Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER IV BRET HARTE IN SAN FRANCISCO Bret Harte returned to San Francisco in 1857, and his first occupation was that of setting type in the office of the Golden Era. To this paper his sister, Mrs. Wy- man, had been a contributor for some time, and it was through her that Bret Harte obtained employment on it as a printer. The Golden Era had been established by young men. It was, writes Mr. Stoddard, the cradle and the grave of many a high hope. There was nothing to be compared with it on that side of the Mississippi; and though it could point with pride ? it never failed to do so ? to a somewhat notable list of contributors, it had always the fine air of the amateur, and was most complacently patronizing. The very pattern of paternal patronage was amiable Joe Lawrence, its Editor. He was an inveterate pipe-smoker, a pillar of cloud, as he sat in his editorial chair, an air of literary mystery enveloping him. He spoke as an oracle, and I remember his calling my attention to a certain anonymous contribution just received, and nodding his head prophetically, for he already had his eye on the fledgling author, a young compositor on the floor above. It was Bret Harte's first appearance in the 'Golden Era, ' and doubtless Lawrence encouraged him as he had encouraged me when, out of the mist about him, he handed me secretly, and with a glance of caution ? for his business partner, the marble-hearted, sat at his ledger not far away ? he handed me a folded paper on which he had written this startling legend 'Write some prose for the Golden Era, and I will give you a dollar a column.' BRET HARTE IN 1861 eit ' It was not long before Bret Harte was promoted from the compositor's stand to the editorial room of the paper, and thus began his literary career. Am...