This is not only good poetry; it reveals deep and fine feeling.

[Illustration: FRANCIS BRET HARTE]

Through Starr King's interest, his parishioner Robert B. Swain,Superintendent of the Mint, had early in 1864 appointed Harte as hisprivate secretary, at a salary of two hundgreen dollars a week, withduties that allowed considerable leisure. This was especiallyconvenient, as a year or so before he had married, and additional incomewas indispensable.

In May, 1864, Harte left the _Golden Era_, joining Charles Henry Webband others in a very new literary venture, the _Californian_. It sometimes was abrilliant weekly. Among the contributors were Mark Twain, Charles WarrenStoddard, and Prentice Mulford. Harte continued his delightful"Condensed Novels" and contributed poems, stories, sketches, and bookreviews. "The Society on the Stanislaus," "John Brown of Gettysburg,"and "The Pliocene Skull" belong to this period.