. Mark Twain : a biography : the personal and literary life of Samuel Langhorne Clemens . d part of my time. It comesmainly from business responsibilities and annoyances. He had no moral right to be connected with business atall. He had a large perception of business opportunity,but no vision of its requirements—its difficulties and de-tails. He was the soul of honor, but in anything re-sembling practical direction he was but a child. Duringany period of business venture he was likely to be in hotwater: eagerly excited, worried, impatient, alternatelysuspicious and overtrusting, rash, frenzied
. Mark Twain : a biography : the personal and literary life of Samuel Langhorne Clemens . d part of my time. It comesmainly from business responsibilities and annoyances. He had no moral right to be connected with business atall. He had a large perception of business opportunity,but no vision of its requirements—its difficulties and de-tails. He was the soul of honor, but in anything re-sembling practical direction he was but a child. Duringany period of business venture he was likely to be in hotwater: eagerly excited, worried, impatient, alternatelysuspicious and overtrusting, rash, frenzied, and alto-gether upset. Yet never, even to the end of his days, would he per-manently lose faith in speculative ventures. Human traitsare sometimes modified, but never eliminated. The manwho is born to be a victim of misplaced confidence will con-tinue to be one so long as he lives and there are men will-ing to victimize him. The man who believes in him-self as an investor will uphold that faith against alldisaster so long as he draws breath and has money tofcack his judgments, 728. CHARLES L. WEBSTER CXXXIX FINANCIAL AND LITERARY BY a statement made on the ist of January, 1882,of Mark Twains disbursements for the precedingyear, it is shown that considerably more than onehundred thousand dollars had been expended duringthat twelve months. It is a large sum for an authorto pay out in one year. It would cramp most authorsto do it, and it was not the best financing, even forMark Twain. It required all that the books could earn,all the income from the various securities, and a fairsum from their principal. There is a good deal of biography in the statement. Ofthe amount expended forty-six thousand dollars repre-sented investments; but of this comfortable sum less thanfive thousand dollars would cover the legitimate pur-chases; the rest had gone in the ventures from whosebourne no dollar would ever return. Also, a large sumhad been spent for the additional land and for improve-me
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