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January 23, 2010

ISU prof’s tome looks at a legacy unsurpassed

By Mark Bennett The Tribune Star Sat Jan 23, 2010, 09:46 PM EST

TERRE HAUTE — It’s fitting that Mark Twain’s life began and ended beneath the glow of Halley’s Comet.

Both are rare. Halley’s Comet streaks into Earth’s sky once every 75 years, or so. As for Twain, the world will never see another like him.

Never mind that he remains America’s greatest writer, a century after he died. Instead, it was Twain’s final act — his death — that cemented a legacy no one could surpass.

And now, some meticulous research by Michael Shelden, an author and Indiana State University professor of English, proves the uncanny nature of Twain. Shelden’s findings are part of his new book, “Mark Twain: The Man in White (The Grand Adventure of His Final Years),” which will be released by Random House on Tuesday.

The connection between Twain and Halley’s Comet is well-known. Twain was born Samuel Langhorne Clemens on Nov. 30, 1835, in tiny Florida, Mo. The comet put on a bright, nighttime display for earthlings that month, and then disappeared for another couple generations. Once Clemens became Mark Twain — a pen name derived from his days as a riverboat pilot — he often predicted, grandly, that his death also would coincide with Halley’s reappearance.

Twain repeated his prognostication in 1909, saying, “I came in with Halley’s Comet in 1835. It is coming again next year, and I expect to go out with it. It will be the greatest disappointment of my life if I don’t go out with Halley’s Comet. The Almighty said, no doubt, ‘Now here are these two unaccountable freaks; they came in together, they must go out together.’”

Sure enough, Twain’s health began to fail in the spring of 1910, just as Halley’s neared Earth. The beloved novelist, humorist and lecturer had just returned to his house in Redding, Conn., after a stay in Bermuda. Twain’s 20-cigars-a-day smoking habit weakened his heart. Twain sensed his demise while in Bermuda, and agreed to take a boat ride home in early April.

Then, at 3 p.m. on April 21, Twain slipped into a coma. The only survivor of his cherished family, daughter Clara, and friends were at his side. At 6:30, he died of angina pectoris, a painful heart ailment. He’d lived 74 years and five months, matching Halley’s orbital cycle.

But when Shelden began research for his book about the final years of Twain’s celebrated life, he kept looking for conclusive evidence that Halley’s Comet was actually visible in the sky above the East Coast on April 21, 1910. Shelden wanted to know, for sure, if the Twain-Halley’s legend was precise or just a bit exaggerated. He couldn’t find that verification.

So Shelden traveled to the Harvard College Observatory in Cambridge, Mass., to the scientists’ logbook. The Harvard astronomers had followed Halley’s by telescope through April 20. Then, according to the entry for April 21, the scientists walked outside the observatory at 4 a.m. and began jotting down notes about the celestial phenomenon overhead.

In the predawn darkness of that morning, without the aid of a telescope, they saw the famed Halley’s Comet. That night, Twain died.

“The day [Twain] died was the first time scientists near his home could see the comet with the naked eye,” Shelden said.

Wow.

Twain didn’t leave disappointed. And Shelden’s findings leave no doubt that Twain fulfilled his prophecy.

“For the first time, we’re able to say this guy wasn’t fooling around,” Shelden said.

Especially these days, such a man of his word is a rare sight.

Mark Bennett can be reached at (812) 231-4377 or mark.bennett@tribstar.com.



Twain and the comet

Halley’s Comet was visible in the sky when author Mark Twain was born in 1835 and died in 1910. It appeared again in 1986, with slightly less spectacular results. It is due to reappear on July 28, 2061.

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