"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
McComb wooed him back to journalism just as he was on the point of
returning to his old work on the Mississippi River, this time as a
Government pilot.
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