no
more. Everyone he loved dear, save only one daughter, was taken from him. Alone, he died as much from a broken heart as
he did from heart failure. He simply
could carry no more sorrow.
The man who brought laughter and entertainment to millions
around the globe, died a broken man, harboring a broken spirit.
The odd observation here is that in every case, these
deaths, today, could have been prevented, or at least the condition managed, to
provide for many added years of life. Clemens would no doubt find that ironic.
Mark Twain Quote: “Pity is for the living, envy is for the
dead.”
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