trysail
Catch Me Who Can
- Joined
- Nov 8, 2005
- Posts
- 25,593
"...[Dan] De Quille's first bit of advice, which Clemens would carry with him the rest of his career, was wise, if succinct: 'Get the facts first, then you can distort them as much as you like'...
...The temple visit inspired Twain to reflect on the blessedly simpler times before the swarms of Christian missionaries had arrived in the islands to 'make the natives permanently miserable by telling them how beautiful and how blissful a place heaven is, and how nearly impossible it is to get there.' The missionaries had shown the native Hawaiian 'how in his ignorance, he had gone and fooled away all his kinfolks to no purpose; showed him what rapture it is to work all day long for fifty cents to buy food for the next day with, as compared with fishing for pastime and lolling in the shade through eternal summer, and eating of the bounty that nobody labored to provide but nature. How sad it is,' Twain concluded, 'to think of the multitudes who have gone to their graves in this beautiful island and never know there was a hell! Privately, he groused in his notebook that 'more row [has been] made about saving these 60,000 people than [it] would take to convert hell itself.'... "
-Roy Morris, Jr.
Lighting Out For The Territory: How Samuel Clemens Headed West and Became Mark Twain
New York, N.Y. 2010.
I've read a lot of Twain over the years and have a decent collection of his works (including a couple of first editions). When I saw this book on the library's shelf, it occurred to me that I really didn't know that much about Twain's youth and early years. After thumbing through the book, I realized that I'd read and greatly enjoyed Roy Morris' earlier biography of Ambrose Bierce (Ambrose Bierce: Alone and In Bad Company).
This book proved to be an engaging read and highly informative. I heartily recommend it.
