Mark Twain
Many of the works of Mark Twain deal with or take place near the Mississippi River. One of his first major works, Life on the Mississippi, is in part a history of the river, in part a memoir of Twain's experiences on the river, and a collection of tales that either take place on or are associated with the river. Twain's most famous work, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, is largely a journey down the river. The novel works as an episodic meditation on American culture with the river having multiple different meanings including independence, escape, freedom, and adventure.
Twain himself worked as a riverboat pilot on the Mississippi for a few years. A steamboat pilot needed a vast knowledge of the ever-changing river to be able to stop at any of the hundreds of ports and wood-lots along the river banks. Twain meticulously studied 2,000 miles (3,200 km) of the Mississippi for more than two years before he received his steamboat pilot license in 1859. While training, he convinced his younger brother Henry to work with him. Henry died on June 21, 1858, when the steamboat he was working on, the Pennsylvania, exploded.
Read more about this topic: Steamboats Of The Mississippi
Famous quotes by mark twain:
“It don’t make no difference whether you do right or wrong, a person’s conscience ain’t got no sense, and just goes for him anyway. If I had a yaller dog that didn’t know no more than a person’s conscience does, I would pison him.”
—Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835–1910)
“You may call a jay a bird. Well, so he is, in a measure—because he’s got feathers on him, and don’t belong to no church, perhaps; but otherwise he is just as much a human as you be. And I’ll tell you for why. A jay’s gifts and instincts, and feelings, and interests, cover the whole ground. A jay hasn’t got any more principle than a Congressman.”
—Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835–1910)
“We often feel sad in the presence of music without words; and often more than that in the presence of music without music.”
—Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835–1910)
“Patriot: The person who can holler the loudest without knowing what he is hollering about.”
—Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835–1910)
“No God and no religion can survive ridicule. No political church, no nobility, no royalty or other fraud, can face ridicule in a fair field, and live.”
—Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835–1910)