Albert Bigelow Paine

“ He and Mark Twain became boon companions. Their humor was not unlike; they were kindred spirits, together almost constantly. Ward was then at the summit of his fame, and gave the younger man the highest encouragement, prophesying great things for his work. Clemens, on his side, was stirred, perhaps for the first time, with a real literary ambition, and the thought that he, too, might win a place of honor. He promised Ward that he would send work to the Eastern papers. ”

“ The true version is that the Call publisher and Mark Twain had a friendly talk and decided that it was better for both to break off the connection. Almost immediately he arranged to write a daily San Francisco letter for the Enterprise, for which he received thirty dollars a week. This, with his earnings from the Californian, made his total return larger than before. Very likely he was hard up from time to time—literary men are often that—but that he was ever in abject poverty, as he would have us believe, is just a good story and not history. ”

“ But there was a pleasant and profitable side to the San Francisco life. There were real literary people there—among them a young man, with rooms upstairs in the Call office, Francis Bret Harte, editor of the Californian, a new literary weekly which Charles Henry Webb had recently founded. ”