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1891年出版之「苦行记」里的一幅插画：「羡慕的冥想」
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萨慕尔．克莱门斯 (Samuel
L. Clemens) ，也就是马克．吐温 (Mark
Twain) 的诞生
1835年11月30日
在克莱门斯还没有实践他的梦想，成为密西西比河上蒸汽船的领航员时，他在年轻的时候，是在他哥哥欧利昂 (Orion) 的报社里当排字员。他在船上一共工作了3年，直到内战爆发后，水路交通在1861年中断才停止。
在那之后，他到内华达州投靠欧利昂，当时欧利昂已经是内华达的国土部部长 (Secretary
of Territory) 。他把过去的经历写成「苦行记」 (Roughing
It) ，并且在1872年出版。在西部的时候，他住在一间密苏里同乡李．萨摩．惠普－哈斯蓝 (Lee
Summer Whipple-Haslam) 密苏里老太太所开设的提供膳食的旅店里，跟随一位叫作。当其他觉得克莱门斯不错的寄宿者问老太太，密苏里是否还有跟他一样好的人时，老太太回答「没有」，她说：「克莱门斯是密苏里的怪胎，他挣脱了拴住他的拴马柱。」
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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