by Gregory Thornquest

“Every man is a suffering-machine and a happiness-machine combined. The two functions work together harmoniously, with a fine and delicate precision, on the give-and-take principle. For every happiness turned out in the one department the other stand ready to modify it with a sorrow or a pain-maybe a dozen. In most cases the man’s life is about equally divided between happiness and unhappiness. When this is not the case the unhappiness predominates-always; never the other. Sometimes a man’s make and disposition are such that his misery-machine is able to do nearly all the business. Such a man goes through life almost ignorant of what happiness is. Everything he touches, everything he does, brings a misfortune upon him. You have seen such people? To that kind of person life is not an advantage, is it? It is only a disaster. Sometimes for an hour’s happiness a man’s machinery makes him pay years of misery.”
Samuel Clemens, otherwise known as Mark Twain, was being driven by his “suffering-machine” as his heart poured out these words and as he created The Mysterious Stranger. There is a sadness to this novella, as if it was a therapy for him, a release of his darkest pains and wounds from life. He made this story personal.
What makes a man refute and deny God? At age 11 Clemens’ father dies, around age 22 his riverboat pilots career is ended due to the Civil War, close to 30 years old he has failed as a silver prospector in Nevada, around age 38 his two year old son dies of diphtheria, in his 40s witnessed the failure of the Reconstruction Period and consistent inhumanity to Blacks, in his 50s poor investments forced him into bankruptcy and the loss of his publishing company, his daughter dies at age 24, living abroad he witnessed many wars such as in South Africa, China, and the Philippines, in 1904 his wife became ill and died, in 1909 his youngest daughter died from an epileptic seizure. Clemons, I can only presume being ready for the end, drifted into his world with no God four months later on April 21, 1910 at the age of 74.