Mark Twain, a.k.a. Samuel Clemens. 1835-1910.
When the mesmerist said he would cause Sam to do whatever by thinking and concentrating on the act he wished Sam to perform, Sam feared the jig was up. He made up a wild move and waited to be exposed. The mesmerist said, "As unbelievable as this may seem, people of Hannibal, the lad has done exactly as I willed." And Same and the mesmerist performed this amazing feat night after night!
Even more astonishing was the time the mesmerist promised to show everyone how deeply hypnotized Sam was by sticking pins into him. Fearing exposure, Sam successfully willed himself to not flinch when the pins punctured his flesh. In fact, he was so convincing that when he finally confessed his pretense to his mother many years later, she would not believe him.
Sam finished his printer's apprenticeship and began working for his brother, Orion, who was starting a newspaper of his own. A salary was agreed upon, and the pay received was the same as he had procured as an apprentice. However, Orion was no better a businessman than his father, and the short-lived newpaper lasted as long as it did only because of the news articles that Sam wrote which were foretastes of the humor that characterized his writing the rest of his life.
Thus the imagination, the inclination for mischief, the pessimistic view of much of society that Sam developed began to unite in a young author as he invented the journalistic squalls that eventually stormed all of America and much of the rest of the world.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
BOOKS
Clemens, Susy. "Papa, An Intimate Biography of Mark Twain." 1985.
Eaton, Jeanette. "America's Own Mark Twain." 1958.
Hargrove, Jim. "Mark Twain, The Story of Samuel Clemens."1959.
Twain, Mark, ed. Charles Neider. "The Autobiography of Mark Twain." First copyright 1917, this edition 1959.
WEB SITES
There are numerous sites regarding Sam Clemens. All of the ones I looked at were excellent. I have, however, chosen just a few because between them they contain links to most of the others.
http://users.telerama.com/~joseph/mtwain... (5 stars) Various books written by Mark Twain available for reading online. Available in either HTML or Zip format. And, as the site owner states, "It's not really all that rare for a person to have insights on what makes this species tick and have those insights stand up to the harsh tests of history. What is rare, in my mind, is for those insights to remain vital, relevant, and funny a century later. I
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