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1891年出版之「苦行記」裡的一幅插畫：「羨慕的冥想」
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薩慕爾‧克萊門斯 (Samuel
L. Clemens) ，也就是馬克‧吐溫 (Mark
Twain) 的誕生
1835年11月30日
在克萊門斯還沒有實踐他的夢想，成為密西西比河上蒸汽船的領航員時，他在年輕的時候，是在他哥哥歐利昂 (Orion) 的報社裡當排字員。他在船上一共工作了3年，直到內戰爆發後，水路交通在1861年中斷才停止。
在那之後，他到內華達州投靠歐利昂，當時歐利昂已經是內華達的國土部部長 (Secretary
of Territory) 。他把過去的經歷寫成「苦行記」 (Roughing
It) ，並且在1872年出版。在西部的時候，他住在一間密蘇里同鄉李‧薩摩‧惠普—哈斯藍 (Lee
Summer Whipple-Haslam) 密蘇里老太太所開設的提供膳食的旅店裡，跟隨一位叫作。當其他覺得克萊門斯不錯的寄宿者問老太太，密蘇里是否還有跟他一樣好的人時，老太太回答「沒有」，她說：「克萊門斯是密蘇里的怪胎，他掙脫了拴住他的拴馬柱。」
As a young man, Clemens worked as a typesetter for his brother Orion's newspaper, before he followed his dream and went to pilot paddlewheel steamboats on the Mississippi River. He worked on boats for three years until the outbreak of the Civil War stopped river traffic in 1861.
After that he went to Nevada where Orion had been appointed Secretary of the Territory. He wrote an account of his journey called Roughing It, which was published in 1872. While in the West, he stayed at a boarding house of a fellow Missourian, Mrs. Lee Summer Whipple-Haslam. When other boarders, thinking Clemens was "wonderful," asked if there were others like him in Missouri, she answered "no," saying "he was a Missouri freak that had broken loose from his hitching post."
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