"I was born modest, but it didn’t last. Culture is the ability to hide how much we think of ourselves and how little we think of everyone else." (Mark Twain)

Samuel Langhorne Clemens was, throughout his life, the pentultimate American conundrum. He was a Missouri redneck born of the humblest of backgrounds who craved respectability and cherished the life of the Eastern intellectual. He was the man who critically and unmercifully lampooned the self-centered superficiality of "The Gilded Age" in one of his books yet was always in a painfully unsuccessful race himself for wealth. He was a dedicated family man who loved his wife and children to the depths of his soul but was forever abandoning them as he scurried about the world in search of adventure and storylines. He was a cock-sure man of letters who, at the same time, doubted the worth of every word he wrote and envied those contemporaries who were formally embraced by established literary critics. And, most poignantly, he was the world’s most renowned "stand-up comedian" yet his life was a mosaic of tragedy, gut-wrenching sorrow and loss.

Mark Twain, as he was more familiarly known, was the embodiment of the spirit that was distinctly our nation’s at the turn of the 20^th century. A walking, talking, cigar-chewing personification of the "American Dream." Twain once said "I am not an American; I am the American." A living, breathing rags-to-riches caricature of all that was good - and much that was bad - about the age in which he lived. He was the most perceptive observer of human nature that has ever lived and yet could never come to grips with the demons that cracked the whip over his own head and called the tune to which he was unceasingly dancing. He was a virtual (if not in fact) schizophrenic. Sam Clemens appeared to the casual observer to be the epitome of his age, urbane and, on the surface, restrained and sophisticated. As his alter ego, Mark Twain, he was a hard-drinking scallywag and rabble-rouser who was an atheist, a socialist, a devout demagogue and an iconoclast.

He wrote insightfully about everything that was noble and, conversely, all that was cheap and shoddy about the post-Civil War society. He was the most successful author of his time and, concurrently, was so entirely inept at ordering his own affairs that he was continually teetering at the precipice of financial ruin. At a time when the average annual income was $500, he spent $30,000 a year on household expenses alone, including a daily visit from a barber, private tutors for his children and lavish parties. He lost thousands of dollars speculating in the stock market and sundry gadgets (including several hundred thousand dollars in the never-completed Paige typesetting machine) but when he was invited to be a principle investor in a fledgling company founded by Alexander Graham Bell, he thought there would be no market for a gadget called "the telephone." He did have one installed in his home, however.

"The man who is a pessimist before 48 knows too much; if he is an optimist after it, he knows too little" (Mark Twain)

The one constant that runs the length and breath of Clemens’ life is that heart-wrenching, soul-crushing tragedy followed him decade after decade and, yet, through it all, he remained acclaimed by all as America’s greatest humorist if not its greatest author. Surely, Clemens is not the only comedian and assuredly is not the only writer who has been shaped by tragedy. Throughout history, creative genius seems to be forged in the fires of horrific personal pain. However, with the story of Mark Twain one is awestruck that he remained the rightfully-crowned king of American humor in spite of the internal strife that would have leveled a lesser man. He was the truest image of Shakespearean tragedy yet (and perhaps because of his well-known trials) was the most beloved figure of his age.

The life of Mark Twain was one filled with the most wonderful adventures one could imagine. He became a licensed steam boat captain on the Mississippi, rode west to California on a stagecoach, traveled to the Holy Lands, and toured the globe (more than once), performing to adoring crowds from London to India to Australia and most every point in between. It is no wonder mixing his incredible mind, his God-Given powers of observation and sheer zest for living with such a spark created such a wonderful storyteller.

"The difference between the right word and almost right word is the difference between lightening and the lightening bug." (Mark Twain)

But, oh, the tragedy! He was born 2 months premature (his birth coincided with the appearance of Halley’s Comet, November 30, 1835) and was not expected to live through his first harsh Missouri winter. He remained a sickly, ghostly, often bed-ridden child for the first 6 years of his life. He was a sleep-walker and was prone to "fits" (possibly seizures) in childhood, just as his youngest daughter, Clara, was to be victimized. He was moody, prone to tantrums and not at all a pleasant toddler. Only 3 of his 6 siblings lived through childhood. Death was a constant companion in the Clemens’ household and it affected young Sammy all his life. His father died when Clemens was only 12, possibly from the stress of a unrelenting financial failure, a trait Twain apparently inherited. Young "Sammy" was forced to leave school behind and work to support his family at age 12 as a typesetter’s apprentice. His younger brother Henry died from horrible burns when the steamship he was an apprentice on blew up on the Mississippi. Twain, only 23 at the time, watched in agony at his brother’s bedside, as his brother died his excruciating death. Henry had been convinced just weeks earlier by his older brother (who he idolized) to follow his path and work toward a steamboat captaincy. Sam Clemens, understandably, blamed himself. Later in life, Twain tried desperately to communicate with his brother’s spirit through psychics and other charlatans.

Even after he had achieved unimaginable success, death followed Twain like a specter. His first child, the only boy he and Olivia had (and named after his wife’s father, Langdon Hughes, who died the year before), died of diphtheria at 19 months old. Again, he blamed himself: he had taken his infant son out in his stroller in the bitter cold of a Buffalo winter. He subsequently had 3 daughters, two died in his lifetime. The first, Susie - his favorite, while he was performing in England in an attempt to settle his growing debt; the last, Jean, on a Christmas Eve, drowning from a seizure in her own bathtub. Of course, he blamed himself for the deaths of both his beloved children. And the coup de gras, he lost his soulmate, his "Livie," well before her time. He was a failed businessman who suffered through a humiliating (at least, in the 1890s) bankruptcy by turning over his financial affairs to Henry Rogers and by working his way out of it and paying off his debts.

"What marriage is to morality, a properly conducted licensed liquor traffic is to sobriety." (Mark Twain)

Yet, he lived on, an immutable and unsilenced conscience of his nation. He was a unrelenting hammer of social commentary and criticism of the early 20^th century. When America sought to emulate British Imperialism, it was Twain who derided our growing national sense of self-importance and omnipotence. He was an opponent of the Spanish-American War and the extension of military force to the Philippines and beyond. He chastised the monarchs of Europe (particularly King Leopold of Belgium and his rule of the African Congo) with equal relish. He was so despised by President Theodore Roosevelt that, when they were to both receive honorary doctorates at one college ceremony, "Teddy" went clearly out of his way to avoid even shaking hands with Twain. He recognized the inhumanity of war particularly when waged from misplaced patriotism or religious fervor in his "War Prayer" which remains a classic of caustic satire.

While he desperately sought acceptance by the literary establishment, Twain wrote for the common people. Unlike his much-celebrated contemporaries (Emerson, Thoreau, Whitman and Oliver Wendell Holmes) who wrote as if they were writing for the European intelligentsia, Twain wrote in the language of his country and gave legitimacy to the voice of "American English." He was fascinated with the cadences and vernacular of black folk and was a lifelong admirer of the resolve and courage of the post-slavery survivors. He was a vociferous champion for equal treatment of black Americans in the post-Reconstruction years when such views were decidedly unpopular. His masterpiece, "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn," quite probably did more to soften the hearts of racist America than any government action ever enacted. In his depiction of black Americans - like Jim, the escaped slave that accompanies Huck on his adventure - he forced Americans to see that people are people, regardless of their color or background. Jim shows Huck that black folk love their families and mourn their loss like white people did. In the books climax, Huck decides that he would rather go to Hell (as the prevailing beliefs of society and religion had taught him that he would do) than turn Jim in to the authorities as a runaway slave. Society changes not at its center but at its periphery. And that is where Twain gnawed and chewed. He was fond of saying that classic literature was like wine and what he wrote was merely water. And then, with a wink and an irrepressible twinkle in his eyes, he would add: "But everyone drinks water."

"Education consists mainly in what we have unlearned." (Mark Twain)

Twain showed us, in his writing, what it meant to be a human. He wrote the manuals that dissected our every quirk, our ambivalence, our contradictions and our folly. From "Tom Sawyer" to "Huckleberry Finn" to "Pudd’nhead Wilson" to "Tales from the Equator," Samuel Langhorne Clemens showed us ourselves, warts and all. He held a mirror up to the human race and forced us to laugh at what silly, frivolous and vainglorious animals we really are. He showed us the horrors we were capable of inflicting on each other but, also, how we can be redeemed and made whole. He showed us the way out of the "human condition."

He once said, paraphrasing now, that "I am all of humanity in one suit." He was not mistaken. He was like all of us who stride across this tiny blue planet appearing to all the world that we are confidant and strong. But, if you were to scratch the surface - just a little - you would see the sorrows, regrets and the pain that we all share and secretly store away, hidden from all we meet.

In these troubling times, it would do us all well to reread Twain and try to reconnect with what it is to be truly human. Better yet, we would benefit immeasurably if our generation’s Mark Twain stepped forward. If that happened (which is decidedly unlikely), we could once again laugh at ourselves and our illusionary self-importance. After all, it was the original Twain that showed us what we could become - with a lot of work and a hefty measure of Missouri stubbornness. Perhaps a modern-day incarnation could bring a simple, undiluted and honest view of how far we have fallen from whence we once were. If someone could bring us to appreciate that dismal state of affairs - and, concurrently, give us a good belly laugh at our foolishness - he would truly be "the new Mark Twain."

"Man is the only animal that blushes...or needs to." (Mark Twain)