ere westward bound down-hill, with me two years ahead of him and
neither of us with anything further to do as benefactors to mankind, was
all a mistake. I had written four books then, possibly five. I have been
drowning the world in literary wisdom ever since, volume after volume;
since that day's sun went down he has been the historian of Mr. Lincoln,
and his book will never perish; he has been ambassador, brilliant
orator, competent and admirable Secretary of State.

MARK TWAIN.

(_To be Continued._)

NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW

No. DCX.

MARCH 1, 1907.

CHAPTERS FROM MY AUTOBIOGRAPHY.--XIII.

BY MARK TWAIN.

[Sidenote: (1847.)]

... As I have said, that vast plot of Tennessee land[6] was held by my
father twenty years--intact. When he died in 1847, we began to manage it
ourselves. Forty years afterward, we had managed it all away except
10,000 acres, and gotten nothing to remember the sales by. About
1887--possibly it was earlier--the 10,000 went. My brother found a
chance to trade it for a house and lot in the town of Corry, in the oil
regions of Pennsylvania. About 1894 he sold this property for $250. That
ended the Tennessee Land.

If any penny of cash ever came out of my father's wise investment but
that, I have no recollection of it. No, I am overlooking a detail. It
furnished me a field for Sellers and a book. Out of my half of the book
I got $15,000 or $20,000; out of the play I got $75,000 or $80,000--just
about a dollar an acre. It is curious: I was not alive when my father
made the investment, therefore he was not intending any partiality; yet
I was the only member of the family that ever profited by it. I shall
have occasion to mention this land again, now and then, as I go along,
for it influenced our life in one way or another during more than a
generation. Whenever things grew dark it rose and put out its hopeful
Sellers hand and cheered us up, and said "Do not be afraid--trust in
me--wait." It kept us hoping and hoping, during forty years, and forsook
us at last. It put our energies to sleep and made visionaries of
us--dreamers and indolent. We were always going to be rich next year--no
occasion to work. It is good to begin life poor; it is good to begin
life rich--these are wholesome; but to begin it _prospectively_ rich!
The man who has not experienced it cannot imagine the curse of it.

My parents removed