Mark Twain, Travel Writer

I purchased the PBS DVD of Mark Twain directed by Ken Burns yesterday to supplement some lousy offerings on the tube. I watched years ago when it came out but it is even better than I remembered. Mark Twain’s first assignment abroad (not then a US State) was to Hawaii for a Sacramento paper. Here are two quotes from his time there,

This is the most magnificent, balmy atmosphere in the world--ought to take dead men out of grave.
- quoted in Mark Twain in Hawaii, Walter Francis Frear

The missionaries braved a thousand privations to come and make them permanently miserable by telling them how beautiful and how blissful a place heaven is, and how nearly impossible it is to get there.
- Roughing It

My favorite quote of all though is one that begins with, "The gentle reader will never know what a consummate ass he can be come till he goes abroad", So true Mr. Twain.

http://www.twainquotes.com/Hawaii.html