He thought the tale
poor. To his mother he wrote:
I do not know what to write; my life is so uneventful. I wish I was back
there piloting up and down the river again. Verily, all is vanity and
little worth--save piloting.
To think that, after writing many an article a man might be excused for
thinking tolerably good, those New York people should single out a
villainous backwoods sketch to compliment me on!--"Jim Smiley and his
Jumping Frog"--a squib which would never have been written but to please
Artemus Ward.
However, somewhat later he changed his mind considerably, especially when
he heard that James Russell Lowell had pronounced the story the finest
piece of humorous writing yet produced in America.
XXV.
HAWAII AND ANSON BURLINGAME
Mark Twain remained about a year in San Francisco after his return from
the Gillis cabin and Angel's Camp, adding to his prestige along the Coast
rather than to his national reputation. Then, in the spring of 1866 he
was commissioned by the "Sacramento Union" to write a series of letters
that would report the life, trade, agriculture, and general aspects of
the Hawaiian group. He sailed in March, and his four months in those
delectable islands remained always to him a golden memory--an experience
which he hoped some day to repeat.
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