# Orion Resumed explained — The Autobiography of Mark Twain

> Chapter companion for The Autobiography of Mark Twain by Mark Twain.

## What happens

Twain reflects on his brother Orion's life, detailing his various failed business ventures—including a poultry farm, a boardinghouse, a newspaper, a wood-sawing machine, and a steam canal boat design—as well as his eccentricities, his unwavering honesty, and his eventual death in 1898. Twain also recounts his own failed attempt to persuade Orion to write a truthful autobiography.

## Themes in this chapter

### Family and Domestic Life

Twain's relationship with his brother Orion and his mother, and Orion's domestic ventures like the poultry farm and boardinghouse.

### Character and Morality

Orion's honesty and integrity contrasted with his financial failures; Twain's struggle to write truthfully about his own shame.

### Mortality and Loss

The deaths of Jane Clemens and Orion Clemens, and the 'pathetic and unprofitable' nature of Orion's life.

## Character check-ins

### Orion Clemens

Twain's brother, subject of the chapter; his failed ventures, eccentric politics, and death are described.

### Mark Twain

Narrator; reflects on his suggestion that Orion write an autobiography and on his own inability to include shameful incidents.

### Jane Lampton Clemens

Twain's mother; died in 1890, left money to Twain which he gave to Orion.

## Key lines

> I wrote and suggested to Orion that he write an autobiography. I asked him to try to tell the straight truth in it; to refrain from exhibiting himself in creditable attitudes exclusively, and to honorably set down all the incidents of his life which he had found interesting to him, including those which were burned into his memory because he was ashamed of them.

Twain urged Orion to write an honest autobiography that included shameful incidents, a task Twain himself found impossible.

_Twain's challenge to Orion mirrors his own difficulty with autobiographical truth._

> He was a most strange creature⁠—but in spite of his eccentricities he was beloved, all his life, in whatsoever community he lived. And he was also held in high esteem, for at bottom he was a sterling man.

Despite his oddities, Orion was loved and respected for his fundamental integrity.

_Twain's affectionate yet critical portrait of his brother._

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/the_autobiography_of_mark_twain_se/chapters/volume-ii-orion-resumed
- Book: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/the_autobiography_of_mark_twain_se
- All chapters: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/the_autobiography_of_mark_twain_se/chapters