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By Kelsey Bernier Of all the dreams Sam Clemens had as a boy, the one he desired most became a reality. It was the dream of being a steamboat pilot. Before Sam earned his pilot’s license, however, he was already captain of his own boat. With wild red hair and a stubbornness to match, he endeavored, in all of life, to steer himself in whatever direction he thought best or most appealing. As “The way of a fool is right in his own eyes” (Prov. 12:15), so this American intellectual was foolish beneath his worldly wisdom, and the passionate pride that he maintained throughout his life led him to a mighty fall. Though a descendant of a prominent Virginia family, Sam’s father, John Marshal Clemens, was a poor businessman who died in the midst of financial crisis. As Sam’s older brother, Orion, was unable to support the family on his own, Sam left home at fifteen to help by becoming a printer’s apprentice. During his seventeenth year, Sam spent his time working in print shops and writing for newspapers. But his restless, adventurous spirit soon pushed him to move southward. He decided to take a steamboat to New Orleans, where he would make passage to Brazil and the promising fortunes of coca trading. Once aboard the Paul Jones, however, Sam remembered his childhood dream of becoming a steamboat pilot. Through a bit of prodding, he finally convinced the boat’s current pilot, Horace Bixby, to take him on as an apprentice. Sam was twenty-one at the time, and for the next five years he worked diligently to learn the ways of the river. Later, he used the steamboat call of Mark Twain as a pen-name for some of his work. The call let boatmen know when the water of the river was two fathoms, or twelve feet, deep. If it was, the pilot knew he could pass his boat safely through it. This call of safety became Sam’s permanent pen-name. Through his steam boating experiences, Sam seemed to be awakened to the world around him. He began observing people, places, and quirky characteristics, which he would one day write about in his book, Life on the Mississippi. His time as a pilot’s apprentice also helped him begin shaping his views on life, himself, and the world. Though he showed signs of questioning these views at times, they very definitely marked what was in his heart throughout his entire life. Stating his beliefs in 1906, when he was seventy-one years old, he wrote: “I believe in God the Almighty. I do not believe He has ever sent a message to man by anybody, or delivered one to him by word of mouth, or made Himself visible to mortal eyes at any time in any place. I believe that the Old and New Testaments were imagined and written by man, and that no line in them was authorized by God, much less inspired by Him. “I think the goodness, the justice, the mercy of God are manifested in His works: I perceive that they are manifested toward me in this life; the logical conclusion is that they will be manifested toward me in the life to come, if there should be one. “I do not believe in special providences. I believe that the universe is governed by strict and immutable laws…. “I cannot see how eternal punishment hereafter could accomplish any good end, therefore I am not able to believe in it. To chasten a man in order to perfect him might be reasonable enough; to annihilate [or destroy] him when he shall have proved himself incapable of reaching perfection might be reasonable enough; but to roast him forever for the mere satisfaction of seeing him roast would not be reasonable – even the atrocious God imagined by the Jews would tire of the spectacle eventually. “There may be a hereafter and there may not be. I am wholly indifferent about it. If I am appointed to live again I feel sure it will be for some more sane and useful purpose than to flounder about for ages in a lake of fire and brimstone for having violated a confusion of ill-defined and contradictory rules said (but not evidenced) to be of divine institution. If annihilation is to follow death I shall not be aware of the annihilation, and therefore shall not care a straw about it.”* These beliefs reveal a pride that did more damage than good in Sam’s personal life. One of the ways in which Sam was burdened by his pride was that it made him feel responsible for the deaths of several loved ones. He experienced such feelings of guilt for the first time when his younger brother, Henry, passed away. Twelve years later, after he had married Olivia (Livy) Langdon in 1870, he felt these guilt pangs yet again when his firstborn and only son died of diphtheria. Sam’s grief was gradually made lighter in the nine years following his son’s death, as his three daughters were born. The joy of having more children did not snuff out all of Sam’s problems, however. During the years before his marriage, he had lived haphazardly, squandering his money until he had, literally, only a dime in his pocket. Once he had decided to settle down, it had taken him awhile to build his funds again. Despite the financial help they received from Livy’s father before his death soon after their wedding, Sam and Livy were rather poor in the beginning of their marriage. In the course of several years, Sam spent the large inheritance his father-in-law had left to Livy investing in the invention of a printing press that never even made it to market. The Clemens’s financial situation grew to be so bad that Sam finally filed for bankruptcy. To earn the money he needed to pay his creditors, Sam set sail on a two-year lecture tour around the world taking Livy and their daughter, Clara, with him. The work was easy and the money came in swiftly, but the strain on the family proved to be disastrous. Back home, Susy, the eldest and most-loved Clemens girl, developed spinal meningitis and died. Another blow of guilt for the man who thought he had his life under control. At the beginning of his literary career, Sam had used his writing to earn money. While it continued to be his source of income, he now used it to escape from the troubles that persistently piled up on him. After Susy’s death, he wrote to a friend, “I couldn’t get along without work now. I bury myself in it up to the ears. Long hours – 8 and 9 at a stretch, sometimes….It isn’t all for print…for much of it fails to suit me; 50,000 words of it in the past year. It was because of the deadness which invaded me when Susy died.”** Livy’s death in 1904 was the height of Sam’s grief. “….The best heart that ever beat for me and mine was carried silent out of this house and I am as one who wanders and has lost his way,” he wrote, “Our life is wrecked…we have no plans for the future; [Livy] always made the plans, none of us was capable….She was all our riches and she is gone. She was our breath, she was our life, and now we are nothing.”** Clara and Jean were just as depressed. Jean had frequent seizures and both girls ended up in sanitariums for a time. Unable to bear his anguish, Sam wrote in despair, “There is nothing. There is no God and no universe…there is only empty space, and in it a lost and homeless and wandering and companionless and indestructible Thought. And…I am that thought. And God, and the Universe, and Time, and Life, and Death, and Joy and Sorrow and Pain only a grotesque and brutal dream, evolved from the frantic imagination and that insane Thought.”** For all of his brilliance and cleverness, Samuel Clemens was void of what mattered the most. How unfortunate that he couldn’t have used his great experience and gifts to further the work of the Lord and reap an eternal reward! But Clemens did not want to work for someone else. He stubbornly tried to lead his life on his own for seventy-five years, earning for himself nothing but the loss of all that he loved and a lonely, shattered spirit. Regardless of the incidents that stripped him of his dear ones, he never once thought of setting his pride aside to let God fill in the empty spaces. He never once found refuge for his weary soul. And on April 21, 1910, Samuel Clemens died. Clara’s words after his death – about the man who had openly denied God – are rather ironic. “While the sun dimmed,” she wrote, “the great soul of Mark Twain melted into that speechless state of majesty and calm he had so fervently yearned for. His face was illuminated with smiling peace.”** But was it really? Did “Mark Twain” journey into that state of “majesty and calm” that he so searched for, yet whose source he always ignored? Perhaps – the name of Mark Twain will live on forever in the bliss of fame and admiration that goes with a great name. But the person Sam Clemens? His soul is gone, leaving us to wonder whether he has found his peace. Though he died with great wealth and fame, he was wrapped in deep spiritual poverty. The man thought to be so wise, in truth, was most foolish. “The fool has said in his heart, ‘There is no God.’ They are corrupt, they have done abominable works, there is none who does good” (Psalm 14:1). From Sam’s example, we see clearly that, “By pride comes nothing but strife” (Prov. 13:10). Had Sam lived for the Lord rather than pursuing his own personal happiness, he would have lived with great hope and died with the satisfaction of having fulfilled a mighty purpose. He also would have known the stability after which he so desperately sought. As David confirms in praise, “Forever, O Lord, Your word is settled in heaven. Your faithfulness endures to all generations . . . .Remember the word to Your servant, upon which You have caused me to hope. This is my comfort in my affliction, for Your word has given me life” (Psalm 119:89-90, 49-50). This is a blessed assurance of the hope we have in Christ as we continue to follow Him, seeking the Scriptures to reveal the truth in all aspects of life. We need never experience the fear and anxiety that burdened Samuel Clemens, if we belong to the Lord. For God’s word is a lamp to our feet and a light to our path and by following His precepts we may rest in the peace He gives to those who trust in Him. Sticking to the course He has laid, our waters will always be Mark Twain. *Paine, Albert Bigelow. Mark Twain. Harper & Brothers Publishers; NY, 1912. ** Ward, Geoffrey C. & Duncan, Dayton. Mark Twain. Alfred A. Knopf; NY, 2001. |