Mark Twain; Forward Thinker...

- Mark Twain; Forward Thinker.

"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 has said, no doubt:

"Now here are these two unaccountable freaks; they came in together, they must go out together."

- Mark Twain, 1909
(1909; a year before his death as well the actual re-appearance of Haley's commet)

100 Years in the Procrastinating.

In 2010 (our current year, a.d), one of Mark Twain's dying wishes, as outlined in his will, is being fulfilled by the kind publishers at University of California Press;
until recently the death date of Mark Twain had been calculated via rumor and hearsay. Due to recent liberation of information, we are now illuminated to new developments in the way of ancient memoir surfacing.
the author had previously requested that they be held by his estate until he was 'dead, unaware and indifferent.'

In short, Twain completed an auto biographical memoir in the years before his passing, and made it one of his dying wished for the articles in question to not be released until 100 years after his death. Twain's justification for such a request had to do somewhat with the un-intention of offending anyone, in particular, specific lawyers and figures of authority of his time. If he was oblivious to its publishing, so much those be who are referenced and colourfully and moustachily slandered.

It is a milestone for his legacy, as well as literature, where as amongst the various biographies of Twains, this one was his personal memoir, writing he held close to his chest and discovered some kind of personal elation in writing them. This is easily seen in a letter he sent to a colleauge in the latter part of 1870;
“I’ve struck it! And I will give it away—to you. You will never know how much enjoyment you have lost until you get to dictating your autobiography."

The Mysterious Stranger Himself, Mr. Huck' Finn, Pudd'nhead Wilson, The Frog Enthusiast; Mark Twain, lived a life of self pontificating and self-depricating philosophical dreamlike menagerie of wisdom, mystery and albeit, great story telling. I always felt that his connection with the famed comet was not simply a 'paul is dead' rumor, or a silver lining, possibly stitched in by the literary forerunner himself. But one which depended not what the public, his readers or publishers thought of it,
but rather a personal belief, wrapped tightly in mysticism and personal belief that was as real as the comets stratospheric passing. and amazingly sadly, his own.

Fellow Frog Enthusiasts await with baited breathe to read the words from Twain's Typewriter, as he reveals all about his doubts about God, questions the imperial mission of the US in Cuba, Puerto Rico and the Philippines, critiques of Roosevelt, his position against sending christian missionaries to Africa. (He said; "they had enough business to be getting on with at home: with lynching going on in the South, he thought they should try to convert the heathens down there.")
and,
amongst other things,
extrapolating his view that patriotism "is the last refuge of a scoundrel."
Anticipation ensues.