_A Tramp Abroad_ (1880), and _Following
the Equator: A Journey Around the World_ (1897), are records of other
foreign travels. While they are largely autobiographical, and show in an
unusually entertaining way how he became one of the most cosmopolitan of
our authors, these works are less important than those which throb with the
heart beats of that American life of which he was a part in his younger
days.
In 1884 he became a partner in the publishing house of Charles L. Webster
and Co. This firm incurred risks against his advice, and failed. The
failure not only swallowed up every cent that he had saved, but left him,
past sixty, staggering under a load of debt that would have been a despair
to most young men. Like Sir Walter Scott in a similar misfortune, Mark
Twain made it a point of honor to assume the whole debt. He lectured, he
wrote, he traveled, till finally, unlike Scott, he was able to pay off the
last penny of the firm's indebtedness. His life thus set a standard of
honor to Americans, which is to them a legacy the peer of any left by any
author to his nation.
After his early pioneer days, his American homes were chiefly in New
England.
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