Twain in His Own Time: A Biographical Chronicle of His Life, Drawn from Recollections, Interviews, and Memoirs by Family, Friends, and Associates

“Mark Twain as He Was Known during His Stay on the Pacific Slope” (1887)

[54] === “Mark Twain as He Was Known during His Stay on the Pacific Slope” (1887) George E. Barnes George Barnes recalled that James Anthony (1824–76), one of the owners of the Sacramento Union (1852–74), sponsored Twain’s voyage to the Sandwich Islands in exchange for a series of articles about the trip. Twain sailed for Honolulu aboard the Ajax on 7 March 1866. one of his fortunate moves during his Pacific experience was the trip he madetoHawaiisoonafterleavingtheCall.HehadaveryfirmfriendinJames Anthony, one of the proprietors of the Sacramento Union, now merged into the Record-Union. When Mr. Clemens mentioned to that gentleman his desire to visit the isles of tranquil delights means were at once furnished him, the consideration being a specified number of letters to be published in the Union, on the social, commercial, and political condition of the Kanaka group. Mr. Clemens “changed his foot,” to use a turf phrase, when he entered on this contract. While before he did nothing with his pen but provoke a smile from his readers, and was considered by those who did not know him personally to be merely a man in motley, an embodiment of “laughter holding both his sides,”1 he had the practical sense to conclude that this was an occasion when the laughter could not gracefully come in. His work was, accordingly, a series of solid and at the same time very readable articles on the islands that attracted general attention. They were eagerly perused in the Union and exhaustively discussed in our Chamber of Commerce. Note 1. Barnes quotes John Milton’s “L’Allegro” (1631). George E. Barnes, “Mark Twain as He Was Known during His Stay on the Pacific Slope,” San Francisco Morning Call, 17 April 1887, 1. ...