Mark Twain

I cropped the above photo to specifically include the whitewashed fence as it may be a metaphor for Mark Twain's life. According to the adjacent sign "Here stood the board fence which Tom Sawyer persuaded his gang to pay him for the privilege of whitewashing."  Now after getting past the odd grammar, this could give somebody the idea that Twain used it as inspiration for the fence in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. It gives me the idea that maybe somebody built it after the book was published.¹

Either way it reminded me of a thread that ran through a biography I had recently read by Ron Chernow, titled Mark Twain. Before reading it I had always thought of Twain as an everyman American:  born into poverty who through hard work and creativity became quite successful and the most famous man in the world. I always assumed that his books and witty quotes showed a hard acquired wisdom that helped enable success.

What I didn't realize was that while he became financially successful due  to his books and lectures, much of Twain's wealth came from his wife, who was heir to a rather large  coal, lumber and railroad fortune.  He then lived a ridiculously lavish lifestyle which when combined with terrible business instincts, led to him to declare bankruptcy. A bankruptcy that was softened by friendships with wealthy authors and businessmen including Henry Huttleston Rogers, a man who colluded with John D. Rockefeller to form Standard Oil (it's nice to have rich friends). A bankruptcy, that had him possibly illegally and definitely immorally transferring ownership of his books to his wife and that barely affected his spending habits.   

In a way he was an everyman American, as he could never follow his own advice, learn from his own mistakes or reduce his own consumption.   

Mrs. WitFoH independently agreed with my analysis, as after two days of non-stop Twain, when I asked her to share her thoughts, she replied "He seemed to have a little bit of grift in him."