I joined up with Google+ a few months ago but have yet to do very much with it. One thing I have found is the photographic work of Trey Ratcliff, https://plus.google.com/photos/105237212888595777019/albums/56230424904…
Sam (for he is not yet Mark Twain) is offered the job of personal secretary to his brother, who was recently appointed Secretary of Nevada. He prepares to travel west. This is a enhanced version of an earlier video. Write comments and let me know what you think about it. The video was created using dvd-slideshow and the audio recording and editing was done using Audacity.
This is the final chapter of Roughing It. His friends play a practical joke on him by staging a midnight highway robbery, on a very cold night. It backfires. He decides to "go home" again, but then again one never can and he decides to head on on the adventure recounted in his book The Innocents Abroad.
Twain returns from Hawaii, a relatively uneventful trip. Now being unemployed he decides to try out public speaking. We hear how he dealt with stagefright.
Twain recounts his encounters with an extreme liar and tells of the liar's strange fate.
Mark tells stories to an aristocratic lady and gets caught out by a milk wagon horse. He rolls boulders into the Haleakala crater to watch them disppear into the hidden depths.
The story of a journey across the floor of the Kilauea volcano crater. Twain and a man named Marlette hike to the North Lake at night.
In the final chapter of his book, Roughing It, Mark Twain comments on the changes that occurred during his time in the American West.
A wonderful description of the inside of the Kilauea volcanic crater.
My avatar, SLClemens, in Second Life has been reading chapters from Mark Twain's book "The Innocents Abroad". I have been recording these readings and producing slideshow videos of them, published here on my web site. The videos are hosted by YouTube. One of these chapters, Chapter 13, elicited a response from a listener of surprise at how much Twain seemed to dislike the Ottoman Empire. The chapter itself contains a rather negative description of on Abdul Aziz, emperor of the Ottoman Empire. Twain had seen him in the company of Napoleon III, on parade.
Lots of adventures in this chapter from learning how to surf to climbing through lava tubes. Here also is an example of a place of refuge, sanctuary, for any criminal able enough to get to it before capture by pursuers.
Perhaps the death of Captain James Cook was justified after all.
Nothing much to do with Hawaii. This is a short study on the results of a compulsion for turnips and interpreting a hand written letter from Horace Greeley.
Twain tells of the fall of the old Hawaiian religion just prior to the arrival of the missionaries. He also guards the clothing of several native girls as they swim.
This chapter provides a cautionary tale of French tour guides for Americans. The three friends have chosen Billfinger as a guide and soon discover he works on commission for the various shops. Twain also describes Napoleon III, the emperor of France and Abdul Aziz, the sultan of Turkey. Descriptions of these two men can be found in Twain's Letter Number 5 to the Daily Alta California but completely rewritten for this book. See McKeithan (1957) for a comparison.
This chapter does not appear to derive from Twain's letters to the Daily Alta California except for the final paragraph of letter number 5, published September 5.
The good Captain learns more about heaven. He tries out his wings but soon discards them, except for certain occasions. And, we learn much of how heaven operates. And, the Captain is happy. We attend the reception of a bartender, recently converted.
Capt. Stormfield died and it took him thirty years to reach heaven, racing along like a comet. Indeed racing other comets. Finally arriving at the wrong door, his planet of origin is unknown. The clerk eventually identifies where the good captain should be, a million leagues away. He goes to the red wishing-carpet and instantly arrives at the proper gate. What follows is the destruction of every belief the captain had about heaven and a new perspective on humanity's place in the universe.
