struggles: \nothing; where they were a mistake and a failure and a foolishness; where they have left no sign that they had existed – a world which will lament them a day and for-get them forever.” 他自己的最后一个幻想到后来似乎也破灭了。在晚年口述自传的时候，他以极端绝望的心情谈到人从尘世的苦难中的最终解脱：“??他们从世界上消失了，在这个世界上他们无足轻重，无所成就；甚至他们的存在本身就是个错误，是个失败，是种愚蠢。这个世界上也没有留下丝毫能表明他们存在过的痕迹。这个世界赠给他们的只是一日的哀伤和永久的遗忘。”
Devices of figuration
Metaphor
Mark Twain --- Mirror of America
saw clearly ahead a black wall of night...
main artery of transportation in the young nation's heart the vast basin drained three-quarters of the settled United States All would resurface in his books...that he soaked up... Steamboat decks teemed...main current of...but its flotsam When railroads began drying up the demand... ...the epidemic of gold and silver fever... Twain began digging his way to regional fame...
Mark Twain honed and experimented with his new writing muscles... ...took unholy verbal shots...
Simile:
Most American remember M. T. as the father of... ...a memory that seemed phonographic
Hyperbole:
...cruise through eternal boyhood and ...endless summer of freedom... The cast of characters... - a cosmos.
Parallelism: Most Americans remember ... the father of Huck Finn's idyllic cruise through eternal boyhood and Tom Sawyer's endless summer of freedom and adventure.
Personification:
life dealt him profound personal tragedies... the river had acquainted him with ...
...to literature's enduring gratitude...
...an entry that will determine his course forever... the grave world smiles as usual... Bitterness fed on the man...
America laughed with him.
Personal tragedy haunted his entire life.
Antithesis:
...between what people claim to be and what they really are... ...took unholy verbal shots at the Holy Land...
...a world which will lament them a day and forget them forever
Euphemism:...men's final release from earthly struggle
Alliteration:
...the slow, sleepy, sluggish-brained sloths stayed at home ...with a dash and daring...
...a recklessness of cost or consequences...
Metonymy:...his pen would prove mightier than his pickaxe
Synecdoche Keelboats,...carried the first major commerce