I think it is difficult, perhaps even impossible, to insert ourselves
into a life and a cultural context that was Mark Twain's regarding
when he decided to invest in his typesetting company. Can we distill
this into what we think is a desire to become rich or do we believe
that he really felt the technology was simply the right thing at the
right time? How many of us invested in Apple Computer when the iPod
first came out? Someone pointed out the context that was Twain's was
based on his own experience as a typesetter. Whether it was mis-
judgement or simply bad timing is not for us to know, but rather it
seems to me that we are better able from Twain experience to measure
our own investments, in terms of our own time and money, in whatever
we choose to spend our time or money on. It really is irrelevant what
happened to Twain, we can only attempt to discern what was going on
in his mind at the time. So we are left decide for ourselves what we
should ourselves do based in part on Twain obvious mistakes. This I
think is part and parcel to what I believe Twain wanted to be, both
an entertainer and a teacher.

Steve Crawford