Which aspect of Mark Twain’s life does the passage focus on?

Mark Twain, who wrote the story we are going to read, traveled quite a lot, often because circumstances, usually financial circumstances forced him to. He was born in Florida, Missouri in 1835, and moved to Hannibal, Missouri with his family when he was about four years old. After his father died when he was about twelve, Twain worked in Hannibal for a while and then left so he could earn more money. He worked for a while as a typesetter on various newspapers, and then got a job as a river pilot on the Mississippi. Twain loved this job, and many of his books show it. The river job didn’t last, however, because of the outbreak of the Civil War. Twain was in the federate army for just two weeks, and then he and his whole company went west, to get away from the war and the army. In Nevada in California, Twain prospected for silver and gold without much luck, but did succeed as a writer. After that, Twain traveled around the country giving lectures and earning enough money to go to Europe. Twain didn’t travel much the last ten years of his life, and he didn’t publish much either. Somehow his travel inspired his writings. Like many other popular writers, Twain derived much of the materials for his writing from the wealth and diversity of his own experience.