Word: twain
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Calaveras County was once the heart of the Gold Rush. This August the rush has been for the exits. Stubborn forest fires swept through drought-stricken timber and brush, threatening a score of scenic small towns, once made famous by Mark Twain and Bret Harte, and forcing nearly 14,000 residents to flee. Nearly 4,000 fire fighters labored throughout the week, bringing the flames under control just as another wildfire broke out in Northern California's Shasta County...
...Huckleberry Finn anyway? The most celebrated hobo hero in American literature took on a new dimension when Shelley Fisher Fishkin, a professor at the University of Texas at Austin, unveiled the research that went into her forthcoming book, Was Huck Black? Mark Twain and African-American Voices...
...Twain said Huckleberry Finn, the young narrator of his most famous book, was based on Tom Blankenship, a poor white boy in Hannibal, Mo. But Fishkin argues that Huck's voice was in part inspired by Jimmy, a 10-year-old black servant. Twain described this boy in an 1874 article in the New York Times as "the most artless, sociable and exhaustless talker I ever came across." Added Twain: "He did not tell me a single remarkable thing, or one that was worth remembering. And yet he was himself so interested in his small marvels, and they flowed...
...Other Twain scholars made some intriguing discoveries about the writer's personal affairs. Victor Fischer and Michael Frank of the Mark Twain Project at the University of California, Berkeley, said some soon-to-be published letters show that in 1869, Twain, at 33, had launched a campaign to convince Olivia Langdon, 23, that his wanderlust would cease if she married him. Wrote Twain: "It is my strong conviction that, married to you, I would never desire to roam again while I lived." Despite her reservations, Langdon finally relented. Twain triumphantly wrote to his family, "She said she never could...
...paraphrase Mark Twain, don't let school getin the way of your Harvard education. Believe me,you'll regret it if you commit yourself early onto only one thing. Don't just study, or just writefor The Crimson or just play football. Try allthree your first year and decide later what tofocus on. There is more to Harvard thanjust academics or justsocializing...