dollars! It was, as Mark says, the blind lead over again. Mark Twain
had the true Midas touch; but the mine of riches he was destined to
discover was a mine, not of gold or silver, but the mine of intellect
and rich human experience.

To The 'Golden Era', Mark Twain, like Prentice Mulford and Joaquin
Miller, contributed freely; and after a time he became associated with
Bret Harte on 'The Californian', Harte as editor at twenty dollars a
week, and Mark receiving twelve dollars for an article. Here
forgathered that group of brilliant writers of the Pacific Slope,
numbering Bret Harte, Mark Twain, Charles Warren Stoddard, Charles Henry
Webb, and Prentice Mulford among its celebrities; two of that remarkable
coterie were soon destined to achieve world-wide fame. "These ingenuous
young men, with the fatuity of gifted people," says Mr. Howells, "had
established a literary newspaper in San Francisco, and they brilliantly
co-operated in its early extinction." Of his first meeting with Mark
Twain, Bret Harte has left a memorable picture:

"His head was striking. He had the curly hair, the aquiline nose,
and even the aquiline eye--an eye so eagle-like that a second lid
would not have surprised me--of an unusual and dominant nature.
His eyebrows were very thick and bushy. His dress was careless,
and his general manner was one of supreme indifference to
surroundings and circumstances. Barnes introduced him as Mr. Sam
Clemens, and remarked that he had shown a very unusual talent in a
number of newspaper articles contributed over the signature of
'Mark Twain.'"

Mark tired of the life of literary drudgery in San Francisco--on one
occasion he was reduced to a solitary ten--cent piece; and General John