then over thirty years
old) could, two years later, have written that marvelous book, the
Innocents Abroad, is a phenomenon in literary development.

The Hawaiian letters, however, do show the transition stage between
the rough elemental humor of the Comstock and the refined and subtle
style which flowered in the Innocents Abroad. Certainly Mark
Twain's genius was finding itself, and his association with the
refined and cultured personality of Anson Burlingame undoubtedly
aided in that discovery. Burlingame pointed out his faults to him,
and directed him to a better way. No more than that was needed at
such a time to bring about a transformation.

The Sandwich Islands letters, however, must have been precisely
adapted to their audience--a little more refined than the log
Comstock, a little less subtle than the Atlantic public--and they
added materially to his Coast prestige. But let us consider a
sample extract from the first Sandwich Islands letter:

Our little band of passengers were as well and thoughtfully cared for by
the friends they left weeping upon the wharf, as ever were any similar
body of pilgrims. The traveling outfit conferred upon me began with
a naval uniform, continued with a case of wine, a small assortment
of medicinal liquors and brandy, several boxes of cigars, a bunch of
matches, a fine-toothed comb, and a cake of soap, and ended with a pair
of socks. (N. B. I gave the soap to Brown, who bit into it, and then.
shook his head and said that, as a general thing, he liked to prospect
curious, foreign dishes, and find out what they were made of, but he
couldn't go that, and threw it overboard.)

It is nearly impossible to imagine humor in this extract, yet it is
a fair sample of the entire letter.

He improves in his next, at least, in description, and gives us a
picture of the crater. In this letter, also, he writes well and
seriously, in a prophetic strain, of the great trade that is to be
established between San Francisco and Hawaii, and argues for a line
of steamers between the ports, in order that the islands might be
populated by Americans, by which course European trade in that
direction could be superseded. But the humor in this letter, such
as it is, would scarcely provoke a smile to-day.

As the letters continue, he still urges the fostering of the isl