y^--' ..>^ 
 
 From a photograph tahm in Germany at the time when he >ra.^ Conxnl at ' 
 trejeld. He inscribed this " The Herr Consul/' (('/nr( 1880.) 
 
 IFrontisjricce. 
 
THE LIFE OF 
 
 BRET HARTE 
 
 BY 
 
 T. EDGAR PEMBERTON 
 
 AUTHOR OF "THE KENDALS;" "ELLEN TERRY AND HER SISTERS; 
 
 "A MEMOIR OF E. A. SOTHERN ; " "THE LIFE AN1> WRITIN8S 
 
 OF T. W. ROBERTSON;" "CHARLES DICKENS AND 
 
 THE STAGE;" "JOHN HARE, COMEDIAN;" 
 
 ETC. ETC. ETC. 
 
 WITH ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 DODD, MEAD & CO. 
 
 1903 
 

 03 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 PAGE 
 
 BOYHOOD: 'FLOUNDERING" i 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 FIRST FLIGHTS : " STRUGGLING " 9 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 IN LIFE'S STREAM: "SWIMMING" 68 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 FROM PACIFIC TO ATLANTIC SHORES . . . .117 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 FROM THE NEW WORLD TO THE OLD . . . .152 
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 THE CONSUL 167 
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 IN AND ABOUT STAGELAND 257 
 
 V 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 PAOB 
 
 LATER DAYS, LATER FRIENDS, AND LATER WORK . 296 
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 "GROSSING THE BAR" 338 
 
 BIBLIOGRAPHY . . 346 
 
 INDEX 355 
 
 VI 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 Bret Harte when Consul at Crefeld 
 
 Bret Harte when 17 Years Old 
 (From a daguerrotype) 
 
 Map of Bret Harte's California 
 
 The " Overland Monthly " 
 
 San Francisco, 1850-51 
 
 The Home of "Truthful James" 
 
 Bret Harte (circa 1871) 
 
 Bret Harte (circa 1876) 
 
 Bret Harte .... 
 
 (From the original painting by John Pkttik, R.A.) 
 
 Bret Harte (crrca 1899) 
 
 The Red House, Camberley, Surrey 
 
 Bret Harte's Writing Table at Camberley 
 AND HIS Library at Lancaster Gate, 
 London ....... 
 
 Frimley Church 
 
 Bret Harte's Grave in Frimley Churchyard. 
 Specimens of Bret Harte's Writing 
 
 Frontispiece 
 
 To face page 3 2 
 
 M )) 
 
 )5 )) 
 
 >5 I) 
 
 >> )> 
 
 » J) 
 
 64 
 
 82 
 
 102 
 
 I 10 
 
 126 
 
 170 
 
 208 
 260 
 
 » >J 
 
 312 
 328 
 
 Vll 
 
THE LIFE OF BEET HAETE 
 
 CHAPTEH I 
 
 BOYHOOD : " FLOUNDERING " 
 
 Francis Bret Harte, one of America's greatest 
 literary sons, poets, and humorists — the pioneer of 
 the short story that in these days of rush is in even 
 greater demand than the popular but more diffusive 
 novel, was born at Albany, State of New York, on 
 August 25th, 1839. His father, a well-known scholar 
 and eminent man of letters, was Professor of Greek at 
 the Albany College, and thus the child was brought 
 up in the atmosphere of literature. But he was 
 weakly ; when they spoke of his health prospects, 
 doctors shook their heads, and when he reached the 
 age when education had to be thought of, his kindly 
 mother (her maiden name was Truesdale) begged that 
 he might not be " forced." His father superintended 
 his studies, but probably hardly knew how that active 
 little brain — stronger than the as yet delicate body — 
 panted for knowledge. 
 
 Thus it came about that the young but fragile 
 Bret Harte had plenty of time on his own hands, 
 and as will presently be seen he used it to good advan- 
 
BOYHOOD: 
 
 tage. His name Bret was the surname of his father's 
 mother ; in later years he completely dropped the 
 Francis ; it was as Bret Harte that he endeared him- 
 self to the reading world, and it is by that familiar 
 title he will be called in these pages. He has de- 
 scribed himself to me as a dreamy lad thirsting for 
 information concerning the world he lived in, and 
 naturally his first interest was in his environment. 
 
 He found plenty to engross his thoughts in this 
 city of Albany, the capital of the State of New York, 
 and of the county of Albany, picturesquely situated in 
 a beautiful and fertile country on the western banks of 
 the Hudson. At Albany the united Erie and Champ- 
 lain canals join the Hudson, and the boy loved to go 
 down to the port, to count the vessels that touched 
 there, and to hear about the enormous quantities of 
 timber, wheat, barley, wool, and tobacco, which con- 
 stantly passed through the busy city. 
 
 There was much to be wondered at, too, at the 
 College in which his father taught and lectured, and 
 the stores of learning to be gleaned within those 
 honoured walls ; but his greatest delight was in the 
 history of his birthplace. 
 
 He soon found out how Albany was founded by 
 the Dutch in 1623, and was thus the oldest European 
 settlement in the United States, with the exception 
 of Jamestown in Virginia, which dates from 1607. It 
 stirred his young blood, moreover, to find how it was 
 captured by the British in 1664, who changed its 
 name from Beaverwyck or Williamstadt in honour of 
 the Duke of York and Albany, and how it received ! 
 
 2 
 
"FLOUNDERING" 
 
 its charter in 1686, and became the capital of the 
 State of New York in 1797. 
 
 Then he had his unformed conjectures as to the im- 
 pressive Roman Cathohc Cathedral, and wondered why, 
 while his father was a constant attendant at its shrine, 
 his mother preferred one of the Protestant churches. 
 
 In his boyish mind the busy city became a wonder- 
 land, and within its precincts he conjured up many 
 fairy-like fancies. 
 
 I am bound to say, however, that in telling me all 
 these things he added, in his whimsical way, that 
 when, after an absence of many years, he, in the first 
 flush of his literary fame, revisited Albany to deliver 
 one of his admirable lectures before the literary society 
 that in far-off days his father had founded, and expected 
 to respond to a great thrill of enthusiasm coupled with 
 emotion, he felt a keen pang of disappointment, and 
 'was angry with himself for being disappointed. The 
 thrill that he had expected did not answer to his call. 
 
 He described it very pathetically but with a sense 
 of humour that was irresistible, and declared his 
 belief that all sensitive-minded people have undergone 
 the same doleful experience. 
 
 I think he was right. The eyes of childhood 
 magnify the Vjeauties of their earliest surroundings. 
 
 In those boyish, dreamy days of his he must have 
 found abundant time for reading. His keen love of 
 romance and poetry, and his intense sense of humour 
 soon made themselves manifest, and no doubt some of 
 his most delightful hours were spent in bookland. 
 
 His admiration for Charles Dickens, which never 
 waned, but, on the contrary, increased as the years 
 
 3 
 
BOYHOOD: 
 
 rolled by, began when he read "Dombey and Son," 
 as the novel first came out in monthly parts. This 
 was in 1846, when he was only seven years of age, 
 and he at once made himself master of the glorious 
 works from the same pen which had preceded it. 
 
 When he told me this I suggested that he was 
 not unlike Dickens's David Copperfield, and I 
 recalled to him the lines (was it not Dickens writing 
 of his own boyhood ?) : " My father had left a small 
 collection of books in a little room upstairs to which 
 I had access, and which nobody else in our house ever 
 troubled. From that blessed little room ' Roderick 
 Random,' ' Peregrine Pickle,' ' Humphrey Clinker,' 
 ' Tom Jones,' ' The Vicar of Wakefield,' ' Don Quixote,' 
 ' Gil Bias,' and ' Robinson Crusoe ' came out, a glorious 
 host, to keep me company. They kept alive my fancy, 
 and something beyond that place and time — they, and 
 the ' Arabian Nights,' and the ' Tales of the Genii ' — 
 and did me no harm, for whatever harm was in some 
 of them was not there for me ; I knew nothing of it. 
 It is astonishing to me now how I found time, in the 
 midst of my porings and blunderings over heavier 
 themes, to read those books as I did. It is curious 
 to me how I could ever have consoled myself under 
 my small troubles (which were great troubles to me) 
 by impersonating my favourite characters in them. 
 ... I have been Tom Jones (a child's Tom Jones, a 
 harmless creature) for a week together. I have sus- 
 tained my own idea of Roderick Random for a month 
 at a stretch I verily believe. I had a greedy relish 
 for a few volumes of Voyages and Travels — I forget 
 
 4 
 
"FLOUNDERING" 
 
 what now — that were on those shelves ; and for days 
 and days I can remember to have gone about my 
 region of our house armed with the centrepiece out 
 of an old set of boot-trees — the perfect realisation of 
 Captain Somebody, of the Royal British Navy, in 
 danger of being beset by savages, and resolved to sell 
 his life at a great price. The captain never lost 
 dignity from having his ears boxed with the Latin 
 Grammar. I did ; but the captain was a captain and 
 a hero, in spite of all the grammars of all the lan- 
 guages in the world, dead or alive. . . . Every barn 
 in the neighbourhood, every stone in the church, and 
 every foot of the churchyard, had some association of 
 its own in my mind connected with these books, and 
 stood for some locality made famous in them. I have 
 seen Tom Pipes go climbing up the church-steeple ; I 
 have watched Strap, with the knapsack on his back, 
 stopping to rest himself on the wicket-gate, and I 
 know that Commodore Trunnion held that club with 
 Mr. Pickle in the parlour of our little village alehouse." 
 " Yes," said Bret Harte, " that is so : all the books 
 were there ; the avidity to read them was there, and 
 the ideas to which they gave birth were there ; but 
 my lines were cast in more pleasant places than those 
 of poor little David. I had access to any number of 
 books, and, owing to my supposed frail health, my 
 ears were never boxed with the Latin Grammar. 
 Besides," he added, " in addition to Smollett, Fielding, 
 Goldsmith, Cervantes, and the rest of them, the irre- 
 sistible Dickens was beginning to make a good show 
 on my father's bookshelves." 
 
 5 
 
BOYHOOD: 
 
 Bret Harte always felt that he owed a deep debt 
 of gratitude to Charles Dickens, and, as we shall see 
 in the course of these pages, the time came when he 
 was able to pay it back in that coin which the great 
 English novelist would have loved to possess. 
 
 Being thus brought up — well grounded in classic 
 lore by his father — and left much to himself for his 
 sources of amusement, it is no wonder that the earnest 
 and romantic boy soon felt that there was a burden 
 on his heart and a message in his pen. At the tender 
 age of eleven he had written a poem called "Autumn 
 Musings." It was satirical in character, and cast upon 
 the fading year the cynical light of his then repressed 
 dissatisfaction (not an unusual ailment in sensitive 
 childhood) with things in general. He sent it surrep- 
 titiously to the New York Sunday Atlas ^ and to his 
 immense astonishment but absolute delight it appeared 
 in all the glory of published print. 
 
 Alas ! his joy was destined to be short - lived. 
 When he proudly told his home circle of his effort 
 and his triumph he was laughed at, and his poor 
 poetry was saturated with a douche of cold water. ! 
 Under this shock he was grief-stricken. " Sometimes," 
 he has said, " I wonder that I ever wrote another line 
 of verse." 
 
 It is a curious thing that young people are gene- 
 rally laughed at when they make any effort in the 
 direction of authorship. No doubt it is better that 
 young folk should be advised not to consider them- 
 selves among the few heaven-born geniuses who from 
 
 time to time are sent to illuminate our world ; but 
 
 6 
 
"FLOUNDERING" 
 
 advice may go too far, and derision on such occasions 
 is absolutely cruel. The child who is really likely to 
 make a mark in the literary world is generally super- 
 sensitive, and is prone to feel a rebuff far more keenly 
 than his more matter-of-fact brothers and sisters. 
 In many family circles, too, there is a tradition to the 
 effect that it is exceedingly unlikely that a boy 
 should rise to the position of his father. In such 
 households the bare idea that he should ever emulate 
 the wisdom of an octogenarian grandfather who has 
 died in his dotage would be regarded not only as an 
 impertinence but an outrage. Happy are the fathers 
 and mothers who quickly grasp the fact that they 
 have son or daughter endowed with a greater number 
 of talents than their own. Fortunate are the children 
 whose parents resolve to show them how those talents 
 instead of being hidden in a napkin must assuredly 
 be multiplied. 
 
 I fear poor little Bret Harte suffered over his 
 " Autumn Musings." " Sometimes I wonder that I 
 ever wrote another line of verse ! " Those are sad 
 words for the author of so many beautiful poems to 
 have uttered. Happily as the years rolled on he took 
 heart of grace and has left the world a priceless 
 legacy of poetry which is ever doing its good work. 
 
 In one of his earliest efforts — " The Lost Galleon " 
 — he wrote : — 
 
 " Never a tear bedims the eye 
 That time and patience will not dry ; 
 Never a lip is curved with pain 
 That can't be kissed into smiles again." 
 
 7 
 
BOYHOOD 
 
 Many tear-laden eyes, many quivering lips have 
 been soothed by the verses of Bret Harte. They 
 have done more than this. They have brought the 
 tear and the lip tremble to thousands of readers who 
 have felt their chastening influence and thus been 
 softened. 
 
 But though time and patience dried his eyes and 
 brought joy into his face, the all too bold author of 
 " Autumn Musings " never forgot that first family 
 rebuff. I think it had something to do with the 
 fact that, unique though his literary work was, he 
 always disliked writing, and only plied his pen 
 because he had found in authorship his true vocation. 
 To the last he protested he would rather earn his 
 income in any other way. 
 
 In the days of his childhood's "Musings" he of 
 course longed for literary fame, but even at a very 
 early age he resolved to have some profession or craft 
 at his fingers' ends that would make him independent 
 of his well-loved pen as a means of livelihood. 
 
 Hence the many youthful enterprises to be re- 
 corded in these pages, and his acceptance in later 
 years of editorial and political posts ; for though he 
 never had an article refused by an editor or publisher, 
 he lacked the self-confidence which in the case of 
 hundreds is unimpaired by constant disappointment. 
 He maintained that this rule had its good influence 
 on his work, inasmuch as it had given him liberty to 
 write to please himself, instead of working " to order," 
 and in accordance with the views of the purchaser of 
 his productions. 
 
 8 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 FIRST FLIGHTS: "STRUGGLING" 
 
 All too early Bret Harte's father died, and at the 
 age of seventeen he resolved to go West in quest of 
 the adventure and research for which his soul longed. 
 He did not leave home without the sympathy of his 
 mother, relatives, and friends, and he was by no means 
 disconsolate when as a mere lad he found himself in 
 San Francisco. 
 
 During recent years he was often asked why he 
 did not write his autobiography. To this suggestion 
 he always shook his head ; but to his very intimate 
 friends it was evident that the idea had taken posses- 
 sion of his mind, and in some of his latest stories the 
 things that he was in the habit of talking about to 
 those who took an affectionate interest in his earliest 
 doings had an odd way of peeping out. 
 
 His paper entitled " Bohemian Days in San Fran- 
 cisco " was such a reflex of the stories he told me as 
 we strolled about gardens and country lanes in the 
 summer or sat in -the ingle nook in the winter, that I 
 shall not hesitate to quote from it here. 
 
 Of course he spoke of the San Francisco as he 
 found it when he first went to seek his fortune there 
 in 1856. 
 
 " I do not," he said, " allude to the brief days of 
 
 9 
 
FIRST FLIGHTS: 
 
 1849, when it was a straggling beach of huts and 
 stranded hulks, but to the earlier stages of its de- 
 velopment into the metropolis of California. Its first 
 tottering steps in that direction were marked by a 
 distinct gravity and decorum. Even during the 
 period when the revolver settled small private diffi- 
 culties, and Vigilance Committees adjudicated larger 
 public ones, an unmistakable seriousness and respecta- 
 bility was the ruling sign of its governing class. It 
 was not improbable that under the reign of the Com- 
 mittee the lawless and vicious class were more appalled 
 by the moral spectacle of several thousand black-coated, 
 serious-minded business men in embattled procession 
 than by mere force of arms ; and one ' suspect ' — a 
 prize-fighter — is known to have committed suicide in 
 his cell after confrontation with his grave and passion- 
 less shop-keeping judges. Even that peculiar quality 
 of Californian humour which was apt to mitigate the 
 extravagances of the revolver and the uncertainties 
 of poker had no place in the decorous and responsible 
 utterance of San Francisco. The press was sober, 
 materialistic, practical — when it was not severely 
 admonitory of existing evil ; the few smaller papers 
 that indulged in levity were considered libellous and 
 improper. Fancy was displaced by heavy articles on 
 the revenues of the State and inducements to the 
 investment of capital. Local news was under an 
 implied censorship which suppressed anything that 
 might tend to discourage timid or cautious capital. 
 Episodes of romantic lawlessness or pathetic incidents 
 
 of mining life were carefully edited — with the com- 
 
 10 
 
"STRUGGLING" 
 
 ment that these things belonged to the past, and that 
 life and property were now ' as safe in San Francisco 
 as in New York or London.' " 
 
 He used to laugh heartily over these serious San 
 Francisco journals of the days of long ago, and was 
 especially fond of an anecdote that told how a leading 
 article dealing with one of the severer earthquakes 
 declared that only the ujiexpectedness of the onset 
 prevented the city from meeting it in a way that 
 would be deterrent to all future attacks. 
 
 " I had been there a week — an idle week," he 
 records, " spent in listless outlook for employment ; 
 a full week in my eager absorption of the strange 
 life around me and a photographic sensitiveness to 
 certain scenes and incidents of these days, which start 
 out of my memory to-day as freshly as the day they 
 impressed me. 
 
 " One of these recollections is of ' steamer night,' 
 
 as it was called — the night of ' steamer day ' — 
 
 preceding the departure of the mail steamship with 
 
 the mails for ' home.' Indeed, at that time San 
 
 Francisco may be said to have lived from steamer day 
 
 to steamer day ; bills were made due on that day, 
 
 interest computed to that period, and accounts settled. 
 
 The next day was the turning of a new leaf : another 
 
 essay to fortune, another inspiration of energy. So 
 
 recognised was the fact that even ordinary changes of 
 
 condition, social and domestic, were put aside until 
 
 after steamer day. ' I'll see what I can do after next 
 
 steamer day,' was the common cautious or hopeful 
 
 formula. It was the ' Saturday night ' of many a 
 
 n 
 
FIRST FLIGHTS: 
 
 wage-earner, and to him a night of festivity. The 
 thoroughfares were animated and crowded ; the saloons 
 and the theatres full. I can recall myself at such times 
 wandering along the City Front, as the business part of 
 San Francisco was then called. Here the lights were 
 burning all night, the first streaks of dawn finding 
 the merchants still at their counting - house desks. 
 I remember the dim lines of warehouses lining the 
 insecure wharves of rotten piles, half filled in — that 
 had ceased to be wharves but had not yet become 
 streets — their treacherous yawning depths, with the 
 uncertain gleam of tar-like mud below, at times still 
 vocal with the lap and gurgle of the tide. I remember 
 the weird stories of disappearing men found afterwards 
 imbedded in the ooze in which they had fallen and 
 gasped their life away. I remember the two or three 
 ships, still left standing where they were beached a 
 year or two before, built in between warehouses, their 
 bows projecting into the roadway. There was the 
 dignity of the sea and its boundless freedom in their 
 beautiful curves which the abutting houses could not 
 destroy, and even something of the sea's loneliness in 
 the far-spaced ports and cabin windows lit up by the 
 lamps of the prosaic landsmen who plied their trades 
 behind them. One of these ships transformed into a 
 hotel retained its name, ' The Niantic,' and part of its 
 characteristic interior unchanged. I remember these 
 ships' old tenants — the rats — who had increased and 
 multiplied to such an extent that at night they fearlessly 
 crossed the wayfarer's path at every turn, and even in- 
 vaded the gilded saloons of Montgomery Street. In the 
 
 12 
 
'STRUGGLING" 
 
 ' Niantic' their pit-a-pat was met on every staircase, 
 and it was said that sometimes in an excess of socia- 
 bility they accompanied the traveller to his room. In 
 the early ' cloth and papered ' houses, so called be- 
 cause the ceilings were not plastered, but simply 
 covered by stretched and whitewashed cloth — their 
 scamperings were plainly indicated in zigzag move- 
 ments of the sagging cloth, or they became actually 
 visible by finally dropping through the holes they had 
 worn in it ! I remember the house whose foundations 
 were made of boxes of plug tobacco — part of a jet- 
 tisoned cargo — used instead of more expensive lumber ; 
 and the adjacent warehouse where the trunks of the 
 early and forgotten ' forty-niners ' M^ere stored, and, 
 never claimed by their dead or missing owners, were 
 finally sold at auction. I remember the strong breath 
 of the sea over all, and the constant onset of the trade 
 winds which helped to disinfect the deposit of dirt 
 and grime, decay and wreckage which were stirred up 
 in the later evolutions of the city." 
 
 Truly another young David Copperfield, the proto- 
 type of Charles Dickens ; but whereas poor David 
 gazed at the murky Thames as it flowed by the old 
 London Hungerford Market, Bret Harte pondered over 
 the vast waters of the Pacific Ocean as they glided 
 through the Golden Gate of California. 
 
 Then he recalls, " with the same sense of youthful 
 satisfaction and unabated wonder," his wanderings 
 through the Spanish quarter, where three centuries of 
 quaint customs, speech and dress were still preserved ; 
 where the proverbs of Sancho Panza were still spoken 
 
 13 
 
FIRST FLIGHTS: 
 
 in the language of Cervantes, and the high-flown 
 illusions of the La Manchian knight still a part of the 
 Spanish Californian hidalgo's dream. " I recall," he 
 says, "the more modern 'Greaser' or Mexican — his 
 index finger steeped in cigarette stains ; his velvet 
 jacket and his crimson sash ; the many-flounced skirt 
 and lace manta of his women, and their caressing 
 intonations — the one musical utterance of the whole 
 hard-voiced city. I suppose I had a boy's digestion 
 and bluntness of taste in those days, for the combined 
 odour of tobacco, burned paper, and garlic which 
 marked that melodious breath did not aflect me." 
 
 These pictures of his, conjured up after many years, 
 but often referred to in his conversations with his 
 intimate friends, are like a series of vivid yet softly 
 dissolving views. He puts another slide into the 
 magic lantern of his memory, and having brought it 
 into focus, he says : — 
 
 " Perhaps from my Puritan training I experienced 
 a more fearful joy in the gambling saloons. They 
 were the largest and most comfortable, even as they 
 were the most expensively decorated, rooms in San 
 Francisco. Here, again, the gravity and decorum 
 which I have already alluded to were present at that 
 earlier period, though perhaps from concentration 
 of another kind. People staked and lost their last 
 ^dollar with a calm solemnity and a resignation that 
 was almost Christian. The oaths, exclamations, and 
 feverish interruptions which often characterised more 
 dignified assemblies were absent here. There was 
 no room for the lesser vices ; there was little or no 
 
STRUGGLING" 
 
 drunkenness ; the gaudily- dressed and painted women 
 who presided over the wheels of fortune or performed 
 on the harp and piano attracted no attention from these 
 ascetic players. The man who had won ten thousand 
 dollars and the man who had lost everything rose 
 from the table with equal silence and imperturbability. 
 / never witnessed any tragic sequel to those losses ; / 
 never heard of any suicide on account of them. Neither 
 can I recall any quarrel or murder directly attributable 
 to this kind of gambling. It must be remembered that 
 these public games were chiefly rouge-et-noir, monte, 
 faro, or roulette, in which the antagonist was Fate, 
 Chance, Method, or the impersonal ' bank,' which 
 was supposed to represent them all ; there was no 
 individual opposition or rivalry ; nobody challenged 
 the decision of the ' croupier ' or dealer. 
 
 " I remember a conversation at the door of one 
 saloon which was as characteristic for its brevity as it 
 was a type of the prevailing stoicism. ' Hello,' said 
 a departing miner, as he recognised a brother miner 
 coming in, ' when did you come down ? ' ' This 
 morning,' was the reply. ' Made a strike at the bar ? ' 
 suggested the first speaker. ' You bet ! ' said the 
 other, and passed in. I chanced an hour later to be 
 at the same place when they met again — their rela- 
 tive positions changed. ' Hello ! Whar now ? ' said 
 the incomer. ' Back to the bar.' ' Cleaned out ? ' 
 ' You bet ! ' Not a word more explained a common 
 situation. 
 
 " My first youthful experience at those tables was 
 an accidental one. I was watching roulette one even- 
 
 15 
 
FIRST FLIGHTS: 
 
 ing, intensely absorbed in the mere movement of the 
 
 players. Either they were so preoccupied with the 
 
 game, or I was really looking older than my actual 
 
 years, but a bystander laid his hand familiarly on my 
 
 shoulder, and said as to an ordinary habitue, ' Ef 
 
 you're not chippin' in yourself, pardner, s'pose you 
 
 give me a show.' Now I honestly believe that up to 
 
 that moment I had no intention, nor even a desire, to 
 
 try my own fortune. But in the embarrassment of the 
 
 sudden address I put my hand in my pocket, drew out 
 
 a coin, and laid it, with an attempt at carelessness, 
 
 but a vivid consciousness that I was blushing, upon 
 
 a vacant number. To my horror I saw that I had put 
 
 down a large coin — the bulk of my possessions ! I did 
 
 not flinch, however ; I think any boy who reads this 
 
 will understand my feeling ; it was not only my coin 
 
 but my manhood at stake. I gazed with a miserable 
 
 show of indifference at the players, at the chandelier, 
 
 anywhere but at the dreadful ball running round the 
 
 wheel. There was a pause ; the game was declared, 
 
 the rake rattled up and down, but still I did not look 
 
 at the table. Indeed, in my inexperience of the game 
 
 and my embarrassment, I doubt if I should have 
 
 known if I had won or not. I had made up my mind 
 
 that I should lose, but I must do so like a man, and, 
 
 above all, without giving the least suspicion that I 
 
 was a greenhorn. I even affected to be listening to 
 
 the music. The wheel spun again ; the game was 
 
 declared, the rake was busy, but I did not move. At 
 
 last the man I had displaced touched me on the arm 
 
 and whispered, ' Better make a straddle and divide 
 
 i6 
 
"STRUGGLING" 
 
 your stake this time.' I did not understand him, but 
 as I saw he was looking at the board, I was obliged to 
 look too. I drew back dazed and bewildered ! Where 
 my coin had lain a moment before was a glittering 
 heap of gold. 
 
 " My stake had doubled, quadrupled, and doubled 
 again. I did not know how much then — I do not 
 know how much now — it may not have been more 
 than three or four hundred dollars — but it dazzled and 
 frightened me. ' Make your game, gentlemen,' said 
 the croupier monotonously. I thought he looked at 
 me — indeed, everybody seemed to be looking at me — 
 and my companion repeated his warning. But here I 
 must again appeal to the boyish reader in defence of 
 my idiotic obstinacy. To have taken advice would 
 have shown my youth. I shook my head : I could 
 not trust my voice. I smiled, but with a sinking 
 heart, and let my stake remain. The ball again^ 
 sped round the wheel and stopped. There was a 
 pause. The croupier indolently advanced his rake 
 and swept my whole pile with others into the bank ! 
 I had lost it all. Perhaps it may be difficult to ex- 
 plain why I actually felt relieved, and even to some 
 extent triumphant, but I seemed to have asserted 
 my grown up independence — possibly at the cost of 
 reducing the number of my meals for days ; but what 
 of that ? I was a man ! I wish I could say that it «^ 
 was a lesson to me. I am afraid it was not. It was 
 true that I did not gamble again, but then I had no 
 especial desire to, and there was no temptation. 
 I am afraid it was an incident without a moral. Yet 
 
 17 B 
 
FIRST FLIGHTS: 
 
 it had one touch characteristic of the period which I 
 Hke to remember. The man who had spoken to me, I 
 think, suddenly realised, at the moment of my disas- 
 trous coup, the fact of my extreme youth. He moved 
 towards the banker, and leaning over him whispered 
 a few words. The banker looked up, half impatiently, 
 half kindly — his hand straying tentatively towards the 
 pile of coin. Instinctively I knew what he meant, and 
 summoning up my determination, met his eyes with all 
 the indifference I could assume." 
 
 But it was the sense of such good deeds, intended 
 if not actually fulfilled, in a naughty world that made 
 Bret Harte feel that there might be more of good in 
 the hearts of the lawless men with whom he was soon 
 to mingle than had yet been dreamt of in the philo- 
 sophic mind of the superior person. 
 
 Then he gets away from the gambling saloon and 
 its snares, and another mental picture is thrown upon 
 the screen. 
 
 " I had at that joeriod," he says, " a small room 
 
 at the top of a house owned by a distant relation — 
 
 a second or third cousin, I think. He was a man of 
 
 independent and original character, had a Ulyssean 
 
 experience of men and cities, and an old English 
 
 name of which he was proud. While in London he 
 
 had procured from the Heralds' College his family 
 
 arms, whose crest was stamped upon a quantity of 
 
 plate he had brought with him to California. The 
 
 plate, together with an exceptionally good cook whom 
 
 he had also brought, and his own epicurean tastes, 
 
 he utilised in the usual practical Californian fashion 
 
 i8 
 
'STRUGGLING" 
 
 by starting a rather expensive half club, half restau- 
 rant in the lower part of the building — which he 
 ruled somewhat autocratically, as became his crest ! 
 The restaurant was too expensive for me to patronise, 
 but I saw many of its frequenters as well as those 
 who had rooms at the club. They were men of very 
 distinct personality ; a few celebrated, and nearly all 
 notorious. They represented a Bohemianism — if such 
 it could be called — less innocent than my later ex- 
 periences. I remember, however, one handsome 
 young fellow whom I used to meet occasionally on 
 the staircase, who captured my youthful fancy. I 
 met him only at midday, as he did not rise till late, 
 and this fact, with a certain scrupulous elegance and 
 neatness in his dress, ought to have made me suspect 
 that he was a gambler. In my inexperience it only 
 invested him with a certain romantic mystery, 
 
 " One morning as I was going out to my very 
 early breakfast at a cheap Italian cafe on Long 
 Wharf, I was surprised to find him also descending 
 the staircase. He was scrupulously dressed, even at 
 that early hour, but I was struck by the fact that 
 he was all in black, and his slight figure, buttoned 
 to the throat in a tightly-fitting frock-coat, gave, I 
 fancied, a singular melancholy to his pale Southern 
 face. Nevertheless, he greeted me with more than 
 his usual serene cordiality, and I remembered that 
 he looked up with a half-puzzled, half-amused ex- 
 pression at the rosy morning sky as he walked a few 
 steps with me down the deserted street. I could not 
 help saying that I was astonished to see him up so 
 
 19 
 
FIRST FLIGHTS: 
 
 early, and he admitted that it was a break in his 
 usual habits, but added with a smiling significance 
 I afterwards remembered, that it was ' an even chance 
 if he did it again,' As we neared the street corner 
 a man in a buggy drove up impatiently. In spite 
 of the driver's evident haste, my handsome acquaint- 
 ance got in leisurely, and lifting his glossy hat to 
 me, with a pleasant smile, was driven away. I have 
 a very lasting impression of his face and figure as 
 the buggy disappeared down the empty street. I 
 never saw him again. It was not until a week later 
 that I knew that an hour after he left me that 
 morning he was lying dead in a little hollow behind 
 the Mission Dolores — shot through the heart in a 
 duel for which he had risen so early." 
 
 Thus it will be seen that Bret Harte had barely 
 passed his boyhood before he saw the type for his 
 wonderfully limned characters, John Oakhurst and 
 Jack Hamlin. And yet since his death writers have 
 been bold enough to say such characters could not 
 have existed. 
 
 " I recall another incident of that period," he 
 continues, " equally characteristic, but less tragic in 
 sequel. I was in the restaurant one morning talking 
 to my cousin, when a man entered hastily and said 
 something to him in a hurried whisper. My cousin 
 contracted his eyebrows and uttered a suppressed 
 oath. Then with a gesture of warning to the man 
 he crossed the room quietly where a regular habitue 
 of the restaurant was lazily finishing his breakfast. 
 
 A large silver cofiee-pot with a stiff wooden handle 
 
 20 
 
"STRUGGLING" 
 
 stood on the table before him. My cousin leaned 
 over the guest familiarly, and apparently made some 
 hospitable inquiry as to his wants. Then — possibly 
 because my curiosity having been excited I was 
 watching him more intently than the others — / saw 
 what probably no one else saw, that he deliberately 
 upset the coffee-pot and its contents over the guest's 
 shirt and waistcoat. As the victim sprang up with 
 an exclamation, my cousin overwhelmed him with 
 apologies for his carelessness, and, with protestations 
 of sorrow for the accident, actually insisted on drag- 
 ging the man upstairs into his own private room, 
 where he furnished him with a shirt and waistcoat 
 of his own. The side door had scarcely closed upon 
 them, and I was still lost in wonder at what I had 
 seen, when a man entered from the street. He was 
 one of the desperate set I have already spoken of, 
 and thoroughly well known to those present. He 
 cast a glance or two around the room, nodded to one 
 or two of the guests, and then walked to a side table 
 and took up a newspaper. I was conscious at once 
 that a singular restraint had come over the other 
 guests — a nervous awkwardness that at last seemed 
 to make itself known to the man himself, who, after 
 an affected yawn or two, laid down the paper and 
 walked out. 
 
 " ' That was a mighty close call,' said one of the 
 guests with a sigh of relief 
 
 '"You bet! And the coffee-pot spill was the 
 luckiest kind of accident for Peters,' remarked 
 another. 
 
 21 
 
FIRST FLIGHTS: 
 
 " ' For both,' added the first speaker ; ' for Peters 
 was armed too, and would have seen him come in ! ' 
 
 " A word or two explained all. Peters and the 
 last comer had quarrelled a day or two before," and 
 ji^had separated with the intention to 'shoot on sight' 
 — that is, wherever they met, a form of duel com- 
 mon to those days. The accidental meeting in the 
 restaurant would have been the occasion, with the 
 usual sanguinary consequence, but for the word of 
 warning given to my cousin by a passer-by who knew 
 that Peters' antagonist was coming to the restaurant 
 to look at the papers. Had my cousin repeated the 
 warning to Peters himself he would only have pre- 
 pared him for the conflict, which he would not have 
 shirked, and so precipitated the affray. 
 
 " The ruse of upsetting the coffee-pot, which 
 everybody but myself thought an accident, was to 
 get him out of the room before the other entered. 
 I was too young then to venture to intrude upon my 
 cousin's secrets, but two or three years afterwards I 
 taxed him with the trick and he admitted it regret- 
 fully. I believe that a strict interpretation of the 
 ' code ' would have condemned his act as unsports- 
 manlike, if not unfair ! " 
 
 Such were the strange surroundings and characters 
 that filled his young mind with wonder and imagina- 
 tion, and from which in later years he drew so much 
 valuable material for his stories. 
 
 He marvelled, too, at the Chinamen who at that 
 time were rapidly adding to the strangely inter- 
 mingled population of San Francisco. In them he 
 
 22 
 
"STRUGGLING" 
 
 found a remarkable and picturesque contrast to the 
 bustling, breathless, and brand-new life of the City, 
 and to the comparatively listless and procrastinating 
 Spaniards. The latter seldom flaunted their faded 
 dignity in the principal thoroughfares. " John " 
 Chinaman was to be met everywhere. 
 
 "It was a common thing," he said, "to see a long 
 file of sampan coolies carrying their baskets slung 
 between them, on poles, jostling a modern, well- 
 dressed crowd in Montgomery Street, or to get a 
 whiff of their burned punk in the side streets ; while 
 the road leading to their temporary burial-ground at 
 Lone Mountain was littered with slips of coloured 
 paper scattered from their funerals. They brought 
 an atmosphere of the Arabian Nights into the hard, 
 modern, civilisation ; their shops — not always confined 
 at that time to a Chinese quarter — were replicas of 
 the bazaars of Canton and Peking, with their quaint 
 displays of little dishes on which tit-bits of food 
 delicacies were exposed for sale, all of the dimensions 
 and unreality of a doll's kitchen or a child's house- 
 keeping. They were a revelation to the Eastern 
 immigrant, whose preconceived ideas of them were 
 borrowed from the ballet or pantomime ; they did not 
 wear scalloped drawers and hats with jingling bells 
 on their points, nor did I ever see them dance with 
 their forefingers vertically extended. They were 
 always neatly dressed, even the commonest of coolies, 
 and their festive dresses were marvels. As traders 
 they were grave and patient ; as servants they were 
 sad and civil, and all were singularly infantine in 
 
 23 
 
FIKST FLIGHTS: 
 
 their natural simplicity. The living representatives 
 
 of the oldest civilisation in the world, they seemed 
 
 like children. Yet they kept their beliefs and 
 
 sympathies to themselves, never fraternising with the 
 
 fanqui, or foreign devil, or losing their singular racial 
 
 qualities. They indulged in their own peculiar habits ; 
 
 of their social and inner life San Francisco knew but 
 
 little and cared less. Even at this early period, and 
 
 before I came to know them more intimately, I 
 
 remember an incident of their daring fidelity to their 
 
 own customs that was accidentally revealed to me. I 
 
 had become acquainted with a Chinese youth of about 
 
 my own age, as I imagined — although from mere 
 
 outward appearance it was generally impossible to 
 
 judge of a Chinaman's age between the limits of 
 
 seventeen and forty years — and he had, in a burst of 
 
 confidence, taken me to see some characteristic sights 
 
 in a Chinese warehouse within a stone's-throw of the 
 
 Plaza. I was struck by the singular circumstance 
 
 that while the warehouse was an erection of wood in 
 
 the ordinary hasty Californian style, there were certain 
 
 brick and stone divisions in its interior, like small 
 
 rooms or closets, evidently added by the Chinamen 
 
 tenants. My companion stopped before a long, very 
 
 narrow entrance, a mere longitudinal slit in the brick 
 
 wall, and with a wink of infantine devilry motioned 
 
 me to look inside. I did so, and saw a room, really a 
 
 cell, of fair height but scarcely six feet square, and 
 
 barely able to contain a rude, slanting couch of stone 
 
 covered with matting, on which lay, at a painful 
 
 angle, a richly-dressed Chinaman. A single glance 
 
 24 
 
V 'STRUGGLING" 
 
 at his dull, staring, abstracted eyes and half-opened 
 mouth showed me he was in an opium trance. This 
 was not in itself a novel sight, and I was moving 
 away when I was suddenly startled by the appearance 
 of his hands, which were stretched helplessly before 
 him on his body, and at first sight seemed to be in a 
 kind of wicker cage. I then saw that his finger nails 
 J^were seven or eight inches long, and were supported 
 by bamboo splints. Indeed they were no longer 
 human nails, but twisted and distorted quills, giving 
 him the appearance of having gigantic claws. ' Velly 
 big Chinaman,' whispered my cheerful friend ; ' first- 
 chopman — high classee — no can washee — no can eat — 
 no dlinke, no catchee him own glub allee same no thee 
 man— China boy must catchee glub for him, allee 
 time ! Oh, him first-chopman — you bet tee ! ' 
 
 " I had heard of this singular custom of indicating 
 caste before, and was amazed and disgusted, but I 
 was not prepared for what followed. My companion, 
 evidently thinking he had impressed me, grew more 
 reckless as showman, and saying to me, ' Now me 
 showee you one funny thing — heap makee you laugh,' 
 led me hurriedly across a little courtyard swarming 
 with chickens and rabbits, when he stopped before 
 another enclosure. Suddenly brushing past an asto- 
 nished Chinaman who seemed to be standing guard, 
 he thrust me into the enclosure in front of a most 
 extraordinary object. It was a Chinaman wearing a 
 huge, square, wooden frame fastened around his neck 
 like a collar, and fitting so tightly and rigidly that 
 the fiesh rose in puffy weal s around his cheeks. He 
 
 25 
 
FIRST FLIGHTS: 
 
 was chained to a post, although it was as impossible 
 for him to have escaped with his wooden cage through 
 the narrow doorway as it was for him to lie down 
 and rest in it. Yet I am bound to say that his eyes 
 and face expressed nothing but apathy, and there 
 was no appeal to the sympathy of the stranger. My 
 companion said hurriedly, ' Velly bad man ; steelee 
 heap from Chinamen,' and then, apparently alarmed 
 at his own indiscreet intrusion, hustled me away as 
 quickly as possible amid a shrill cackling of pro- 
 testation from a few of his own countrymen who 
 had joined the one who was keeping guard. In 
 another moment we were in the street again — scarce 
 a step from the Plaza, in the full light of Western 
 civilisation — not a stone's-throw from the Courts of 
 Justice. 
 
 " My companion took to his heels and left me stand- 
 ing there bewildered and indignant. I could not rest 
 until I had told my story, but without betraying my 
 companion, to an elder acquaintance, who laid the 
 facts before the police authorities. I had expected to 
 be closely cross-examined — to be doubted — to be dis- 
 believed. To my surprise, I was told that the police 
 already had cognisance of similar cases of illegal and 
 barbarous punishments, but that the victims them- 
 selves refused to testify against their countrymen — 
 and it was impossible to convict or even to identify 
 them. ' A white man can't tell one Chinese from 
 another, and there are always a dozen of 'em ready to 
 swear that the man you've got isn't the one.' I was 
 
 startled to reflect that I, too, coula nuu have con- 
 
 26 
 
"STRUGGLING" 
 
 scientiously sworn to either jailer or the tortured 
 prisoner, or perhaps even to my cheerful companion. 
 The police on some pretext made a raid upon the 
 premises a day or two afterwards, but without result. 
 I wondered if they had caught sight of the high-class, 
 first-chop individual with the helplessly outstretched 
 fingers, as that story I had kept to myself. 
 
 " But these barbaric vestiges in John Chinaman's 
 habits did not affect his relations with the San 
 Franciscans. He was singularly peaceful, docile, and 
 harmless as a servant, and, with rare exceptions, 
 honest and temperate. If he sometimes matched 
 cunning with cunning, it was the flattery of imita- 
 tion. He did most of the menial work of San 
 Francisco, and did it cleanly. Except that he exhaled 
 -ia peculiar drug-like odour, he was not personally 
 offensive in domestic contact, and by virtue of being 
 the recognised laundry-man of the whole community 
 his own blouses were always freshly washed and 
 ironed. His conversational reserve arose, not from 
 his having to deal with an unfamiliar language — for 
 he had picked up a varied and picturesque vocabulary 
 with ease — but from his natural temperament. He 
 was devoid of curiosity, and utterly unimpressed by 
 anything but the purely business concerns of those he 
 served. Domestic secrets were safe with him : his 
 indifference to your thoughts, actions, and feelings 
 had all the contempt which his three thousand years 
 of history and his innate belief in your inferiority 
 seemed to justify. He was blind and deaf in your 
 
 household, because you didn't interest him in the 
 
 27 
 
FIRST FLIGHTS: 
 
 least. It was said that a gentleman who wished to 
 test his impassiveness arranged with his wife to come 
 home one day and, in the hearing of his Chinese 
 waiter — who was more than usually intelligent — to 
 disclose with well simulated emotion the details of a 
 murder he had just committed. He did so. The 
 Chinaman heard it without a sign of horror or atten- 
 tion even to the lifting of an eyelid, but continued 
 his duties unconcerned. Unfortunately, the gentle- 
 man, in order to increase the horror of the situation, 
 added that now there was nothing left for him but to 
 cut his own throat. At this John quietly left the 
 room. The gentleman was delighted with the success 
 of his ruse until the door reopened and John re- 
 appeared with his master's razor, which he quietly 
 slipped — as if it had been a forgotten fork — beside his 
 master's plate, and calmly resumed his serving. I 
 have always considered this story to be quite as im- 
 probable as it was inartistic, from its tacit admission 
 of a certain interest on the part of the Chinaman. 
 I never knew one who would be sufficiently concerned 
 to go for the razor. 
 
 " His taciturnity and reticence may have been 
 confounded with rudeness of address, although he 
 was always civil enough. ' I see you have listened 
 to me and done exactly what I told you,' said a lady, 
 commending some performance of her servant after 
 a previous lengthy lecture ; ' that's very nice.' ' Yes,' 
 said John calmly, ' you talkee allee time ; talkee allee 
 too much.' 
 
 " ' I always find Ling very polite,' said another 
 
 28 
 
^^ STRUGGLING" 
 
 lady, speaking of her cook, 'but I wish he did not 
 always say to me, " Good-night, John," in a high, falsetto 
 voice.' She had not recognised the fact that he was 
 simply repeating her own salutation with his marvel- 
 lous instinct of relentless imitation, even as to voice." 
 Bret Harte could tell endless anecdotes of this 
 description, for, as his verses and stories testify, he 
 made a minute study of the Chinamen who had so 
 impressed him in his boyish days at San Francisco. 
 In common with the famous Heathen Chinee, Ah 
 Sin, "John's" favourite pastime seems to have been 
 gambling, but a strange and humorous anecdote is 
 recorded of a company of Chinese jugglers who had 
 been engaged to perform at one of the leading 
 "'Frisco" theatres on the strength of its native 
 reputation, and in the hope of drawing a large 
 audience of celestials. They had not been seen by 
 the American manager before the evening of their 
 promised appearance, and it so happened that his 
 theatre was filled with an audience of decorous and 
 respectable San Franciscans of both sexes. It was 
 suddenly emptied in the middle of the performance : 
 the curtain came down with an alarmed and blush- 
 ing manager apologising to deserted benches, and 
 the show abruptly terminated. Exactly what had 
 happened never appeared in the public papers nor in 
 the published apology of the manager. It afforded 
 a few days' mirth for wicked San Francisco, and it 
 was epigrammatically summed up in the remark that 
 " no woman could be found in San Francisco who was 
 
 at that performance and no man who was not." 
 
 29 
 
FIRST FLIGHTS: 
 
 Bret Harte also took a keen interest in the curious 
 methods of the Chinese medicine men. At the time 
 when he first came into contact with this singular 
 race he met an ordinary native Chinese doctor, who, 
 practising entirely among his own countrymen, was 
 reputed to have made extraordinary cures with two 
 or three American patients. With no other advertis- 
 ing than this, and apparently no other inducement 
 offered to the public than what their curiosity sug- 
 gested, he was presently besieged by hopeful and 
 eager sufferers. Hundreds of patients were turned 
 away from his crowded doors. Two interpreters sat, 
 day and night, translating the ills of ailing San 
 Francisco to this medical oracle and dispensing his 
 prescriptions — usually small powders— in exchange 
 for current coin. In vain the regular practitioners 
 pointed out that the Chinese possessed no superior 
 medical knowledge, and that their religion, which 
 proscribed dissection and autopsies, naturally limited 
 their understanding of the body into which they put 
 their drugs. Finally, they prevailed upon one emi- 
 nent Chinese authority to give them a list of the 
 remedies generally used in the Chinese pharmaco- 
 pceia, and this was privately circulated. For obvious 
 reasons it was not published and cannot be explained 
 here ; but it was summed up — again after the usual 
 Californian epigrammatic style — by the remark that 
 " whatever were the comparative merits of Chinese 
 and American practice, a simple perusal of the list 
 would prove that the Chinese were capable of pro- 
 ducing the most powerful emetic known." The craze 
 
 30 
 
"STEUGGLING" 
 
 subsided in a single day ; the interpreters and their 
 oracle vanished, the Chinese doctors' signs which had 
 multiplied disappeared, and San Francisco awoke 
 cured of its madness at the cost of some thousand 
 dollars. 
 
 Such were some of the traits of a race whose 
 peculiarities subsequently figured so vividly and 
 humorously in Bret Harte's writings. He never 
 forgot the early impression they made upon him, 
 and during his long sojourn in England he loved 
 to conjure them up and give them a place in his 
 stories. 
 
 Concerning their medical prescriptions he told 
 me many weird, not to say horrible, things ; and I 
 gathered that when he was permitted to dose the 
 all-powerful " Mellicans," John was inclined to be a 
 little malicious and, from his point of view, to match 
 cunning with cunning. 
 
 He often wondered how he could introduce their 
 artful practices into a story, and no doubt he had 
 them in his mind when he penned one of his most 
 recent Chinese sketches entitled " See Yup." 
 
 He describes a group of Californian miners suifer- 
 ing torments from dyspepsia. They have tried every 
 quack pill and panacea advertised, and are lounging 
 in the bar-room of a city saloon bewailing their woes 
 and anathematising the nostrums that have failed to 
 } relieve them, when one of the party, Cyrus Parker, 
 says : — 
 
 " ' Well, gen'lemen, ye kin talk of your patent 
 medicines, and I've tackled 'em all, but only the 
 
 31 
 
FIRST FLIGHTS: 
 
 other day I struck suthin' that I'm goin' to hang 
 on to, you bet.' 
 
 " Every eye was turned moodily to the speaker, 
 but no one said anything. 
 
 " ' And I didn't get it outer advertisements nor 
 off circulars. I got it outer my head, just by solid 
 thinkin',' continued Parker. 
 
 " ' What is it, Cy ? ' demanded one unsophisticated 
 and inexperienced sufferer. 
 
 " Instead of replying, Parker, like a true artist, 
 knowing he had the ear of his audience, dramatically 
 flashed a question upon them. 
 
 " ' Did you ever hear of a Chinaman having 
 dyspepsy ? ' 
 
 " ' Never heard he had sabe enough to have any- 
 thing,^ said a scorner. 
 
 " ' No, but did ye ? ' insisted Parker. 
 
 " ' Well, no,' chorused the group. They were 
 evidently struck with the fact. 
 
 " ' Of course you didn't,' said Parker triumphantly. 
 ' 'Cos they aint. Well, gen'lemen, it didn't seem to 
 me the square thing that a pesky lot o' yellow-skinned 
 heathens should be built different to a white man, 
 and never know the tortur' that a Christian feels ; 
 and one day, arter dinner, when I was just a lyin' 
 flat down on the bank, squirmin', and clutchin' the 
 short grass to keep from yellin', who should go by 
 but that pizened See Yup, with a grin on his face ? ' 
 
 " ' Mellican man plenty playee to him Joss after 
 eatin',' sez he ; ' but Chinaman smellee punk, allee 
 same, and no hab got.' 
 
 32 
 
Jlret Ilarte, from a iJacfuerrotype taken ichen he ivas 17 years old, and 
 shortly before he set out for the Californian yoldftelds. 
 
 {To face p. 32. 
 
"STRUGGLING" 
 
 " ' I knew the slimy cuss was just purtendin' he 
 thought I was prayin' to my Joss, but I was that 
 weak I hadn't stren'th, boys, to heave a rock at him. 
 Yet it gave me an idea.' 
 
 " ' What was it ? ' they asked eagerly. 
 
 " ' I went down to his shop the next day, when 
 he was alone, and I was feelin' mighty bad, and I got 
 hold of his pigtail and allowed I'd stuff it down his 
 throat if he didn't tell me what he meant. Then he 
 took a piece of punk and lit it, and put it under 
 my nose, and, darn my skin, gen'lemen, you mightn't 
 believe me, but in a minute I felt better, and after a 
 whiff or two I was all right.' 
 
 " ' Was it powerful strong, Cy ? ' asked the inex- 
 perienced one. 
 
 " ' No,' said Parker, ' and that's just what got 
 me. It was a sort o' dreamy, spicy smell, like a hot 
 night. But as I couldn't go round 'mong you boys 
 with a lighted piece o' punk in my hands, ez if I was 
 I settin' off fourth o' July fire-crackers, I asked him 
 if he couldn't fix me up suthin' in another shape that 
 would be handier to use when I was took bad — and 
 I'd reckon to pay him for it, like ez I'd pay him for 
 any other patent medicine. So he fixed me up this.' 
 
 " He put his hand in his pocket and drew out a 
 small red paper, which, when opened, disclosed a pink 
 powder. It was gravely passed around the group. 
 
 " ' Why, it smells and tastes like ginger,' said one. 
 
 " ' It is only ginger ! ' said another scornfully. 
 
 " ' Mebbee it is and mebbee it isn't,' returned Cy 
 Parker stoutly. ' Mebbee it's only my fancy ; but if 
 
 33 " c 
 
FIRST FLIGHTS: 
 
 it's the sort o' stuff to bring on that fancy, and that 
 fancy cures me, it's all the same. I've got about two 
 dollars' worth o' that fancy, or that ginger, and I'm 
 goin' to stick to it. You hear me ? ' And he care- 
 fully put it back in his pocket. 
 
 " At which criticisms and gibes broke forth. If 
 he (Cy Parker), a white man, was going to ' demean 
 himself by consulting a Chinese quack, he'd better 
 buy up a lot o' idols and stand 'em up around his cabin. 
 If he had that sort o' confidences with See Yup, he 
 ought to go to work with him on his cheap tailings, 
 and be fumigated all at the same time. If he'd been 
 smoking an opium pipe instead of smelling punk he 
 ought to be man enough to confess it. Yet it was 
 noticeable that they were all very anxious to examine 
 the packet again, but Cy Parker was alike indifferent 
 to demand or entreaty." 
 
 But one by one the suffering sceptics, in secret 
 fashion, followed the example set by Cyrus Parker 
 and became the patients of See Yup. About a month 
 later Doctor Duchesne (an admirably drawn character 
 of a kindly -hearted but somewhat brusque old army 
 surgeon, who figures in many of Bret Harte's stories) 
 strolled into the Palmetto saloon where the mining 
 comrades again sought recreation. After he had 
 exchanged salutations with the company in his usual 
 hearty fashion, and accepted their invitation to drink, 
 Cy Parker, " with a certain affected carelessness, 
 which did not, however, conceal a singular hesitation 
 in his speech, began — 
 
 " ' I've been wantin' to ask ye a question. Doc — 
 
 34 
 
-STRUGGLING" 
 
 a sort o' darned fool question, ye know — nothing in 
 the way of consultation, don't you see, tho' it's kinder 
 in the way o' your purfeshion. Sahe f ' 
 
 " ' Go on, Cy,' said the doctor good-humouredly, 
 * this is my dispensary hour.' 
 
 " ' Oh, it ain't anything about symptoms. Doc, and 
 there ain't anything the matter with me. It's only 
 just to ask ye if ye happened to know anything about 
 the medical practice of these yer Chinamen ? ' 
 
 " ' I don't know,' said the doctor bluntly, ' and I 
 don't know anybody who does.' 
 
 " There was a sudden silence in the bar, and the 
 doctor, putting down his glass, continued with slight 
 professional precision — 
 
 " ' You see the Chinese know nothing of anatomy 
 from personal observation. Autopsies and dissection 
 are against their superstitions, which declare the 
 human body sacred, and are consequently never prac- 
 tised.' 
 
 " There was a slight movement of inquiring interest 
 among the party, and Cy Parker, aftar a meaning 
 glance at the others, went on half aggressively, half 
 apologetically — 
 
 " ' In course they ain't surgeons like you, Doc, but 
 that don't keep them from having their own little 
 medicines, just as dogs eat grass, you know. Now, I 
 want to put it to you, as a fa'r-minded man, if yer 
 •mean to say that, jest because those old women who 
 j serve out yarbs and sjDring medicines in families don't 
 know anything of anatomy they ain't fit to give us 
 their simple and nat'ral medicines ? ' 
 
 35 
 
FIRST FLIGHTS: 
 
 " ' But the Chinese medicines are not simple or 
 natural,' said the doctor coolly. 
 
 "'Not simple?' echoed the party, closing round 
 him. 
 
 "'I don't mean to say,' continued the doctor, glanc- 
 ing around at their eager excited faces with an appear- 
 ance of wonder, ' that they are positively noxious, 
 unless taken in large quantities, for they are not drugs 
 at all ; but I certainly should not call them " simple." 
 Do you know what they principally are ? ' 
 
 " ' Well, no,' said Parker cautiously, ' perhaps not 
 exactly' 
 
 " ' Come a little nearer and I'll tell you.' 
 
 " Not only Parker's head but the others were bent 
 over the counter. Doctor Duchesne uttered a few 
 words in a tone inaudible to the rest of the company. 
 There was a profound silence, broken at last by Abe 
 Wynford's voice. 
 
 " ' Ye kin pour me out about three fingers o' whisky, 
 Barkeep. I'll take it straight.' 
 
 " ' Same to me,' said the others. 
 
 " The men gulped down their liquor : two of them 
 quietly passed out. The doctor wiped his lips, but- 
 toned his coat, and began to draw on his riding gloves. 
 
 " ' I've heard,' said Poker Jack of Shasta with a 
 faint smile on his white face, as he toyed with the 
 last drops of liquor in his glass, ' that the darned fools 
 sometimes smell punk as a medicine, eh ? ' 
 
 " ' Yes, that's comparatively decent,' said the doctor 
 reflectively. ' It's only sawdust mixed with a little 
 ffum and formic acid.' 
 
 36 
 
-STRUGGLING" 
 
 " ' Formic acid ? Wot's that ? ' 
 
 '"A very peculiar acid secreted by ants. It is 
 supposed to be used by them offensively in warfare, 
 just as the skunk, eh ? ' 
 
 " But Poker Jack of Shasta had hurriedly declared 
 that he wanted to speak to a man who was passing, 
 and had disappeared. The doctor walked to the door, 
 mounted his horse, and rode away. I noticed, how- 
 ever, there was a slight smile on his bronzed impas- 
 sive face. This led me to wonder if he was entirely 
 ignorant of the purpose for which he had been ques- 
 tioned, and the effect of his information. I was 
 confirmed in the belief by the remarkable circumstance 
 that nothing more was said of it ; the incident seemed 
 to have terminated there, and the victims made no 
 attempt to revenge themselves on See Yup. That 
 they had, one and all, secretly and unknown to each 
 other patronised him there was no doubt ; but at the 
 same time, as they evidently were not sure that Dr. 
 Duchesne had not hoaxed them in regard to the 
 quality of See Yups medicines, they knew that an 
 attack on the unfortunate Chinaman would, in either 
 case, reveal their secret and expose them to the 
 ridicule of their brother miners. So the matter 
 dropped, and See Yup remained master of the 
 situation." 
 
 Having reaped an abundant harvest of indelible 
 impressions in San Francisco, and finding nothing to 
 occupy him there, young Bret Harte, in search of a 
 vocation, and full of curiosity, set oft' in the wake of 
 the gold seekers he so happily called " The Argonauts 
 
 37 
 
FIRST FLIGHTS: 
 
 of '49." From his expedition he was to bring home 
 a Golden Fleece far more valuable to the thinking 
 world than any represented by auriferous nuggets 
 or weighty bags of glittering gold dust. Lessons such 
 as he learned in those rough Californian days, and with 
 a generous hand and matchless pen gave to all who 
 cared to profit by them, made thousands and thousands 
 of us far richer than mere gold will ever do. He went 
 into a country formed to fascinate one of his romantic 
 and imaginative temperament. The natural grandeur 
 and beauty of it, his knowledge of its early occupation 
 by the Spanish, and the legends clinging to the old 
 mission houses made it an unexplored fairy-land for 
 fancy ; and in startling contrast to this dreamy vision 
 and the leisurely Spaniards who had Hasta manana 
 (" Wait till to-morrow ") for one of their favourite 
 bywords, he found the extraordinary crowd of later- 
 day humanity jostling against each other in their hot 
 haste to be among the first in the fierce and exciting 
 race for wealth. 
 
 It must have been an extraordinary and probably 
 unexampled experience. Hordes of strong men clad 
 in red shirts and high boots striving against each 
 other in the wild fight for gold : all young and 
 muscular men, for no old man or semi-invalid could I 
 have borne the roughness and the fatigue of the life. 
 " On one occasion," he has recorded, " I remember an 
 ^elderly man — he was fifty perhaps, but he had a grey 
 beard — and he was pointed out as a curiosity, and I 
 men turned to look at him as they would have looked 
 at any other unfamiliar object." And yet these miners, 
 
 38 
 
'STRUGGLING" 
 
 roughing it in a manner that would be intolerable even 
 to our English " navvies," were civilised, many of them 
 being men of culture and even high attainments, but 
 anxious (no doubt in full recollection of bitter dis- 
 appointments) to win their way to fortune by a short 
 cut. Women were almost unknown ; but when they 
 did appear in the camps, and proved themselves 
 worthy of regard, they were treated with that tender- 
 ness and chivalry that appealed to the heart of the 
 gently-nurtured son of the Albany professor, and 
 formed the theme for so many of his exquisite stories. 
 Such a strange change in the life of one only ap- 
 proaching manhood has surely hardly ever been. 
 
 Little by little he traced out the history of this 
 unfamiliar throng and found how they had at firstly--' 
 lived in tents, then in cabins. The climate was 
 gracious, and except for the rudest purposes of shelter 
 in the winter rains they could have slept out of doors 
 the year round, as many preferred to do. As they 
 grew more ambitious perhaps a small plot of ground 
 was enclosed and cultivated, but for the first few 
 years they looked upon themselves as tenants at will, 
 and were afraid of putting down anything they could 
 not take away. Chimneys to their cabins were for a 
 long time avoided, as having this objectionable fea- 
 ture. Long after the arrival of the earliest Argonauts, 
 deserted mining camps were marked by the solitary 
 adobe chimneys still left standing when the frame of « / 
 the original cabin was moved to some newer location. I ^^J. 
 
 Their housekeeping was of the rudest kind. For 
 many months the fryingpan formed their only avail- 
 
 39 
 
Vw^ FIRST FLIGHTS: 
 
 ^/^y»v— Aable cooking utensil. It was lashed to the wandering 
 
 ^p:^ miner's back like the troubadour's guitar. He fried 
 
 ^ his bread, his beans, his bacon, and occasionally stewed 
 
 his coffee in this single vessel. But that nature worked 
 
 for him with a balsamic air and breezy tonic he might 
 
 have succumbed. Happily__his nieals were^jfew and 
 
 V infrequent ; happily the inventions of his mother earth 
 
 /-) '^^ ' were equal to his needs. His progressive tracks through 
 
 \ these mountain solitudes were marked with tin cans 
 
 bearing the inscription, " Cove Oysters," " Shaker 
 
 Sweet Corn," " Yeast Powder," " Boston Crackers," and 
 
 the like. But in the hour of adversity and the moment 
 
 of perplexity his main reliance was beans ! It was the 
 
 sole legacy of the Spanish Californian. 
 
 The Argonaut's dress was peculiar. He was ready, 
 if not skilful, with his needle, and was ^ond of patching 
 his clothes until the original material disappeared be- 
 neath a cloud of amendments. The flour sack was 
 his main dependence. When its contents had sus- 
 tained and comforted the inner man, the husk clothed 
 the outer man. Two gentlemen of respectability in 
 earlier days lost their identity in the labels somewhat 
 conspicuously borne on their trousers, and were known 
 to the camp in all seriousness as " Genesee Mills " and 
 A " Eagle Brand." 
 
 In the Southern Mines they bought up a quantity 
 of seamen's clothing condemned by the navy depart- 
 ment and sold at auction. For a year after the 
 sombre woodland shades were lightened by the white 
 ducks and blue and white shirts of these sailor lands- 
 men. It was odd that the only picturesque bit of 
 
 40 
 
"STRUGGLING" 
 
 colour in their dress was accidental and owing to a 
 careless, lazy custom. Their handkerchiefs of coarse 
 red, blue, green or yellow bandana were, for greater 
 convenience in hot weather, knotted at the ends and 
 thrown shawlwise around the shoulders. Against a 
 background of olive foliage the effect was always (J 
 striking and kaleidoscopic. The soft felt hat was 
 their only head covering. A tall hat on anybody 
 but a clergyman or gambler would have justified a 
 blow. 
 
 They were, to a man, singularly handsome. Not 
 solely in the muscular development and antique grace 
 acquired through open-air exercise and unrestrained 
 freedom of limb, but often in colour, expression, and 
 even softness of outline. They were mainly young men 
 whose beards were virgin, soft, silken, and curling. 
 They had not always time to cut their hair, and 
 this often swept their shoulders with the love-locks 
 of the Stuart Kings of England and bygone sove- 
 reigns of France. There were faces Bret Harte has 
 declared in later years that made him think of Del- 
 La Roche's Saviour, and dashing figures, bold-eyed, 
 jauntily insolent, and carelessly reckless, that would 
 have delighted Meissonier. 
 
 Added to this, the foreign element of Spaniards 
 and Mexicans produced a combination of light and 
 colour unknown to any other modern English-speaking 
 community. 
 
 Long after he had left these wild but fascinating 
 scenes, he loved to recall how at sunset, on the red 
 mountain road, a Mexican pack train would slowly 
 
 41 
 
FIRST FLIGHTS: 
 
 , wind its way towards the plain. Each animal wore a 
 P\A gaily- coloured blanket beneath its pack-saddle, the 
 "'^^ „^eading mule was musical with bells and brightly 
 caparisoned, the muleteers wore the national dress 
 with striped serapd of red and black, deer-skin 
 trousers open from the knee and fringed with buttons, 
 and had on each heel a silver spur with rowels three 
 inches in diameter. 
 
 If the Argonauts were thus picturesque in their 
 external appearance, associates, and environment, no 
 less romantic were they in expression and character. 
 Their hospitality was barbaric, their generosity 
 spontaneous. Their appreciation of merit always 
 took the form of a pecuniary testimonial, whether 
 it was a church and parsonage given to a favourite 
 preacher, or the shower of gold they rained upon the 
 pretty person of a popular actress. No mendicant 
 had to beg ; a sympathising bystander took up a 
 subscription in his hat. Their generosity was emula- 
 tive and cumulative, and speaking of later days than 
 those of which I am now writing, Bret Harte recalled 
 the curious but interesting fact that during the great 
 war of the Rebellion the millions gathered in the 
 Treasury of the Sanitary Commission had their source 
 in a San Francisco bar room ! 
 
 " It's mighty rough on those chaps who are 
 wounded," said a casual drinker, " and I'm sorry for 
 them." 
 
 " How much are you sorry ? " asked a gambler. 
 ^ " Five hundred dollars," said the first speaker 
 
 aggressively. 
 
 42 
 
"STRUGGLING" 
 
 " I'll see that five hundred dollars and go a 
 thousand better," said the gambler, putting down the 
 money. 
 
 In half-an-hour fifteen thousand dollars was the 
 amount telegraphed to Washington from San Fran- 
 cisco, and this great National Charity, open to North 
 and South — afterwards reinforced by three millions 
 of California gold — sprang into life. 
 
 In their apparently thoughtless free-handedness 
 there was often a vein of practical sagacity. After 
 the great fire in Sacramento, the first subscription to 
 the rebuilding of the Methodist Church came from L^ 
 the hands of a noted gambler. The good pastor, 
 while accepting the gift, could not help asking the 
 giver why he did not keep the money to build 
 another gambling house. 
 
 " It would be making things a little monotonous 
 out yer, old man," responded the gambler gravely, 
 " and it's variety that's wanted for a big town." 
 
 As Bret Harte saw them the Argonauts were 
 splendidly loyal in their friendships. Perhaps, he 
 thought, the absence of feminine society and domestic 
 ties turned the current of their tenderness and 
 sentiment towards each other. 
 
 To be a man's " partner " signified something more 
 than a common pecuniary or business interest ; it was 
 to be his " friend " through good or ill report, in/-^ 
 adversity or in fortune, to cleave to him and none 
 other — to be even jealous of him ! 
 
 There were Argonauts who were, probably, more 
 faithful to their partners than they had ever been to 
 
 43 
 
FIRST FLIGHTS: 
 
 their wives ; there were partners whom even the 
 grave could not divide — who remained soUtary and 
 A loyal to a dead man's memory. To insult a man's 
 partner was to insult him ; to step between two 
 partners in a quarrel was attended with the same 
 danger and uncertainty that involves the peacemaker 
 in a conjugal dispute. 
 
 The heroic qualities of a Damon and Pythias were 
 always present ; there were men who had fulfilled all 
 those conditions, and, better still, without a know- 
 ledge or belief that they were classical, with no 
 mythology to lean their backs against, and hardly 
 a conscious appreciation of a later faith that is 
 symbolised by sacrifice. In these unions there were 
 the same odd combinations often seen in the marital 
 -* relations ; a tall and a short man, a delicate, sickly 
 youth and a middle-aged man of powerful frame, a 
 grave reticent nature and a spontaneous exuberant one. 
 
 " My pardner left me the other day," said a 
 disconsolate Mississippean. " My pardner left me, 
 and has took up with a shiny Yankee at Gold Hill. 
 Well," he added with a heartfelt sigh, " I might 
 have reckoned on it ; he was allez fickle and fond o' 
 jewelry and dress ! " 
 
 Yet in spite of these incongruities there was 
 always the same blind unreasoning fidelity to each 
 other. It is true that their zeal sometimes outran 
 their discretion. There was a story in those days 
 of a San Francisco stranger who, while indulging in 
 some free criticism of religious demonstrations, sud- 
 denly found himself sprawling upon the floor with 
 
 44 
 
-STRUGGLING" 
 
 an irate Kentuckian, revolver in hand, standing 
 over him. When an explanation was demanded by 
 the crowd, the Kentuckian pensively returned his 
 revolver to his belt. " Well," he said, " / ain't got 
 anythin' agin the stranger, but he said suthin' a 
 minute ago agin Quakers, and I want him to under- 
 stand that my pai^dner is a Quaker, and — a — a 
 peaceful man " ! 
 
 Their domestic life was of course rugged. Women 
 were few, and the family hearthstones and domestic 
 altars still more rare. Of housewifely virtues the 
 utmost was made ; the model spouse invariably kept 
 a boarding-house and served her husband's guests. 
 In out-of-the-way cases the woman who was a crown 
 to her husband took in washing also. 
 
 Bret Harte remembered a woman of this class 
 who lived in a little mining camp in the Sierras. 
 Her husband was a Texan — a good-humoured giant, 
 who had the respect of the camp perhaps quite 
 as much by his amiable weakness as his great physical 
 power. She was an Eastern woman — had been a 
 schoolmistress, and had lived in cities up to the 
 time of her marriage and emigration. She was not, 
 perhaps, personally attractive ; she was plain and 
 worn beyond her years, and her few personal ac- 
 complishments — a slight knowledge of French and 
 Italian, music, and Latin classification of plants, 
 natural philosophy, and Blair's Rhetoric — did not tell 
 upon the masculine inhabitants of Bingtail Canon. 
 Yet she was universally loved, and Aunt Buth, as 
 she was called, or old Ma'am Bichards, was lifted 
 
 45 
 
FIRST FLIGHTS: 
 
 into an idealisation of the aunt, mother, or sister 
 of every miner in the camp. She reciprocated in a 
 thousand ways — mending the clothes, ministering to 
 the sick, and even answering the long home letters 
 of the men. 
 
 Presently she fell sick. Nobody knew exactly 
 what was the matter with her, but she pined slowly 
 away. When the burden of her household tasks 
 was lifted from her shoulders, she took to long walks, 
 wandering over the hills, and was often seen upon 
 >the highest ridge at sunset looking towards the East. 
 Here one day she was found senseless, the result, 
 it was said, of over-exertion, and she was warned 
 to keep in the house. So she kept her house, and 
 even went so far as to keep her bed. One day, to 
 everybody's astonishment, she died. " Do you know 
 what they say Ma'am Richards died of?" said Yuba 
 Bill to his partner. " No," was the reply. " The 
 doctor says she died of nostalgia," said Bill. 
 " What blank thing is nostalgia ? " asked the other. 
 " Well," Bill answered, " it's a kind of longing to 
 go to Heaven." " Perhaps," said Bret Harte in 
 telling this story, " perhaps he was right." 
 
 He found that the Argonauts were not, as a 
 rule, overburdened with sentiment, and were utterly 
 free from its more dangerous ally, sentimentalism. 
 They took a sardonic delight in stripping all mere- 
 tricious finery from their speech ; they had a sarcastic 
 fashion of eliminating everything but the facts from 
 poetic or imaginative narration. With all that ter- 
 rible directness of statement which was habitual to 
 
 46 
 
"STRUGGLING" 
 
 them when they indulged in innuendo, it was signifi- 
 cantly cruel and striking. 
 
 In the early days Lynch law punished horse- 
 stealing with death. A man one day was arrested 
 and tried for this offence. After hearing the evidence 
 the jury duly retired to consult upon their verdict. 
 Perhaps from an insufficiency of proof, perhaps from 
 motives of humanity, perhaps because the case was 
 showing an alarming decrease in the male population, 
 but for some reason the jury showed signs of hesi- 
 tation. The crowd outside became impatient. After 
 waiting an hour, the ringleader put his head into 
 the jury-room and asked if they had settled upon a 
 verdict. " No," said the foreman. " Well," answered 
 the leader, " take your own time, gentlemen ; only 
 remember that we're waitin' for this yer room to 
 lay out the corpse in " ! 
 
 Their humour was frequent, although never ex- 
 uberant or spontaneous, and always contained a 
 certain percentage of rude justice or morality under 
 its sardonic exterior. The only ethical teaching of 
 those days was through a joke or a sarcasm. While 
 camps were moved by an epigram, the rude equity 
 of Judge Lynch was swayed by a witticism. Even 
 their pathos, which was more or less dramatic, par- 
 took of this quality. The odd expression, the quaint 
 fancy, or even grotesque gesture that rippled the 
 surface consciousness with a smile, a moment later 
 touched the depths of the heart with a sense of 
 infinite sadness. 
 
 They indulged sparingly in poetry or illustration, 
 
 47 
 
FIRST FLIGHTS: 
 
 using only its rude inchoate form of slang. Unlike 
 the meaningless catch -words of an older and more 
 indolent civilisation, their slang was the condensed 
 epigrammatic illustration of some fact, fancy, or per- 
 ception. Generally it had some significant local 
 derivation. The half-yearly drought brought forward 
 
 ^the popular adjuration "dry up" to express the 
 natural climax of evaporated fluency. " Played 
 out " was a reminiscence of the gambling table, and 
 
 ^ expressed that hopeless condition of affairs where 
 
 ' even the operation of chance is suspended. " To 
 take stock " in any statement, theory, or suggestion, 
 
 ' indicated a pecuniary degree of trustful credulity. 
 
 ^ Even though it came from a gambler's lips one 
 
 ■ can hardly call that slang which gives such a vivid 
 
 picture of the reckoning hereafter as is to be found 
 
 ' conveyed in the expression, " handing in your checks." 
 
 . Bret Harte remembered how Thomas Starr King, a 
 great preacher, under whose influence, as we shall 
 presently see, he in later years became in wrapt, 
 after delivering a controversial sermon one Sunday, 
 overheard the following dialogue between a parish- 
 ioner and his friend : " Well," said the enthusiastic 
 parishioner, referring to the sermon, " what do you 
 think of King now ? " " Think of him ! " responded 
 
 ^the friend, " why, he took every trick ! " 
 
 Indeed, in those days slang was universal, and 
 
 there was no occasion to which it seemed inconsistent. 
 
 Sometimes through the national habit of amusing 
 
 exaggeration, or equally grotesque understatement, 
 
 certain words acquired a new significance. Bret 
 
 48 
 
"STRUGGLING'' 
 
 Harte recalled a night he spent at a new hotel. 
 After he had got comfortably to bed, he was aroused 
 by the noise of scuffling and shouting, punctuated 
 by occasional pistol shots from below. In the morning 
 he made his way to the bar room, and found the 
 landlord behind the bar, with a bruised eye, a piece 
 of court-plaster extending from his cheek to his 
 forehead, yet withal a pleasant smile upon his face. 
 Taking his cue from this, he said to him — "Well, 
 landlord, you had rather a lively time here last night." 
 " Yes," he replied pleasantly, " it was rather a lively 
 time ! " " Do you often have such lively times about 
 here ? " he asked, emboldened by his cheerfulness. 
 " Well, no," he said reflectively ; " the fact is we've 
 only just opened yer, and last night was about the 
 first time that the boys seemed to be gittin' really 
 acquaiiited ! " 
 
 Then there was a man who objected to join in a 
 bear hunt because " he hadn't lost any bears lately ; " 
 and the man who replied to a tourist's question, 
 " If they grew any corn in that locality," by saying : 
 "Not a d — d bit; in fact scarcely any!" Such 
 things offer easy examples of this characteristic anti- 
 climax and exaggeration. Often a flavour of gentle 
 philosophy mingled with it. "In course I'd rather 
 not drive a mule team," said a teamster one day to 
 the youthful Bret Harte. " In course I'd rather 
 run a bank or be President ; but when you've lived 
 as long as I have, stranger, you'll find that in 
 this yer world a man don't always get his right 
 place." 
 
 49 D 
 
FIRST FLIGHTS: 
 
 Often a man's trade or occupation lent a graphic 
 power to his speech. An engineer was one day re- 
 lating to him the particulars of a fellow-workman's 
 death by consumption. "Poor Jim," he said, "he 
 X got to runnin' sloM^er and slower until one day he 
 stopped on his centre." 
 
 " What a picture ! " said Bret Harte, as in after 
 years he quoted this incident; "what a picture of 
 ^-^the helpless hitch in this weary human machine." 
 
 Sometimes the expression was borrowed from 
 another profession. One day there was a difficulty 
 in a surveyor's camp between the surveyor and a 
 Chinaman. "If I were you," said a sympathising 
 teamster to the surveyor, " I'd just take that chap 
 and theodolite him out o' camp." 
 
 Sometimes the slang was a mere echo of the 
 formulas of some popular excitement or movement. 
 During a camp meeting in the mountains a teamster 
 who had been swearing at his cattle was rebuked 
 for his impiety by a young woman who had just 
 returned from the meeting. " Why, Miss," said the 
 astonished teamster, "you don't call that swearing, 
 do you ? Why, you ought to hear Bill Jones 
 exhort the impenitent mule ! " 
 
 " But," said Bret Harte, " can we entirely forgive 
 the Argonaut for making his slang gratuitously per- 
 manent ? for foisting upon posterity, who may forget 
 these extenuating circumstances, such titles as 
 ' One Horse Gulch,' ' Greaser Canon,' ' Fiddletown,' 
 ^'Murderer's Bar,' and 'Dead Broke.' The map of 
 California is still ghastly with this unhallowed 
 
 50 
 
'STRUGGLING" 
 
 christening/ A tourist may well hesitate to write 
 'Dead Broke' at the top of his letter, and any- 
 stranger would be justified in declining an invitation 
 to ' Murderer's Bar.' It seemed as if the early 
 Californian took a sardonic delight in the contrast 
 these names offered to the euphony of the old Spanish 
 titles. With few exceptions the counties of the 
 State still bear the soft Castilian labials and gentle 
 vowels — Tuolumne, Tulare, Tolo, Calaveras, Siskiyou, 
 and Mendocino ; to say nothing of the glorious com- 
 pany of the apostles who perpetually praise California 
 throughout the Spanish Catholic calendar. Yet 
 wherever a saint dropped a blessing, some sinner 
 afterwards squatted with an epithet. Extremes 
 often met. The omnibuses in San Francisco used to 
 run from the Happy Valley to the Mission Dolores. 
 You had to go to Blaises first before you could get 
 to Purissima. Yet I think the ferocious directness 
 of these titles was preferable to the pinchbeck 
 elegance of Copperpolis, Argenticia, the polyglot 
 monstrosities of Ore-ville and Placer-ville, or the 
 remarkable sentiment of Komeosburgh and Juliets- 
 town. I wish I could say that the Spaniard fared 
 any better than his language at the hands of the 
 Argonauts. He was called a ' Greaser,' an unctuous 
 reminiscence of the Mexican war, and applied errone- 
 ously to the Spanish Californian who was not a 
 Mexican. The pure blood of Castile ran in his veins. 
 He held his lands sometimes by Royal Patent of 
 
 ^ Twenty-two years have elapsed since Bret Harte uttered these words. 
 Possibly some of these too suggestive names are now changed. 
 
 51 
 
FIRST FLIGHTS: 
 
 Charles V. He was grave, simple, and confiding. 
 He accepted the Argonaut's irony as sincere, he per- 
 mitted him to squat on his lands, he allowed him to 
 marry his daughter. He found himself in a few 
 years laughed at, landless, and alone. In his sore 
 extremity he entered into a defensive alliance with 
 some of his persecutors, and revenged himself after 
 an extraordinary fashion. In all matters relating 
 to early land grants his was the only available 
 memory, his the only legal testimony on the court. 
 Perhaps strengthened by this repeated exercise, his 
 memory became one of the most extraordinary, his 
 testimony the most complete and corroborative known 
 to human experience. He recalled conversations, 
 official orders, and precedents of fifty years ago as if 
 they were matters of yesterday. He produced grants, 
 signatures, and letters with promptitude and despatch. 
 He evolved evidence from his inner consciousness, 
 and in less than three years Spanish land titles were 
 lost in hopeless confusion and a cloud of witnesses. 
 The wily Argonauts cursed the aptness of their pupil. 
 " Socially he clung to his old customs. He had his 
 regular fandango, strummed his guitar, and danced 
 the cachuca and kindred dances of his nation. He 
 had his Sunday bullfights after Mass. But the wily 
 Greek Argonaut introduced breakdowns in the 
 fandango, substituted the banjo for the guitar, and 
 Bourbon whisky for Aguardiente. He even went so far ; 
 as to interfere with his bullfights, not so much from a 
 sense of moral ethics as with the view of giving the 
 bull a show. He substituted on one or two occasions I 
 
 52 
 
"STRUGGLING" 
 
 a grizzly bear, who not only instantly cleared the 
 arena, but playfully wiped out the first two rows of 
 benches beyond. 
 
 " He learned horsemanship from the Spaniard and 
 ran off with his cattle ! " 
 
 When Bret Harte first joined the Argonauts he 
 tried his luck at gold finding, and for a time pluckily 
 worked side by side with his quaint but picturesque 
 comrades. He prospected, shovelled, picked, washed, 
 and all the rest of it, and so far mastered his trade 
 that he was able to describe all its processes with 
 minute accuracy. But it was not likely that this 
 class of work would suit him, and, having gained his 
 experience, and satisfied his curiosity, he discarded his 
 mining tools and became a messenger in the employ 
 -A of the Adams Express Company. His business was 
 to sit beside the drivers of the stage coaches and to 
 guard the gold, greenbacks, and letters which the 
 Company undertook to deliver from the camp miners 
 to the banks, or to their friends in the nearest towns. 
 Considering that stage robberies were the order of 
 the day, this experience was not only an exciting but 
 a perilous one. To it, however, we are indebted for 
 his wonderful descriptions of the dangerous stage 
 roads, down the steep grades of which six horses 
 would be driven by an unfaltering hand at a pace so \^ 
 terrific, that the passengers had to cling desperately 
 to the terribly swaying coach as it thundered along, 
 and try to keep their equilibrium. 
 
 To them, moreover, we owe the inimitably drawn 
 ^character of Yuba Bill, the most fearless and grimly 
 
FIRST FLIGHTS: 
 
 humorous of stage coachmen — one of the finest in 
 the rich gallery of Bret Harte's portraits. To describe 
 the sort of thing that the Expressman, as he was 
 called, had to endure, I may quote from one of his 
 stories. 
 
 Yuba Bill has been warned that, at a particularly 
 dangerous portion of the road, a tree has fallen across 
 the track (this was no uncommon danger), and to his 
 intense annoyance the coach has been kept standing 
 while he, his assistants, and some of his passengers 
 went forward to remove the obstacle. This having 
 been achieved. Bill returned, gathered up the reins, 
 and in five minutes the scene of former obstruction 
 was reached. 
 
 " The great pine tree which had fallen from the 
 steep bank above and stretched across the road had 
 been partly lopped of its branches, divided in two 
 lengths, which were now rolled to either side of the 
 track, leaving barely space for the coach to pass. The 
 huge vehicle ' slowed up ' as Yuba Bill skilfully guided 
 his six horses through this narrow alley, whose tassels 
 of pine, glistening with wet, brushed the panels and 
 sides of the coach, and effectually excluded any view 
 from its windows. Seen from the coach top, the 
 horses appeared to be cleaving their way through a 
 dark, shining olive sea, that parted before and closed 
 behind them, as they slowly passed. The leaders 
 were just emerging from it, and Bill was gathering 
 up his slackened reins, when a peremptory voice 
 called, ' Halt ! ' At the same moment the coach 
 lights flashed upon a masked and motionless horse- 
 
 54 
 
"STRUGGLING" 
 
 man in the road. Bill made an impulsive reach for 
 his whip, but in the same instant checked himself, 
 reined in his horses with a suppressed oath, and sat 
 perfectly rigid. Not so the Expressman, who caught 
 up his rifle, but it was arrested by Bill's arm, and his 
 voice in his ear — 
 
 " ' Too late — we're covered ! Don't be a d — d 
 fool ! ' 
 
 " The inside passengers, still encompassed by 
 obscurity, knew only that the stage had stopped. 
 The ' outsiders ' knew, by experience, that they were 
 covered by unseen guns in the wayside branches, and 
 scarcely moved. 
 
 " ' I didn't think it was the square thing to stop 
 you, Bill, till you had got through your work,' said a 
 masterful but not unpleasant voice, ' and if you'll just 
 hand down the express box, I'll pass you and the rest 
 of your load through free ! But as we're both in a 
 hurry, you'd better look lively about it.' 
 
 " ' Hand it down,' said Bill gruflly to the 
 Expressman. 
 
 " The Expressman turned with a white cheek but 
 blazing eyes to the compartment below his seat, 
 brought out the box, and handed it to another armed 
 and masked figure who appeared mysteriously from 
 the branches beside the wheels. 
 
 " ' Thank you,' said the voice ; ' you can slide on 
 now.' 
 
 " ' And thank you for nothing,' said Bill, gathering 
 up his reins. ' It's the first time any of your kind 
 had to throw down a tree to hold me up ! ' 
 
 SS 
 
FIRST FLIGHTS: 
 
 " ' You're lying, Bill — though you don't know it,' 
 said the voice cheerfully. ' Far from throwing down 
 a tree to stop you, it was I who sent word along the 
 road to warn you from crashing down upon it, and 
 sending you and your load to h — 1 before your time. 
 Drive on ! '" 
 
 There was a politeness, a certain feeling of 
 ^J^ chivalry, and an unerring sense of humour about 
 these Californian highwaymen — or road-agents as 
 they called themselves and were called by others — 
 that makes them even more interesting than the 
 dare-devil Dick Turpins and courtly Claude Du Vals 
 of another country and an earlier period. Moreover, 
 they were not rapacious in their robberies ; if they 
 got what they wanted they would let all else go 
 scot-free. 
 
 Bret Harte recalled an instance of a coach being 
 " held up " because the leader of a gang of road- 
 agents was in search of a parcel of greenbacks which 
 had been fraudulently obtained from one of his friends. 
 The usual thing took place. Before there was time 
 to touch a weapon the rifle-covered coach was brought 
 to an abrupt standstill. The unlucky Expressman's 
 box was handed down and searched, and this proving 
 unsatisfactory all the passengers were ordered to 
 alight and stand in an undignified row, " holding up 
 their hands " as evidence that they felt themselves at 
 the mercy of their assailants. 
 
 Then, addressing them, the intrepid but urbane 
 agent said — 
 
 " ' Thank you ! Gentlemen, one of you has a 
 
 56 
 
'STRUGGLING" 
 
 package of greenbacks ; I want that package. I 
 don't want ' (turning to one of his victims) ' the gold 
 dust concealed in the hollow sole of your boot, though 
 it seems to impede your' movements, I don't ' (to an- 
 other) ' want the coin you have filled up your pistol 
 holster with, though you've sacrificed your pistol 
 for it ; I only want the package of greenbacks that ' 
 (to others) ' seems to lie between you two men.' " 
 
 Without a murmur the packet was handed over, 
 and then he coolly said — 
 
 " ' Thanks. Bill ' (to the driver) — ' wait here until 
 you hear my whistle. Raise so much as a rein or 
 whip-lash until that signal, and you know what'll 
 happen ! Now, gentlemen ' (to the passengers), ' you 
 will not be detained here a second longer than I can 
 help. I wish you a good-night, and a swift journey.' " 
 
 At this moment one of his angry row of " held 
 up " men, less used to this humiliating method of 
 treatment than his comrades, said impetuously, " 'But 
 I should like to say — .' The reply was in a stern 
 voice, ' Say what you like when I am gone.' 
 
 " ' Then I hope you'll be within earshot,' said the 
 irate passenger. 
 
 " ' No! but within rifle-shot,' was the grim response ; 
 ' and your driver knows it ! ' And then with a 
 cheery ' Good-night ! ' he vanished into the darkness. 
 
 " ' A clean job,' said Bill laconically. ' They'll 
 cover us till the other man gets off" with the treasure.' 
 
 " ' Yes,' said the gentleman with the gold dust in 
 the sole of his boot, ' I guess the leader comes from 
 up Country. He seemed to throw in a few fancy 
 
 57 
 
FIRST FLIGHTS: 
 
 touches, particularly in that ' Good- night.' Sorter 
 chucked a little sentiment in it. Didn't seem to 
 be the same thing ez ' Git yer d — d suckers,' on the 
 other line." 
 
 Thus calmly were these bold robberies committed 
 and received, and such were the episodes carefully 
 noted by the young Expressman, who in after days 
 told many droll stories of the ways in which the 
 passengers would endeavour to conceal their cherished 
 gold about their persons. 
 
 But while he was thus roughing it in the mining 
 camps and on stage-coaches, Bret Harte did not forget 
 what was due to himself and the home of his boy- 
 hood. At one of the old Spanish missions he made 
 ^friends with a kindly and erudite priest, and as often 
 as possible was his eager pupil. We all know how 
 what may be called the '' SpanMi^jnotiyp " runs grace- 
 fully and melodiously through his stories and poems, 
 and, indeed, forms the main theme of some of his 
 most powerful work. Probably we all like his strongly 
 marked Californian mining characters the best ; but 
 many of us have a warm place in our hearts for the 
 gentle surroundings and peaceful life of the old 
 missions, redolent as they are with the fragrance of 
 romance. Bret Harte often spoke gratefully of the 
 help he received from his priestly tutor. After a 
 while he gave up his appointment with the Adams 
 ^Express Company and became an assistant in a drug 
 store, or chemist's shop. Of course this did not last 
 long, but he must have picked up a great deal of 
 knowledge, for to the end of his days he could speak 
 
 58 
 
"STRUGGLING" 
 
 with authority as to the virtues and properties of 
 medicines. I have heard English physicians express 
 wonder at his grasp of the subject. 
 
 These dispensing days peep out in many of his 
 stories. I am quite sure that he had himself in mind 
 when he described how the junior partner of the firm 
 of Sparlow & Kane, " Druggists and Apothecaries " 
 of San Francisco, was left in charge of the surgery 
 and its adjuncts. 
 
 " He felt drowsy ; the mysterious incense of the 
 shop, that combined essence of drugs, spice, scented 
 soap, and orris-root — which always reminded him of 
 the Arabian Nights — was aftecting him. He yawned, 
 and then, turning away, passed behind the counter, 
 took down a jar labelled ' Glycyr. Glabra,' selected a 
 piece of Spanish liquorice and meditatively sucked 
 it. Not receiving from it that diversion and suste- 
 nance he apparently was seeking, he also visited, in 
 an equally familiar manner, a jar marked ' Jujubes,' 
 and returned ruminatingly to his previous position. 
 
 "If I have not," he goes on to say, "in this 
 incident sufficiently established the youthfulness of 
 the junior partner, I may briefly add that he was just 
 nineteen, that he had early joined the emigration to 
 California, and after one or two previous light-hearted 
 essays at other occupations, for which he was singu- 
 larly unfitted, he had saved enough to embark on his 
 present venture, still less suited to his temperament. 
 In those adventurous days, trades and vocations were 
 not always filled by trained workmen ; it was ex- 
 tremely probable that the experienced chemist was 
 
 59 
 
FIRST FLIGHTS: 
 
 already making his way as a gold-miner, with a 
 lawyer and a physician for his partners, and Mr. 
 Kane's inexperienced position was by no means an 
 uncommon one. A slight knowledge of Latin as a 
 written language, an American schoolboy's acquaint- 
 ance with chemistry and natural philosophy, were 
 deemed sufficient by his partner, a regular physician, 
 for practical co-operation in the vending of drugs and 
 putting up of prescriptions. He knew the difference 
 between acids and alkalies and the peculiar results 
 which attended their incautious combination. But he 
 was excessively deliberate, painstaking, and cautious. 
 The legend which adorned the desk at the counter, 
 ' Physicians' prescriptions carefully prepared,' was more 
 than usually true as regards the adverb. There was 
 no danger of his poisoning anybody through haste 
 or carelessness, but it was possible that an urgent 
 ' case ' might have succumbed to the disease while he 
 was putting up the remedy. Nor was his precaution 
 entirely passive. In those days the ' heroic ' practice 
 of medicine was in keeping with the abnormal de- 
 velopment of the country ; there were ' record ' doses 
 of calomel and quinine, and he had once or twice 
 incurred the fury of local practitioners by sending 
 back their prescriptions with a modest query." 
 
 No doubt, as young Kane, Bret Harte drew himself 
 as he worked in the drug store. Possibly he was not 
 quite so careful as that youthful practitioner. He 
 once told me that he very nearly killed an invalid 
 by making a blunder with his prescription, and as a 
 
 matter of consequence got into great trouble. This 
 
 60 
 
"STRUGGLING" 
 
 gave him a distaste for practical pharmacy, hut the 
 whole subject greatly interested him. In one of his 
 later stories he described with infinite pains, and a 
 grasp of his subject on which he prided himself, how 
 a plain-faced Californian girl, who had lost the track 
 of her father's waggon, wandered away into the woods, 
 and, having in all ignorance discovered an arsenical 
 .-Spring, and frequently bathed in it, became one of the 
 most beautiful of women. 
 
 Then he tried his hand as a printer. He learned 
 to set type, and assisted in the publication of the 
 necessary local newspaper. Here, again, he relates a 
 personal experience : " ' Well ! ' said the editor of the 
 Mountain Clarion, looking up impatiently from his 
 copy, ' what's the matter now ? ' 
 
 " The intruder in his sanctum was his foreman. He 
 was also acting as pressman, as might be seen from 
 his shirt-sleeves, spattered with ink, rolled up over 
 the arm that had just been working ' the Archimedean 
 lever that moves the world,' which was the editor's 
 favourite allusion to the handpress that strict economy 
 obliged the Clarion to use. His braces, slipped from 
 his shoulders during his work, were looped negligently 
 on either side, their functions being replaced by one 
 hand which occasionally hitched up his trousers to a 
 securer position. A pair of down-at-heel slippers — 
 dear to the country printer — completed his neglige." 
 
 The world at large did not know how he was 
 enabled to etch in his characters with such minute 
 precision and firmness of touch ; but to an old friend, 
 sitting and chatting alone with him, he loved to speak 
 
 6i 
 
FIRST FLIGHTS: 
 
 of these things as his personal experiences and to 
 laugh over his recollections. 
 
 At the editors of such papers as the Mountain 
 Clarion, their frothy style and their efforts to retain 
 the support of all classes of their patrons, he loved to 
 deal sly and humorous little hits — as, for example, 
 in " The Iliad of Sandy Bar," where he records — " I 
 have before me a copy of the Poverty Flat Pioneer, 
 in which the editor, under the head of ' County Im- 
 provements,' says : ' The New Presbyterian Church on 
 C Street at Sandy Bar is completed. It stands upon 
 the lot formerly occupied by the Magnolia Saloon, 
 which was so mysteriously burnt last month. The 
 temple, which now rises like a Phoenix from the ashes 
 of the Magnolia, is virtually the free gift of H. J. 
 York, Esq., of Sandy Bar, who purchased the lot and 
 donated the lumber. Other buildings are going up 
 in the vicinity, but the most noticeable is the ' Sunny 
 South Saloon,' erected by Captain Mat. Scott, nearly 
 opposite the church. Captain Scott has spared no 
 expense in the furnishing of this saloon, which pro- 
 mises to be one of the most agreeable places of resort 
 in old Tuolumne. He has recently imported two new 
 first-class billiard tables with cork cushions. Our old 
 friend ' Mountain Jimmy ' will dispense liquors at the 
 bar. We refer our readers to the advertisement in 
 another column. Visitors to Sandy Bar cannot do 
 better than give ' Jinuny ' a call," Among the local 
 items occurred the following : " H. J. York, Esq., of 
 Sandy Bar, has offered a reward of one hundred dol- 
 lars for the detection of the parties who hauled away 
 
 62 
 
'STRUGGLING " 
 
 the steps of the new Presbyterian Church, C Street, 
 Sandy Bar, during divine service on Sabbath evening 
 last. Captain Scott adds another hundred for the 
 capture of the miscreants who broke the magnificent 
 plate-glass windows of the new saloon on the follow- 
 ing evening. There is some talk of reorganising the 
 old Vigilance Committee at Sandy Bar." 
 
 This placid blending of '* County Improvements," 
 and consequent " Local Items," is delicious. 
 
 Having mastered the art of printing, and gleaned 
 some useful information as to editorial tactics, Bret 
 Harte became a schoolmaster, and no doubt among his 
 pupils (he has mentioned many of them) were the 
 immortal Mliss and the fascinating Cressy. 
 
 In his works he faithfully depicts himself as the 
 conscientious young tutor trying to impress unon 
 listless ears the lessons that they loathed. It is a 
 pathetic little sketch of the poor "Master" sitting at 
 his uncongenial task in the primitive little schoolroom 
 at " Smith's Pocket " with some open copy-books 
 before him, carefully making those bold and full 
 characters which are supposed to combine the extremes 
 of chirographical and moral excellence ; and who had 
 got so far as " Biches are Deceitful," and was elabor- 
 ating the noun with an insincerity of flourish that 
 was quite in the spirit of his text, when he heard 
 a gentle tapping at the door. His interrupter was 
 sweet Mliss, and then, as if by the wave of a 
 magician's wand, the dreariness of the uninviting 
 schoolhouse vanishes. 
 
 Again he conjures up a primitive "academy," 
 
 63 
 
FIRST FLIGHTS: 
 
 which he entered with " a certain precaution begot- 
 ten of his experience in once finding a small but 
 sociable rattlesnake coiled up near the threshold. A 
 slight disturbance which followed his intrusion showed 
 the value of that precaution and the fact that the 
 room had already been used for various private and 
 peaceful gatherings of animated nature. An irregular 
 attendance of yellow birds and squirrels dismissed 
 themselves hurriedly through the broken floor and 
 windows, but a golden lizard, stiffened suddenly into 
 stony fright on the edge of an open arithmetic, 
 touched the heart of the master so strongly by its 
 resemblance to some kept-in and forgotten scholar who 
 had succumbed over the task he could not accomplish, 
 that he was seized with compunction." 
 
 And then the description of the weary, dreary 
 school time which " continued for two hours with short 
 sighs, corrugations of small foreheads, the complaining 
 cries and scratching of slate-pencils over slates, and 
 other signs of minor anguish among the more youthful 
 of the flock ; and with more or less whisperings, move- 
 ments of the lips, and unconscious soliloquy among the 
 older pupils. The master moved slowly up and down 
 the aisle with a word of explanation or encouragement 
 here and there, stopping with his hands behind 
 him to gaze abstractedly out of the windows, 
 to the wondering envy of the little ones. A 
 faint hum, as of invisible insects, gradually pervaded 
 the school ; the more persistent droning of a large bee 
 had become dangerously soporific. The hot breath of 
 
 the pines without had invaded the doors and windows ; 
 
 64 
 
"STRUGGLING" 
 
 the warped shingles and weather-boarding at times 
 creaked and snapped under the rays of the vertical 
 and unclouded sun. A gentle perspiration broke out 
 like a mild epidemic in the infant class ; little curls 
 became damp, long lashes limp, round eyes moist, and 
 small eyelids heavy." 
 
 Poor young schoolmaster ! One does not like to 
 think of his talents being squandered on such work as 
 this ; and one sympathises with him when, relating 
 another of these experiences, he says : " The little 
 pioneer settlement school, of which I was/ the some- 
 what youthful and, I fear, the not over competent 
 master, was State-aided only to a limited extent ; and 
 as the bulk of the expense was borne by a few families 
 in its vicinity, when two of them — representing per- 
 haps a dozen children or pupils — one morning an- 
 nounced their intention of moving to a more prosperous 
 and newer district, the school was incontinently closed. 
 In twenty-four hours I found myself destitute alike 
 of my flock and my vocation. I am afraid I regretted 
 the former the most. Some of the children I had 
 made my companions and friends ; and as I stood that 
 bright May morning before the empty little bark- 
 thatched schoolhouse in the wilderness, it was with 
 an odd sensation that our little summer ' play ' at 
 being schoolmaster and pupil was over. Indeed, I 
 remember distinctly that a large hunk of gingerbread 
 — a parting gift from a prize scholar a year older than 
 1 my self — stood me in good stead in my future wan- 
 derings, for I was alone in the world at that moment, 
 and constitutionally improvident." 
 
 65 E 
 
FIRST FLIGHTS: 
 
 But to these somewhat sordid scholastic days we 
 owe some of his brightest and most charming charac- j 
 ters. It was always the same with him. Wherever 
 he went or whatever he did, he always — and no doubt I 
 at that early period of his life, unconsciously — stored | 
 away golden material for use in the years to come. | 
 He gathered in his Californian harvest quickly, but I 
 its rich grain was abundant and never failed him. 
 
 There were soldiering days, too. In the warfare 
 with the Indians he fought through two campaigns 
 to a staff appointment, and I may as well mention 
 here as elsewhere that when the American Civil War 
 broke out he joined the Volunteer City Guard of San 
 Francisco, as a reservist. He was always ready to 
 serve his country, and was rather proud of his diploma 
 of Colonel in the Army of the Potomac. His ex- 
 periences with the Indians have been fully utilised 
 in his glowing pages, and he has left us sketches as 
 vivid and striking as that of Washington Irving's 
 " Philip of Pokanoket." Notably there is a weird 
 study of Indian life in his fine story, " The Ancestors 
 of Peter Atherley." But his wandering days came 
 to an early end, and he was still quite a young man 
 when he returned to San Francisco determined to 
 settle down to some definite calling. He had learnt 
 the truth of John Stuart Mill's words : " Human 
 existence is girt round with mystery ; the narrow 
 region of our experience is a small island in the midst 
 of a boundless sea." But the " island " he had ex- 
 plored was, in more senses than one, full of precious 
 things, and he must have been conscious that he was 
 
 66 
 
'STRUGGLING" 
 
 bringing some of them home with him, even if he had 
 not yet made up his mind how to use them. Truly 
 his old and devoted friend, Mr. Charles Warren 
 Stoddard, said : — 
 
 "It was a lucky fate that drove Bret Harte 
 afield when he was all eyes, when his wits were 
 wide-awake, and he had a healthy, youthful thirst 
 for adventure. He bore a charmed life. Probably 
 his youth was his salvation, for he ran a thousand 
 risks, yet seemed only to gain in health and spirits ; 
 and all the while he was unconsciously accumulating 
 the most valuable material that could fall to the lot 
 of a writer — the lights and shadows, the colour, the 
 details of a life unique, as brief as it was brilliant, 
 and one never to be lived again under the sun or 
 stars." 
 
 California, Mr. Stoddard tells us, was picturesque 
 once upon a time; the life there and then was de- 
 lightful, audacious, perhaps at times devihsh ; there 
 xvas not much repose in camp or town, but there 
 was enough and to spare in the wide verandahs of 
 the sun-backed haciendas and In the attenuated vistas 
 of the mission cloisters. 
 
 But Bret Harte was weary of it all. He was, 
 indeed, " glutted with adventurous experiences." His 
 mind was full of all that he had seen among miners, 
 Spaniards, express coachmen, road-agents, gamblers, 
 Chinese, and their bewildering surroundings. For 
 some time he had been fascinated with them, but 
 the day came when he longed for a home. 
 
 67 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 m LIFE'S STREAM : " SWIMMING " 
 
 Advisedly, if somewhat fantastically, I have labelled 
 my three opening chapters. Dr. Oliver Wendell 
 Holmes, of whose work it need hardly be said Bret 
 Harte was an ardent admirer, once asked him if he 
 found the writing of verse come easily to him. Bret 
 Harte, who was fond of telling this story to his 
 friends, said, that the opening lines often gave him 
 sore trouble, but when they had been composed the 
 rest of the task seemed an easy one. " That's it," 
 said Holmes, with a fellow - feeling for a brother 
 poet ; "we flounder and struggle about in the 
 stream for a time, and then, when we are not look- 
 ing for it, a wave comes up from behind, takes us 
 off our feet, and then we swim." 
 
 Now it seems to me that this applies to Bret 
 Harte's life. He had floundered, he had struggled, 
 and now, with a strong, unerring stroke, he was 
 to swim. 
 
 " Try thyself unweariedly till thou findest the 
 highest thing thou art capable of doing, faculties 
 and outward circumstances both duly considered, 
 and then do it." 
 
 Some such thoughts as these must have been 
 in Bret Harte's mind when, with the full memory 
 
 68 
 
"SWIMMING' 
 
 of his printing experiences in view, he returned to 
 San Francisco and sought employment. 
 
 Here Mr. Charles Warren Stoddard very kindly 
 permits me to let him take up the tale. 
 
 " The vicissitudes of Bret Harte," he says, " were 
 destined to become his stock-in-trade, and when he 
 somehow drifted into the composing-room of the once 
 famous paper, The Golden Era, he naturally began 
 to contribute to its columns. The Goldeoi Era was 
 the cradle and the grave of many a high hope — 
 there was nothing to be compared with it 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 patronising. 
 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, first floor front, on the south side of Clay 
 Street, below Montgomery ; an air of literary mystery 
 enveloped him. He spoke as an oracle, and I re- 
 member his calling my attention to a certain anony- 
 mous contribution, just received, and nodding his 
 head prophetically, for. he already had his eye on 
 its fledgeling 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, 
 Isat at his ledger not far away — he handed me a 
 
 I 69 
 
IN LIFE'S STREAM: 
 
 folded paper on which he had written this startling 
 legend : ' Write some prose for The Golde^i Era and 
 I will give you a dollar a column.' I had not yet 
 outgrown a bad habit of verse-making, had never 
 been paid a farthing for anything I had published, 
 and the brightening prospect dazzled and confused me. 
 
 " Before Bret Harte ceased to write for The 
 Golden Era he had gained sufficient self-confidence 
 to sign his contributions ' B.' or ' Bret.' ' Mliss ' was 
 first printed in those columns, and Joe Lawrence 
 was filled with Olympian laughter when he exhibited 
 a handsome specially-designed woodcut heading, which 
 he had ordered for that charming tale. Mark Twain 
 and Prentice Mulford became known through the 
 columns of The Golden Era. Joaquin Miller wrote 
 for it from the backwood depths of his youthful 
 obscurity." 
 
 But during those early days of authorship Bret 
 Harte did more than this. He fell in love and got 
 married. The lady was Miss Anna Griswold, and in 
 the days of his courtship he was wont, in humorous 
 fashion, to drop into poetry, as witness the following : 
 
 SERENADE 
 
 {^Adapted to the latitude of San, Francisco). 
 
 " O list, lady, list ! while thy lover outside 
 
 Pours forth those fond accents that thrill thee ; 
 list ! both thy doors and thy windows beside 
 
 For fear that some thorough draught chill thee. 
 The ' sweet summer morn's ' hanging low in the sky, 
 
 And the fog's drifting wildly around me ; 
 There is damp in my throat, there is sand in my eye, 
 And my old friend Neuralgia has found me. 
 70 
 
'SWIMMING " 
 
 O list, lady, list ! ere this thin searching mist 
 
 Subdues all my amorous frenzy ; 
 The Pleiads' ' soft influence ' here is, I wist, 
 
 Replaced by the harsh influenza ; 
 And now, lady sweet, I must bid thee ' good-night,' 
 
 A night that would quench Hymen's torch, love, 
 For a lute by the fire is much more polite. 
 
 Than a song and catarrh in the porch, love." 
 
 The marriage took place at San E-afael, on August 
 nth, 1862, the officiating minister being the Rev. 
 Harry Gilbert of the Methodist Church. 
 
 Following his usual plan, Bret Harte, notwith- 
 standing the encouragement that had been given him 
 by the editor of The Golden Era, did not mean to 
 depend only on his pen. When he first met his 
 wife he was in the General Surveyor's Office of San 
 Francisco, and later he was to receive a more im- 
 portant appointment. No doubt it was the know- 
 ledge that he had these second strings to his bow 
 that made him feel justified in marrying. 
 
 In those first boyish impressions of California to 
 which I have alluded in these pages he said : "I 
 recall another incident connected with the building ^ 
 equally characteristic of the period. The United 
 States Branch Mint stood very near it, and its tall, 
 factory-like chimneys overshadowed my cousin's roof. 
 Some scandal had arisen from an illegal leakage of 
 gold in the manipulation of that metal during the 
 various processes of smelting and refining. One of 
 the excuses offered was the volatilisation of the 
 
 1 His relative's semi-restaurant home. 
 71 
 
IN LIFE'S STREAM: 
 
 precious metal and its escape through the draft of 
 
 the tall chimneys. All San Francisco laughed at this 
 
 explanation until it learned that a corroboration of 
 
 the theory had been established by an assay of the 
 
 dust and grime of the roofs in the vicinity of the 
 
 Mint, These had yielded distinct traces of gold. 
 
 San Francisco stopped laughing, and that portion of 
 
 it which had roofs in the neighbourhood at once began 
 
 prospecting. Claims were staked out on these airy 
 
 placers (diggings), and my cousin's roof being the very 
 
 next one to the chimney, and presumably ' in the 
 
 lead,' was disposed of to a speculative company for a 
 
 considerable sum. I remember my cousin telling me 
 
 the story — for the occurrence was quite recent — and 
 
 taking me with him to the roof to explain it, but I 
 
 am afraid I was more attracted by the mystery of 
 
 the closely-guarded building and the strangely-tinted 
 
 smoke which arose from this temple where money was 
 
 actually being ' made ' than by anything else. Nor did 
 
 I dream as I stood there — a very lanky, open-mouthed 
 
 youth — that only three or four years later I should be 
 
 the secretary of its superintendent. In my more 
 
 adventurous ambition I am afraid I would have 
 
 accepted the suggestion half-heartedly. Merely to 
 
 have helped to stamp the gold which other people 
 
 had adventurously found was by no means a part of 
 
 my youthful dreams." 
 
 In the more sedate days of his early married life 
 
 he took to his secretarial duties very contentedly, 
 
 and, happily, did not find them too exacting. Mr. 
 
 Swain, the Superintendent of the Mint, liked him, 
 
 72 
 
"SWIMMING" 
 
 and, being interested in his literary achievements, 
 allowed him as much leisure as possible. Bret Harte 
 did not resign his appointment at the Mint until some 
 change of Government caused Mr. Swain to make 
 way for another superintendent. The tasks allotted 
 to the young secretary were always carefully per- 
 formed ; but in every moment he could call his own 
 he let his fancy run freely, and diligently wrought at 
 his poems and stories. 
 
 On 28th May 1864, Mr. Stoddart tells me, the 
 first number of The Californian was issued by Charles 
 Henry Webb, its editor and proprietor. This was 
 the famous weekly of which Mr. W. D. Howells, in 
 an article on Mark Twain, has said : — 
 
 " I think Mr. Clemens (Mark Twain) has not 
 mentioned his association with that extraordinary 
 group of wits and poets, of whom Mr. Bret Harte, 
 Mr. Charles Warren Stoddard, Mr. Charles Henry 
 Webb, and Mr. Prentice Mulford were, with himself, 
 the most conspicuous. These ingenuous young men, 
 with the fatuity of gifted people, had established 
 a literary newspaper in San Francisco, and they 
 brilliantly co-operated to its early extinction." 
 
 Mr. Stoddard, it should be mentioned, published 
 the first book of genuine poetry in California. 
 
 Bret Harte has himself told the story of how in 
 his " Mint " days he first met his famous brother 
 humorist, " Mark Twain." His friend and journal- 
 istic colleague, Mr. George Barnes, called upon him 
 to introduce a young man whose appearance was 
 decidedly impressive. " His head," he wrote, " was 
 
 73 
 
IN LIFE'S STREAM: 
 
 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 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 news- 
 papers contributed over the signature of ' Mark 
 Twain.' We talked on different topics, and about a 
 month afterwards Clemens dropped in upon me again. 
 He had been away in the mining districts on some 
 newspaper assignment in the meantime. In the 
 course of conversation he remarked that the unearthly 
 laziness that prevailed in the town he had been visit- 
 ing was beyond anything in his previous experience. 
 He said the men did nothing all day long but sit 
 around the bar-room stove, spit, and ' swop lies.' He 
 spoke in a slow, rather satirical drawl, which was in 
 itself irresistible. He went on to tell one of those 
 extravagant stories, and half unconsciously dropped 
 into the lazy tone and manner of the original nar- 
 rator. I asked him to tell it again to a friend who 
 came in, and then asked him to write it out for The 
 Californian. He did so, and when published it was 
 an emphatic success. It was the first work of his 
 that had attracted general attention, and it crossed 
 the Sierras for an Eastern reading. The story was 
 ^ The Jumping Frog of Calaveras.' It is now known 
 and laughed over, I suppose, wherever the English 
 
 74 
 
^SWIMMING" 
 
 language is spoken ; but it will never be as funny 
 to any one in print as it was to me, told for the first 
 time by the unknown Twain himself on that morning 
 in the San Francisco Mint." 
 
 It was, no doubt, through this introduction that 
 Mark Twain became a welcome contributor not only 
 to The Californian but to The Golden Era. One 
 scrap of characteristic art criticism from his pen that 
 appeared in the columns of the last-named journal 
 has been preserved. It deals with a famous picture, 
 " Samson and Delilah," then being exhibited in San 
 Francisco, and it runs as follows : " Now what is the 
 first thing you see in looking at this picture down 
 at the Bank Exchange ? Is it the gleaming eye and 
 fine face of Samson ? or the muscular Philistine gazing 
 furtively at the lovely Delilah ? or is it the rich 
 drapery ? or is it the truth to nature in that pretty 
 foot ? No, sir. The first thing that catches the 
 eye is the scissors on the floor at her feet. Them/ 
 scissors is too modern ; thar warn't no scissors like 
 them in them days — by a d — d sight." 
 
 Mr. Stoddard informs me that the first article 
 that appeared in The Californian was " Neighbour--'^ 
 hoods I have Moved From, by a Hypochondriac. No. 
 One." It was followed by " The Ballad of the Emeu." 
 Each is Bret Harte's ; both are unsigned ; but they 
 are acknowledged to-day in his collected works. The 
 " Condensed Novels," which he began in The Golden 
 Era, were continued in The Californian. To that 
 highly interesting periodical he contributed many 
 poems, grave and gay, sketches, essays, editorials, 
 
 75 
 
IN LIFE'S STREAM: 
 
 and book reviews ; some of the latter were clever bits 
 of verse. Occasionally one finds the name " Francis 
 Bret Harte," or perhaps " Bret," or only " H." at- 
 tached to a piece of prose or verse ; many of his 
 contributions are unsigned, and much of the admir- 
 able work he did then is now of no avail on account 
 of its purely local and ephemeral character. 
 
 While he was on terms of close intimacy with his 
 literary comrades, Bret Harte was making other 
 friends. He had attracted the attention of Mrs. 
 General Fremont — the wife of " The Pathfinder " — 
 who introduced him to Thomas Starr King, an emi- 
 nent man of letters and a famous Unitarian preacher, 
 who also saw and predicted the brilliant future that 
 lay before the eager but anxious young man. These 
 became his warm friends, advisers, and encouragers, 
 and it was under King's presidency that his soul- 
 stirring poem, " The Beveille," was, while the great 
 Civil War was raging, recited in public. 
 
 Every admirer of Bret Harte knows the lilt of 
 the wonderful lines, commencing with : — 
 
 " Hark ! I hear the tramp of thousands, 
 And of armed men the hum ; 
 Lo ! a nation's hosts have gathered 
 Round the quick alarming drum — 
 Saying, ' Come, 
 Freemen, come ! 
 Ere your heritage be wasted,' said the 
 quick alarming drum ; " 
 
 knows how the hearts of the hesitating and even the 
 
 76 
 
"SWIMMING" 
 
 recreant are probed until the verses wind up with 
 the grand peroration : — 
 
 " Thus they answered, hoping, fearing, 
 Some in faith, and doubting some, 
 Till a trumpet-voice proclaiming, 
 Said, ' My chosen people, come ! ' 
 
 Then the drum, Q^^J^^ 
 
 Lo ! was dumb, 
 For the great heart of the nation, throbbing, 
 answered, ' Lord, we come ! ' " 
 
 These noble lines have aroused enthusiasm in 
 thousands of readers, and I was amazed when their 
 author told me that at their first public recitation, 
 to his intense disappointment, they seemed to make 
 little or no impression. Happily he lived to know 
 how they lived, and were likely to live, as long as 
 poetry is understood and appreciated. 
 
 Under the influence of Thomas Starr King he be- 
 came a Unitarian, but in later years, I think, he was 
 content to worship God through His works. But 
 though in matters of religion he held his own broad- 
 minded views, he never wanted to argue or find fault 
 with those who cherished more orthodox opinions. He 
 hated anything like cant or narrow-mindedness, but 
 while he marvelled at some of the creeds professed by 
 others, I never heard him speak slightingly of any one 
 of them, and he strongly maintained that if they 
 helped men and women to lead upright and useful 
 lives they one and all did glorious work. The only 
 thing he disliked about religion was the interference 
 
 77 
 
IN LIFE'S STREAM: 
 
 of busybodies with their friends' and neighbours 
 A views. Over this he could grow very angry. 
 
 He was a believer in science, but he held with 
 Herbert Spencer that " so far from science being 
 irreligious as many think, it is the neglect of science 
 that is irreligious — it is the refusal to study surround- 
 ing creation that is irreligious." 
 
 When Thomas Starr King died Bret Harte paid 
 more than one tribute to his memory. Witness the 
 beautiful little poem : — 
 
 KELIEVING GUARD. 
 
 T.S.K. OUit March 4fh, 1864. 
 
 " Came the relief, 'What, sentry, ho ! 
 
 How passed the night through thy long waking ? ' 
 ' Cold, cheerless, dark, as may befit 
 
 The hour before the dawn is breaking.' 
 
 ' No sight ? No sound ? ' * No ; nothing save 
 
 The plover from the marshes calling, 
 And in yon western sky, about 
 
 An hour ago, a star was falling.' 
 
 ' A star ? There's nothing strange in that,' 
 
 ' No, nothing ; but above the thicket, 
 Somehow it seemed to me that God 
 
 Somewhere had just relieved a picket,' " 
 
 His second son was named after his dead but 
 never-forgotten friend. Francis King Harte, to whom 
 I am indebted for much friendly help in the compila- 
 tion of these pages, was born at San Francisco on 
 March 5th, 1865, 
 
 In 1865 Bret Harte's first volume of verse appeared. 
 
 78 
 
-SWIMMING" 
 
 It bore the title of " The Lost Galleon " — a beautifully- 
 conceived and perfectly-executed poem, but it also 
 contained various contributions to the lyrics of the 
 Civil War, and some humorous pieces destined to 
 become world-famous. Writing of him at this period, 
 his old colleague, Mr. Noah Brooks, has said : " Harte 
 always manifested in his work that fastidiousness in 
 choice of words which has characterised him ever since. 
 It was humorously complained of him that he filled 
 the newspaper office wastepaper baskets with his self- 
 rejected manuscripts and produced next to nothing for 
 the printer. Once, assigned to the task of writing 
 an obituary article that was not to exceed ' two stick- 
 fuls' in length, he actually filled the wastepaper 
 basket with fragments of ' copy ' which he tore up 
 before he produced the requisite amount of matter. 
 Going into my own editorial room early one forenoon, 
 I found Harte at my desk writing a little note to 
 make an appointment with me to dine together 
 later in the day. Seeing me he started up with the 
 remark that my early arrival at the office would 
 obviate the necessity of his finishing the note which 
 he was writing, and which he tore up as he spoke. 
 When, this little matter settled, Harte had gone out, 
 crumbling in his hands the fragments of the unfinished 
 note, I chanced to look into the wastepaper basket, 
 and saw a litter of paper carrying Harte's familiar 
 handwriting, and turning over the basket w^ith quiet 
 amusement, I discovered that he had left there 
 the rejected manuscript of no less than three sum- 
 monses, which any other man would have disposed of 
 
 79 
 
IN LIFE'S STREAM: 
 
 in something like this order : ' Dear Brooks, — We 
 will dine together at Louis Dingeon's at 6.30 p.m. 
 to-night.' " 
 
 Mr. Densmore, a colleague of Bret Harte's on the 
 literary staff of Tlie Golden Era, has said : " While I 
 was writing column after column, Bret Harte would be 
 sitting looking at his desk. And finally he would 
 evolve a paragraph, but that paragraph would be 
 worth everything else in the paper." 
 
 This extreme care in authorship characterised him 
 throughout his life. How often have I seen him, 
 paper before him and pen in hand, " looking at his 
 desk," sometimes at the very desk on which I now 
 write these lines, and then after long periods of 
 apparent abstraction, the thoughts would be knitted 
 together, and the pen begin to flow. 
 
 Since Bret Harte's death, Mr. Noah Brooks has 
 added to these early-day recollections of his friend. 
 
 " Scores of writers," he says, " have become known 
 
 to me in the course of a long life, but I have never 
 
 known another so fastidious and so laborious as Bret 
 
 Harte. His writing materials, the light and heat, and 
 
 even the adjustment of the furniture of the writing 
 
 room, must be as he desired, otherwise he could not 
 
 get on with his work. Even when his environment 
 
 was all that he could wish, there were times when the 
 
 divine afflatus would not come and the day's work 
 
 must be abandoned. My editorial rooms in San 
 
 Francisco were not far from his secluded den, and 
 
 often, if he opened my door late in the afternoon, with 
 
 a peculiar cloud on his face, I knew that he had come 
 
 80 
 
"SWIMMING" 
 
 to wait for me to go to dinner with him, having 
 given up the impossible task of writing when the 
 mood was not on him. 'It's no use, Brooks,' he 
 would say. ' Everything goes wrong ; I cannot write 
 a Ime. Let's have an early dinner at Martini's.' 
 As soon as I was ready we would go merrily off to 
 dine together, and, having recovered his equanimity, 
 he would stick to his desk through the later hours of 
 the night, slowly forging those masterpieces which 
 cost him so dearly." 
 
 So curiously at variance with the rough life that 
 he had been leading were these suddenly acquired 
 niceties of taste that they might appear incredible. 
 But they always remained with him, and many of his 
 later friends must have marvelled, as I have done, to 
 hear a man whose one idea of life was the quintes- 
 sence of refinement, relate the rough adventures, and 
 the almost squalid surroundings of his youthful Cali- 
 fornian days. He had undergone far coarser expe- 
 riences than he ever put into his stories, or than I can 
 relate here. 
 
 Speaking of him at this period, another famous 
 American writer, Joaquin Miller, says : " On reaching 
 San Francisco, I went at once to Stoddard, and he 
 took me to Harte. I found a spare, slim young man, 
 m a chip hat and a summer dress of the neatest and 
 •lattiest cut, who took me cordially into his confidence 
 it once. I Hked his low voice, his quiet, earnest, and 
 anafiected manner from the first. He had neat edi- 
 torial rooms, where he made me welcome, although he 
 *vas then engaged as Secretary in the Mint. ... I 
 
IN LIFE'S STREAM: 
 
 think he was the cleanest man I ever met. He was 
 always as clean, modest, and graceful of speech as a 
 girl." 
 
 And this was the man who had but recently 
 laboured and camped out with the gold-diggers, 
 undergone the perils of the stage expressman, and 
 begrimed himself with slumguUion and printer's ink ! 
 Joaquin Miller summed up his new acquaintance well. 
 The keen sense and love of delicacy that he at once 
 detected was inherent in the character of Bret Harte. 
 
 In July 1868, when The Overland Monthly was 
 founded, Bret Harte became its editor. Concerning 
 this appointment Mr. E-ounsevelle Wildman, the editor 
 of The Overland Monthly, New Series, has written : 
 " When Anton Boman made up his mind to establish 
 a monthly magazine in connection with his publishing 
 and bookselling business, he did so with the advice of 
 Noah Brooks, Charles Warren Stoddard, B. B. Bedding, 
 W. C. Bartlett, and others, for most of whom he had 
 already published books. When the question of a 
 suitable editor arose Stoddard recommended Bret 
 Harte, then an almost unknown writer on The Golden 
 Era, at that time a popular weekly. Bret Harte 
 accepted, with some misgivings as to financial matters, 
 but was reassured when Boman showed him pledges of ; 
 support by advertising patronage up to nine hundred 
 dollars a month, which he had secured in advance." 
 
 The embryo editor was also assured that his old 
 
 literary colleagues would " turn in and help him." 
 
 Thus encouraged he set to work, and in due course 
 
 the first number appeared. It was plainly and unos- 
 
 82 
 
Only Magazine Published 
 
 on the Pacilic Coast 
 
 'T ALL NE'WSDEALERS 
 
 ^5 Cents a Co/>y 
 $J00 a Year 
 
 HOLIDAY NUMBER 
 
 Overland 
 Monthly 
 
 DECEMBER, 1896 
 
 Overland Moiulily Puhlishiug Compauy 
 
 SAN FRANCISCO 
 
 The Bear ou the Tlnihrdij Ti-iicl:.''' I'hc sipnhol (Icsifpicd lii/ lliet Ihiiie 
 for tin' first jiunihrr nf tlic '' Orerlaiui Slontlily." He described the 
 shetcli on the left as "The Original ! " ^' None othera are (fenuine ! " 
 Tlxit on the riijlit as " Later variation, after B. H. left the editor- 
 ship." The sijinhol is still used, and " llie Original " retains its 
 flace. 
 
 [To face p. 8'2. 
 
"SWIMMING" 
 
 tentatiously got up in a neat drab cover, bearing the 
 title— 
 
 THE OVERLAND MONTHLY 
 
 DEVOTED TO 
 
 THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE COUNTRY, 
 
 and bore for its emblem a small vignette of a bear 
 crossing a railway track. This design was the work 
 of Bret Harte, and was intended to show how the 
 "grizzly" [Ursus horribilis), so long the undisturbed 
 monarch of the woods and canons, was at last face to 
 face with the ubiquitous engineer. 
 
 Bret Harte was rather proud of this symbol, and 
 had it engraved on his seal. Showing it to me one 
 day, he said : " You see the bear is shown standing 
 on the track apparently arrested by the approach of 
 the (invisible) train, and rather resenting it. He is, 
 however, rather ' at gaze ' than ' at bay.' That was 
 my idea, the beginning of the conflict between bar- 
 barian and civilisation." 
 
 He had had his own alarming adventures with the 
 " grizzly," but he always spoke of him with a sort of 
 pitying contempt, and I verily believe he entertained 
 some affection for the strange animal so wonderfully 
 described in his lines — 
 
 " Coward of heroic size, 
 In whose lazy muscle lies 
 Strength we fear and yet despise ; 
 Savage — whose relentless tusks 
 Are content with acorn husks ; 
 Robber — whose exploits ne'er soared 
 O'er the bee or squirrel's hoard ; 
 
 83 
 
IN LIFE'S STREAM: 
 
 Whiskered chin and feeble nose, 
 Claws of steel on baby toes — 
 Here in solitude and shade, 
 Shambling, shuffling, plantigrade, 
 Be thy courses undismayed. 
 
 Here, where Nature makes thy bed. 
 Let thy rude half-human tread 
 Point to hidden Indian springs 
 Lost in ferns and fragrant grasses. 
 Hovered o'er by timid wings. 
 Where the wood-duck lightly passes, 
 Where the wild bee holds her sweets. 
 Epicurean retreats, 
 Fit for thee and better than 
 Fearful spoils of dangerous man. 
 
 In thy fat-jowled deviltry 
 Fiiar Tuck shall live with thee ; 
 Thou may'st levy tithe and dole ; 
 Thou shalt spread the woodland cheer. 
 From the pilgrim taking toll ; 
 Match thy cunning with his fear ; 
 Eat and drink, and have thy fill. 
 Yet remain an outlaw still." 
 
 But to return to The Overland Monthly. At the 
 onset there were not many writers of fiction on the 
 staff, and Bret Harte and Mr. Noah Brooks agreed 
 that they would each write a short story for the first 
 number of the new magazine. They had four months 
 to prepare for the great event, but the first issue of 
 The Overland (July 1868) had only one story in its 
 contents, and that was by Mr. Brooks. Bret Harte, 
 with many sighs and groans, confessed that he had 
 been unable to finish the first short story ("Mliss" 
 
 84 
 
 ' 
 
"SWIMMING " 
 
 had been a comparatively long one, and, I think, when 
 it was reprinted abbreviations were made in it) that 
 he had ever undertaken in his life. But he had com- 
 posed a charming — if daring — little poem for the initial 
 number. It was entitled " San Francisco from the 
 Sea," and from it I may quote the following lines : — 
 
 " Serene, indifferent of Fate, 
 Thou sittest at the Western Gate ; 
 
 Upon thy height, so lately won, 
 Still slant the banners of the sun ; 
 
 Thou seest the white seas strike their tents 
 O Warder of two Continents ! 
 
 Oh, lion's whelp, that hidest fast 
 In jungle growth of spiie and mast ! 
 
 I know thy cunning and thy greed. 
 Thy hard high lust and wilful deed. 
 
 And all thy glory has to tell 
 Of specious gifts material. 
 
 Drop down, O Fleecy Fog, and hide 
 Her sceptic sneer and all her pride ! 
 
 Wrap her, O Fog, in gown and hood 
 Of her Franciscan Brotherhood. 
 
 Hide me her faidts, lior sin and blame ; 
 With thy grey mantle cloak her shame ! 
 
 So shall she, cowled, sit and pray 
 Till morning bears her sins away. 
 
 85 
 
IN LIFE'S STREAM 
 
 Then rise, Fleecy Fog, and raise 
 The glory of her coming days ; 
 
 When Art shall raise and Culture lift 
 The sensual joys and meaner thrift, 
 
 And all fulfilled the vision we 
 
 Who watch and wait shall never see, 
 
 Who in the morning of hei' race, 
 Toiled fair or meanly in our place, 
 
 But yielding to the common lot, 
 Lie unrecorded and forgot." 
 
 Considering that when Bret Harte penned these 
 ringing and somewhat scathing couplets he was Hving 
 in San Francisco, it was bold to speak so fearlessly of 
 his environment. He was soon to learn that he, at 
 least, was not to " lie unrecorded and forgot." 
 
 His first short story, when it did appear, in the 
 X second number of the Overland Monthly (August 1868), 
 created a sensation. It was " The Luck of Roaring/^ 
 Camp." A copy of the magazine containing it, and 
 always cherished by the author, is before me as I 
 write these lines. The story only occupies a few of 
 its pages, and it is unheralded and unsigned, but it 
 moved the reading world in no uncertain way. 
 
 Bret Harte had told his intimate friends that it was 
 
 his ambition to become the founder of a characteristic 
 
 Western literature, and he confessed in later years 
 
 to a very early half-boyish, but always enthusiastic, 
 
 belief in such a thing being possible, a belief that 
 
 never deserted him until he convinced the world that 
 
 86 
 
 I 
 
"SWIMMING' 
 
 it had become a reality. But he had to reckon with 
 fearful odds. Prophets are not in their own country 
 received with open arms, and the Californians in 
 those days were inclined to pin their faith in Eastern 
 writers. " The illustrated and satirical journals," he 
 afterwards declared, " were as frequently seen in 
 California as in Massachusetts, and he had often 
 experienced more difficulty in procuring a copy of our 
 English Punch in a British provincial town than at 
 4 ' Bed Dog' or ' One Horse Gulch.' " It was, he 
 thought, because " Home " was still potent with these 
 voluntary exiles in their moments of relaxation, and 
 it was for this reason he had to fight against the 
 firmly riveted armour of the demon of prejudice. 
 
 In " The Luck of Bearing Camp " he well and 
 truly laid the foundation-stone of his fame ; it was 
 the turning-point of his career, but, like most turning- 
 points, it presented many difficulties. Here he shall 
 speak for himself: — 
 
 " When the first number of The Overland Monthly 
 
 appeared," he wrote, " the author, then its editor, 
 
 called the publisher's attention to the lack of any 
 
 distinctive Californian romance in its pages, and 
 
 averred that, should no other contribution come in, 
 
 he himself would supply the omission in the next 
 
 I number. No other contribution was offered, and the 
 
 I author, having the plot and general idea already in 
 
 I his mind, in a few days sent the manuscript of ' The 
 
 Luck of Boaring Camp ' to the printer. He had not 
 
 yet received the proof sheets when he was suddenly 
 
 summoned to the office of the publisher, whom he 
 
 87 
 
IN LIFE'S STREAM : 
 
 found standing the picture of dismay and anxiety, 
 with the proof before him. The indignation and 
 stupefaction of the author can be well understood 
 when he was told that the printer, instead of return- 
 ing the proofs to him, submitted them to the 
 publisher, with the emphatic declaration that the 
 jikUiatter thereof was so indecent, irreligious, and 
 improper, that his proof-reader — a young lady — had 
 with difficulty been induced to continue its perusal, 
 and that he, as a friend of the publisher, and a well- 
 wisher of the magazine, was impelled to present to 
 him personally this shameless evidence of the manner 
 in which the editor was imperilling the future of that 
 enterprise. It should be premised that the critic was 
 a man of character and standing, the head of a large 
 printing establishment, a church member, and, the 
 author thinks, a deacon. In which circumstances the 
 publisher frankly admitted to the author that, while 
 he could not agree with all the printer's criticisms, he 
 thought the story open to grave objection, and its 
 publication of doubtful exjDediency." 
 
 I wonder if at that irritating moment Bret Harte's 
 mind wandered wistfully back to one of those primi- 
 tive Californian newspaper offices which he knew and 
 ) described so well, where " the little wooden building 
 ( had invaded Nature without subduing it. It was 
 / filled night and day with the murmur of pines and 
 j their fragrance. Squirrels scampered over its roof 
 (, when it was not preoccupied by woodpeckers, and a 
 printer's devil had once seen a nest-building jay enter 
 the composing window, flutter before one of the slant- 
 
SWIMMING" 
 
 ing type cases with an air of deliberate selection, and 
 then fly off with a vowel in its bill." 
 
 Truly then the editor was monarch of all he 
 surveyed. 
 
 Of the totally unexpected and exasperating San 
 Francisco incident his narrative continues as follows : — 
 " Believing only that he was the victim of some 
 extraordinary typographical blu^ider, the author at 
 once sat down and read the proof In its new dress, 
 with the metamorphosis of type — that metamorphosis 
 which every author so well knows changes his relation 
 to it and makes it no longer seem a part of himself — 
 he was able to read it with something of the fresh- 
 ness of an untold tale. As he read on he found 
 himself affected even as he had been affected 
 in the conception and writing of it — a feeling 
 so incompatible with the charges against it that he 
 I could only lay it down and declare emphatically, 
 j albeit hopelessly, that he could really see nothing 
 I objectionable in it. Other opinions were sought and 
 '; given. To the author's surprise, he found himself in 
 I the minority. Finally the story was submitted to 
 three gentlemen of culture and experience, friends of ^ 
 publisher and author, who were unable, however, to 
 >come to any clear decision. It was, however, sug- 
 .1 gested to the author that, assuming the natural 
 hypothesis that his editorial reasoning might be 
 warped by his literary predilections in a consideration 
 » of one of his own productions, a personal sacrifice 
 would at this juncture be in the last degree heroic. 
 This last suggestion had the effect of ending all 
 
 89 
 
IN LIFE'S STREAM: 
 
 further discussion ; for he at once informed the 
 pubUsher that the question of the propriety of the 
 story was no longer at issue ; the only question was of 
 his capacity to exercise the proper editorial judgment ; 
 and that unless he was permitted to test that capacity 
 by the publication of the story, and abide squarely by 
 the result, he must resign his QHifcrlal position. The 
 publisher, possibly stiuYjc' svfth the author's confidence, 
 possibly from kindli.i'dss of disposition to a younger 
 man, yielded, and ' The Luck of Roaring Camp ' was 
 published in the current number of the magazine for 
 which it was written, as it was written, without 
 emendation, omission, alteration, or apology. A no in- 
 considerable part of the grotesqueness of the situation 
 was the feeling, which the author retained through- 
 out the whole affair, of the perfect sincerity, good 
 faith, and seriousness of his friend's — the printer's — 
 objection, and for many days thereafter he was haunted 
 by a consideration of the sufferings of this conscientious 
 man, obliged to assist materially in disseminating the 
 dangerous and subversive doctrines contained in this 
 baleful fiction. What solemn protests must have been 
 laid with the ink on the rollers and impressed upon 
 those wicked sheets ! what pious warnings must have 
 been secretly folded and stitched in that number of 
 The Overland Monthly ! Across the chasm of years 
 and distance the author stretches forth the hand of 
 forgiveness, not forgetting the gentle proof-reader, 
 that chaste and unknown nymph whose mantling 
 cheeks and downcast eyes gave the first indications 
 
 of warning." 
 
 90 
 
"SWIMMING" 
 
 Mr. Noah Brooks has recorded this curious episode 
 as follows : — 
 
 " Perhaps I may be pardoned," he says, " for a 
 brief reference to an odd complication that arose 
 while ' The Luck of Boaring Camp ' was being put 
 into type in the printing office where The Overland 
 Monthly was prepared for publication. A young 
 lady who served as proof-reader in the establishment 
 had been somewhat shocked by the scant morals of 
 the mother of the Luck, and when she came to the 
 scene where Kentuck, after reverently fondling the 
 infant, said ' he wrastled with my finger, the d — d 
 little cuss,' the indignant proof-reader was ready to 
 throw up her engagement rather than go any further 
 with a story so wicked and immoral ! There was 
 consternation throughout the establishment, and the 
 head of the concern went to the office of the publisher 
 with the virginal proof-reader's protest. Unluckily 
 Mr. Boman was absent from the city. Harte, when 
 notified of the obstacle raised in the way of ' The 
 Luck of Boaring Camp,' manfully insisted that the 
 story must be printed as he wrote it, or not at all. 
 Mr. Boman's locum tenens in despair brought the 
 objectionable manuscript around to my office and 
 asked my advice. When I had read the sentence 
 that had caused all this turmoil, having first listened 
 to the tale of the much-bothered temporary publisher, 
 I surprised him by a burst of laughter. It seemed 
 to me incredible that such a tempest in a teacup 
 could have been raised by Harte's bit of character 
 sketching. But, recovering my gravity, I advised 
 
 91 
 
IN LIFE'S STREAM: 
 
 that the whole question should await Mr. Roman's 
 return. I was sure that he would never consent to 
 any ' editing ' of Harte's story. This was agreed to, 
 and when the publisher came back a few days later, 
 the embargo was removed. ' The Luck of E-oaring 
 Camp' was printed as it was written, and printing 
 office and vestal proof-reader survived the shock." 
 
 It is amazing to think that, but for the deter- 
 mination and self-confidence of the young author, a 
 Astory that has gladdened and softened the hearts of 
 thousands — a story that has drawn welcome smiles- 
 and purifying tears from all who can appreciate its , 
 deftly mingled humour and pathos — a story that 
 has been a boon to humanity — might have been sacri- \ 
 ficed to the shallow ruling of a prudish young lady / 
 proof-reader and a narrow-minded printer. -^ 
 
 Bret Harte's faith in his story had no doubt been 
 strengthened by the impression it made on his wife. 
 When, before handing it to the printer, he read it to 
 >her she shed tears. I believe she wept again when 
 she heard there was a possibility of its not being 
 published. 
 
 But though successfully launched, " The Luck of 
 Boaring Camp " did not at first have plain sailing. 
 By the local press the story was received coolly, and 
 the "religious" journals raged against it in a way 
 that must have rejoiced the heart of its fair proof- 
 reader. It was even said that the popularity gained 
 by the first number of The Overland Monthly was 
 ruined by this outrageous publication in its second. 
 
 Bret Harte has himself recorded how " Christians 
 
 92 
 
 V 
 
"SWIMMING" 
 
 were cautioned against pollution by its contact ; 
 practical business men were gravely urged to con- 
 demn and frown upon this picture of Californian 
 society that was not conducive to Eastern immigra- 
 tion ; its hapless author was held up to obloquy as 
 a man who had abused a sacred trust. If its life and ^■ 
 reputation had depended on its reception in California, 
 this explanation would have been needless. But, 
 fortunately, the young Overland Monthly had in 
 its first number secured a hearing and position 
 throughout the American Union, and the author 
 waited the larger verdict. The publisher, albeit his 
 worst fears were confirmed, was not a man to weakly 
 regret a position he had once taken, and waited also. 
 The return mail from the East brought a letter 
 addressed to the ' Editor of The Overland Monthly^ 
 enclosing a letter from Fields, Osgood & Co,, the 
 publishers of The Atlantic Monthly, addressed to 
 the — to them — unknown author of ' The Luck of 
 Roaring Camp.' This the author opened, and found 
 to be a request, upon the most flattering terms, for a 
 
 ^ story for the Atlantic similar to the ' Luck,' The 
 same mail brought newspapers and reviews welcoming 
 the little foundling of Californian literature with an 
 enthusiasm that half frightened its author ; but with 
 the placing of that letter in the hands of the publisher, 
 who chanced to be standing by his side, and who 
 
 I during those dark days had, without the author's 
 
 \ faith, sustained the author's position, he felt that his 
 
 I compensation was full and complete." 
 
 " Thus encouraged," he continues, " ' The Luck of 
 
 93 
 
IN LIFE'S STREAM: 
 
 Roaring Camp ' was followed by ' The Outcasts of 
 ^^Poker Flat,' ' Higgles,' ' Tennessee's Partner,' and 
 those various other characters who had impressed the 
 author when, a mere truant schoolboy, he had lived 
 among them. It is hardly necessary to say to any 
 observer of human nature that at this time he was 
 advised by kind and well-meaning friends to content 
 himself with the success of the ' Luck,' and not tempt 
 criticism again ; or that from that moment ever after 
 he was in receipt of that equally sincere contem- 
 poraneous criticism which assured him gravely that 
 each successive story was a falling off from the last. 
 Howbeit, by reinvigorated confidence in himself and 
 some conscientious industry, he managed to get 
 together in a year six or eight of these sketches, 
 which in a volume called ' The Luck of Roaring 
 Camp, and other Sketches,' gave him that encourage- 
 ment in America and England that has since seemed | 
 to justify him in swelling these records of a pic- i 
 turesque passing civilisation." | 
 
 Few of Bret Harte's stories have been more popular | 
 ^than " Tennessee's Partner," and like most of them it j 
 was founded on absolute fact. For years and years a I 
 close friendship had existed between two Californian i 
 settlers named Chaffee and Chaniberlain. They lived j 
 their simple lives under the same primitive roof-tree — ■ 
 sharing a common purse, and never having a dispute, i 
 Upon their lives, and no doubt with a beneficial amount i 
 of added fancy, the author based his pathetic tale. | 
 In the story Chaffee became the simple but true- 
 minded partner who loved Tennessee to the death. 
 
 94 ': 
 
"SWIMMING" 
 
 Though Tennessee stole his wedded wife, the partner, 
 who always bore the relative name, forgave him, and 
 unsuccessfully endeavoured to ransom him at the cost 
 of all his worldly possessions from the clutches of 
 Judge Lynch. Then, when all was over, the mourn- 
 ing partner, alone with his little donkey "Jinny," 
 cut down Tennessee's body, and in his rough cart and 
 a rude coffin half-filled with bark and the tassels of 
 pine, and further decorated with slips of willow and 
 made fragrant with buck-eye blossom, took his old 
 comrade away to be buried in the fern- overgrown 
 garden patch of the house he had so basely wronged. 
 
 The story has it that the foundation of " Tennessee's 
 Partner " lay in the eloquent plea that Chaffee once t 
 made for his friend's life. It saved a neck from the 
 Vigilance Committee, and turned the culprit over to 
 the powers that be ; and Chaffee's eloquence had won 
 a boon never granted before in Tuolumne County, 
 though many, many years elapsed before a little silver- 
 haired old man was told that he and his devotion to 
 his partner had been used to point a moral and adorn 
 a tale. 
 
 As related and embellished by Bret Harte, the 
 story is indeed a moving one, and it has served more 
 than one useful purpose. 
 
 In her charming book, " Life on the Stage," Clara ( 
 
 Morris, the famous American actress, has written : — ( 
 
 r "I had made my hit with the public by moving 
 
 the people's feelings to the point of tears ; but to do^ 
 
 I that I had first to move my own heart, for, try as 1) 
 
 'would, no amount of careful acting had the desired 
 
 95 
 
IN LIFE'S STREAM: 
 
 effect. / had to shed tears, or they would not. Now 
 that is not an easy thing to do to order, in cold blood. 
 While the play is new one's nerves are strained al- 
 most to the breaking point — one is over-sensitive and 
 the feelings are easily moved ; then the pathetic words 
 I am speaking touch my heart, tears rush to my eyes, 
 tears are heard in my voice, and other hearts respond 
 swiftly ; but when you have calmed down, when you 
 have repeated the lines so often that they no longer 
 mean anything to you, what are you to do then 1 " 
 
 Then she records how she overcame her difficulty 
 by thinking, while she was acting, of something that 
 moved her more than the play that no longer appealed 
 to her, and says : — 
 
 " Thus in ' Alixe ' it was not for my lost lover I 
 Aoftenest wept such racing tears, but for poor old 
 Tennessee's partner as he buried his worthless dead, 
 with his honest old heart breaking before your eyes." 
 
 It was within a few weeks of poor Bret Harte's 
 death that I came across these lines, and thinking 
 they would please him I sent them to him. 
 
 In one of his last letters to me (it is dated April 1 2, 
 >I902) he wrote : — 
 
 " My dear Pemberton, — I had heard that pub- 
 lished story of Clara Morris before. I am glad it 
 touched you, for she told me it herself! She was a 
 strange, passionate, uncontrollable genius, yet in many 
 ways as simply fine as any actress I have seen." 
 
 And then he adds pathetically — 
 >»< " I am still very poorly ; everything is against 
 
 96 
 
"SWIMMING" 
 
 me — even this smileless, joyless, ' sere and yellow ' 
 spring ! I get no stimulus from it. I can scarcely 
 write a letter. The grasshopper is indeed a burden IL- 
 " Nevertheless — Yours always, 
 
 "Bret Harte." 
 
 The little story of the origin of " Tennessee's 
 Partner" proves that, some sapient critics notwith- 
 standing, its author did draw his characters from the 
 life. He was generally indifferent with regard to 
 criticism, but when he was told, as he was frequently 
 told, that his characters were merely the creation of 
 his brain he would wax indignant — or as nearly in- 
 dignant as a man of his gentle nature could be. 
 
 Appreciation of course pleased and encouraged 
 him, but save where it savoured of malice, adverse 
 criticism was with him like water on a duck's back. 
 He always put his heart into his work, and he had 
 faith in his power to tell his own stories in his own 
 way. And yet on the point to which I have alluded 
 he on more than one occasion spoke out. 
 
 " Critics," he once said, " who have taken large 
 and exhaustive views of mankind and society from 
 club windows in Pall Mall or the Fifth Avenue can 
 only accept for granted the turbulent chivalry that/- 
 thronged the streets of San Francisco in the gala 
 days of her youth, and must read the blazon of their 
 deeds like the doubtful quarterings of the shield of 
 Amadis de Gaul. The author has been frequently 
 asked if such and such incidents were real ; if he had 
 ever met such and such characters ? To this he must 
 
 97 G 
 
IN LIFE'S STREAM: 
 
 return the one answer, that in only a single instance 
 was he conscious of drawing purely from his imagina- 
 tion and fancy for a character and a logical succession 
 of incidents drawn therefrom. A few weeks after his 
 story was published he received a letter, authentically 
 signed, correcting some of the minor details of his 
 facts ! and enclosing as corroborative evidence a slip 
 from an old newspaper, wherein the main incident 
 of his supposed fanciful creation was recorded with a 
 largeness of statement that far transcended his powers 
 of imagination." 
 
 Again, with regard to his pen-and-ink life studies, 
 he wrote : " My stories are true, not only in pheno- 
 mena, but in characters. I do not pretend to say 
 that many of my characters existed exactly as they 
 are described, but I believe there is not one of them 
 that did not have a real human being as a suggesting 
 and a starting-point. Some of them, indeed, had 
 several. John Oakhurst, for instance, was drawn 
 quite closely from life. On one occasion, however, 
 when a story in which he figures was being discussed, 
 a friend of mine said, ' I know the original of Oak- 
 hurst, the man you took him from.' 
 
 "'Who?' said I. 
 
 " ' Young L .' 
 
 " I was astounded. As a matter of fact, the 
 gambler as portrayed was as good a picture, even 
 
 to the limp, of young L as of the actual original. 
 
 The two men, you see, belonged to a class which 
 had strongly marked characteristics, and were gene- 
 rally alike in dress and manner.'' 
 
 98 
 
SWIMMING' 
 
 In after life he encountered even stranger co- 
 incidences than these, being brought face to face 
 with facts in real life that almost precisely tallied 
 with fancies he had conjured up in fiction. 
 
 One of his early "Poems in Dialect" was entitled 
 " In the Tunnel," and ran as follows : — 
 
 " Didn't know Flynn — 
 Flynn of Virginia — 
 Long as he'a been yar ? 
 Look'ee here, stranger, 
 Whar liev you been ? 
 
 Here in this tunnel 
 He was my pardner, 
 That same Tom Flynn — 
 Working together, 
 In wind and weather, 
 Day out and in. 
 
 Didn't know Flynn ! 
 Well, that is queer ; 
 Why, it's a sin 
 To think of Tom Flynn ; 
 Tom with his cheer, 
 Tom without fear — 
 Stranger, look yar ! 
 
 Thar in the drift, 
 
 Back to the wall, 
 
 He held the timbers 
 
 Ready to fall ; 
 
 Then, in the darkness, 
 
 I heard him call : 
 
 ' Run for your life, Jake ! 
 
 Run for your wife's sake ! 
 
 Don't wait for me.' 
 
 99 
 
 LofC. 
 
IN LIFE'S STREAM: 
 
 And that was all 
 Heard in the din, 
 Heard of Tom Flynn— 
 Flynn of Virginia. 
 
 That's all about 
 Flynn of Virginia. 
 That lets me out. 
 Here in the damp, 
 Out of the sun, 
 That 'ar derned lamp 
 Makes my eyes run. 
 Well, there, I'm done. 
 
 Bu.t, sir, when you'll 
 Hear the next fool 
 Asking of Flynn — 
 Flynn of Virginia — 
 Just you chip in. 
 Say you knew Flynn ; 
 Say that you've been yar." 
 
 I have heard these verses described as " touching," 
 but " utterly untrue to anything that was likely 
 to happen in real life," and therefore without value. 
 " What man," said these practical critics, " would 
 in a moment of awful danger calmly make the sacrifice 
 of Tom Flynn simply because his partner had a wife ? " 
 
 Years and years after these verses were penned, 
 the following true incident was reported in the 
 American newspapers : — 
 
 " Indianapolis. — William Phelps of Eichmond, 
 Ky., and James Stansbury of this city were cleaning 
 the inside of an eight-foot upright boiler when a 
 workman turned on the steam, thinking the cock 
 was tight. It leaked, and the scalding steam poured 
 
 lOO 
 
"SWIMMING" 
 
 in on the two men. The only exit was up a ladder 
 to a manhole in the top. Both rushed to th e ladder. 
 Phelps reached it first, took one step, n.nd stopped. 
 He spra ngaside and shouted^ ' You go jwnst,^ J^mi ; 
 yiOu_m^jnuyrrisd' Stansbury dashed up the ladder, 
 and escaped with slight burns about the face and 
 legs. Though Phelps followed at his heels, his act 
 of heroism cost him his life. Both men were being 
 horribly scorched when Phelps made way for his 
 mate. By the time he had followed Stansbury up 
 the ladder, and by a supreme effort dragged his poor 
 scalded body through the manhole, he was in a hope- 
 less condition. He lived for two hours in terrible 
 agony, but did not let a groan escape him, ' It 
 was Jim's right to go first,' he said quietly ; ' he is 
 married.' " 
 
 The similarity between these simple words of a 
 dying hero, and the equally noble Flynn of Vir- 
 ginia's — 
 
 " Run for your life, Jake ! 
 Run for your wife's sake ! " 
 
 is very striking. 
 
 Here is a still more singular coincidence. 
 
 When Bret Harte wrote his famous " Condensed 
 Novels," he of course endeavoured to conceive and 
 describe his incidents from an extravagant and im- 
 possible point of view. Therein lay much of the 
 humour of his splendid parodies. 
 
 In " Selina Sedilia " he good-naturedly imitated 
 Miss M. E. Braddon and Mrs. Henry Wood in their 
 most sensational moods, and at the supreme moment 
 
 lOI 
 
IN LIFE'S STREAM: 
 
 of his travesty he pictures an absurd situation, in 
 which it is decided that an express train, conveying 
 a lady obnoxious to the interests of the unscrupulous 
 hero, ^^ must not arrive!" Accordingly a bridge over 
 which it has to pass is cut down by a " hireling " 
 (one " Burke the Slogger "), and falls into the river be- 
 neath it, " leaving a space of one hundred feet between 
 the two banks." The horrible moment is at hand. 
 "A shriek from the woods" announces the approach 
 of the doomed express. " The ground trembled. The 
 train was going with fearful rapidity. Another second 
 and it had reached the bank. Burke the Slogger 
 uttered a fiendish laugh. But the next moment the 
 train had leaped across the chasm, striking the rails 
 exactly even, and, dashing out the life of Burke the 
 Slogger, sped away to Slopperton." 
 
 When one read this in the "sixties" it seemed far 
 too ridiculous an episode for the conception of even 
 the most daring of sensational novelists. But only a 
 short time ago an incident occurred showing that the 
 velocity of a train could almost vie with the wild 
 fancy of the writer of whimsical burlesque. Witness 
 the following record : " New York, Friday. — ' A 
 Bace for Life.' — A trestle bridge on the South 
 Carolina Railroad near Shelby, 250 feet long and 75 
 feet wide, collapsed last night just as a passenger train 
 was crossing. The engine-driver feeling the bridge 
 giving way opened the throttle-valve and dashed on 
 at full speed in the hope of getting the train over 
 before the final collapse. His prompt action saved 
 
 the greater part of the train. All the cars reached 
 
 102 
 
I.-. 
 
 ,v-'- 
 
"SWIMMING" 
 
 the other side safely except one passenger car and 
 four goods waggons, which were wrecked." 
 
 Here is one more instance : — 
 
 In "Gabriel Conroy" he graphically, and with 
 his usual minute attention to detail, described the 
 bursting of a huge reservoir, the irruption of its 
 vast volume of water, and the scenes of calamity, 
 peril, and death that ensued therefrom. The catas- 
 trophe was the offspring of his brain. He had never 
 seen or heard of such a disaster, but invented it, and 
 its consequences, for the purposes of his story. Some- 
 time after the book was published he received a letter 
 in which he was asked how he could possibly have 
 conceived an event which actually occurred (just as 
 he had imagined it) after "Gabriel Conroy" was in 
 the hands of its readers ! 
 
 Concerning the early days of The Overland 
 Monthly Mr. Stoddard has told me much. He knew 
 Bret Harte best at that time and saw much of him. 
 " Fortunately for me," he says, " he took an interest 
 in me at a time when I was most in need of advice, 
 and to his criticism and his encouragement I feel 
 that I owe all that is best in my literary efforts. He 
 was not afraid to_speak his mi nd, and I knew well 
 enough what occasion I gave him ; yet he did not 
 judge me more severely than he judged himself. His 
 humour and his fancy were not frightened away even 
 when he was in his severest critical mood. Once when 
 I had sent him some verses for approval he wrote : — 
 
 " ' The Albatross ' is better, but not best, which is 
 
 what I wanted. And then you know Coleridge has 
 
 103 
 
IN LIFE'S STREAM: 
 
 prior claim on the bird. But I'll use him unless you 
 send me something else ; you can, an you like, take 
 this as a threat. 
 
 " ' In " Jason's Quest " you have made a mistake 
 of subject. It is by no means suited to your best 
 thought, and you are quite as much at sea in your 
 mythology as Jason was. You can do, have done, 
 and must do better. Don't waste your strength 
 in experiments. Give me another South Sea Bubble, 
 a prose tropical picture, with the Cannibal, who is 
 dead, left out.' 
 
 " I am sure that the majority of the contributors 
 to The Overlmid Monthly, while it was edited by 
 Bret Harte, profited, as I did, by his careful and 
 judicious criticism. Fastidious to a degree, he could 
 not overlook a lack of finish in the manuscrij3t 
 offered him. He had a special taste in the choice 
 of titles, and I have known him to alter the name 
 of an article two or three times in order that the 
 table of contents might read handsomely and har- 
 moniously." 
 
 Joaquin Miller also speaks with appreciation 
 of the encouragement he received from the first 
 - editor of the Overland. He was grateful for 
 his generous review of " his first little book, pub- 
 lished in Oregon late in the sixties ; " and says : 
 *' As I turn back over the story of my life, it really 
 looks as if Bret Harte was my mascotte, good genius, 
 or what you please." 
 
 Of the pains the critical yet kindly editor took 
 
 in his own work there is no doubt. Mr. Stoddard 
 
 104 
 
"SWIMMING" 
 
 found him one day pacing the floor of his office in 
 the Mint ; he was knitting his brows and staring 
 at vacancy ; his visitor wondered why. He was 
 watching and waiting for a word, the right word, 
 the one word of all others to fit into a line of recently 
 written prose. Mr. Stoddard suggested one ; it 
 would not answer, it must be a word of two syllables, 
 or the natural rhythm of the sentence would suffer. 
 Thus he perfected his prose. Once, when he had 
 taken his friend to task for a bit of careless work, 
 then under his critical eye, and complained of a 
 false number, the conscious writer thought to turn 
 away his wrath with a soft answer. He told him 
 he had just met a man who had wept over a certain 
 passage in one of his stories. ' Well,' said Bret 
 Harte, ' he had a right to ; I wept when I wrote it." ^ 
 
 Mr. Stoddard has given me an interesting and 
 somewhat pathetic little word-picture of the young 
 Mint secretary (let it be remembered that Bret 
 Harte was not yet thirty when " The Luck " cap- 
 tured and comforted the hungry heart of " Roaring 
 Camp," and the Camp the heart of all the world) 
 trying to combine literary with official work. 
 
 " He was now a man with a family," his colleague 
 notes. " The resources derived from literature were 
 uncertain and unsatisfactory. His influential friends 
 paid him cheering visits in the gloomy office where 
 he leavened his daily loaves ; and at his desk, be- 
 tween the exacting pages of the too literal ledger, 
 many a couplet cropped out, and the outlines of now 
 
 famous sketches were faintly limned. His friends 
 
 105 
 
IN LIFE'S STREAM: 
 
 were few, but notable ; society he ignored in those 
 days. He used to accuse me of wasting my substance 
 in riotous visitations, and thought me a spendthrift 
 of time. He had the precious companionship of books, 
 and the lives of those about him were as an open 
 volume, wherein he read curiously and to his profit. 
 Had he not a genuine love of children, he could not 
 have written ' The Luck of Roaring Camp.' His 
 understanding and appreciation of childhood and all 
 that pertains to its embryo world, he must have 
 developed in his own home." 
 
 That must have been so. We all know that the joys 
 and griefs of infancy illuminate some of his best work. 
 
 That he could be a caustic as well as a kindly 
 critic is without doubt. 
 
 His editorial work comprised the book reviews 
 and the gossipy article labelled " Etc.," which appeared 
 towards the end of the magazine. 
 
 Mr. Noah Brooks shared the book reviewing with 
 him, and has recorded how they used to strive, good- 
 naturedly, for the privilege of dealing with volumes 
 that were doomed to be " scalped." " With the 
 confidence of youth," he says, " it was easier for us to 
 ' scalp ' a poor book than to do full justice to a worthy 
 one. As a book-scalper Harte greatly excelled. 
 His satire was fine and keen." 
 
 As the editor of " Etc." he required no assistance. 
 
 His comments on passing events were ever trenchant, 
 
 witty, and clever. Sometimes, however, they were 
 
 in a certain way incautious — as witness the following 
 
 example. 
 
 1 06 
 
"SWIMMING" 
 
 " Harte," says Mr. Brooks, " hated the materiahsm 
 and ungracious atmosphere of San Francisco, and he 
 could never be reconciled to the commercialism that 
 pervaded every rank of society. We were visited by 
 a tolerably brisk earthquake shock — I think it was in 
 1869 — to the great dismay of the 'leading citizens' 
 of San Francisco, and a select committee of bankers 
 and merchants called on the newspaper editors to 
 treat the ' trembler ' as lightly as possible. The 
 Associated Press agents were requested to refain from 
 alarming the East with sensational despatches. It 
 would never do to give our town the reputation of an 
 earthquake's centre. Harte was not cautioned, and 
 when the next number of The Overland Monthly came 
 out his editorial page, ' Etc.,' carried an amusing skit, 
 the main point of which was that, according to the 
 San Francisco newspapers, the next earthquake that 
 came along would get the worst of it in an encounter 
 with us." 
 
 It is said that in certain quarters Bret Harte was 
 never forgiven for this jest, and that, indirectly, he 
 was made to pay for it. 
 
 Popular though his stories had now become in 
 the Ove7'la7id, he did not make such a "sensational" 
 success (I apologise for the word, but can find no 
 better to convey what I mean) as " The Luck of Roar- 
 ing Camp " until the appearance of those immortal 
 verses commonly called " The Heathen Chinee," but 
 which were really entitled " Plain Language from 
 Truthful James. — Table Mountain, 1870." 
 
 By this effort Bret Harte had set little store. 
 
 107 
 
IN LIFE'S STREAM: 
 
 We have seen in these pages how the Chinese were 
 invading Cahfornia in large numbers, imitating the 
 Caucasian in all things, and in spite of the contempt 
 and even ignominy with which they were treated 
 were quietly and very ingeniously holding their 
 own. 
 
 He foresaw what might come of this, and he 
 thought that he could, by treating the situation from 
 a humorous point of view, strike a note in the right 
 direction. It is curious to reflect that Ah Sin and 
 his famous hand at euchre — the "game he did not 
 understand " — were designed to serve a practical 
 purpose ; but it was so, and on more than one occasion 
 that purpose was fulfilled. 
 
 But it was not until the author-editor wanted to 
 fill a space in his magazine that he took the lines 
 from his desk and handed them to his printer. 
 
 Thinking very little of his effort he was not at all 
 surprised that in San Francisco, where it should have 
 been at once understood and appreciated, " The 
 ►Heathen Chinee " attracted little or no attention, and 
 he had almost forgotten it when it began to create a 
 sensation in the outside world. The verses had been 
 reprinted in an eastern newspaper and were then im- 
 mediately hailed with delight, their delicious humour 
 being gratefully acknowledged, and their perfect and 
 strangely attractive style cordially praised. They 
 found their way to England, and the chorus of delight 
 was augmented. Within a few weeks millions of 
 people, who knew nothing of possible difficulties which 
 
 the growing power of the Chinaman might create in 
 
 io8 
 
'SWIMMING" 
 
 the labour markets of California, were talking of Ah 
 Sin — of his "smile that was childlike and bland," and 
 of his " peculiar" way of making sure of " the game 
 he did not understand." It has remained so until 
 to-day. Of the little composition, so quickly con- 
 ceived and written, and so modestly placed before the 
 world, one English writer has fearlessly said : " No 
 short poem in the English language ever achieved 
 such a success as it did ; and perhaps, if we except 
 Pope's ' Essay on Man,' there is no poem in our 
 native tongue that has added so great a number of 
 distinctive phrases and epithets to our everyday 
 speech." 
 
 Indeed, it was " The Heathen Chinee " that 
 clenched the growing popularity of Bret Harte's 
 works in England. If some of us missed a little of 
 the fun that those who lived nearer the scene of 
 their action derived from it, it was generally acknow- 
 ledged that the new author had gone the right way 
 about his work in amusing the public, taking in 
 hand the thing that was next him, and looking at it 
 with the eye of an artist ; and while, scathing mean- 
 ness and vice with their several weapons, being quite 
 assured with Luther that there is nothing the Devil 
 so much hates as a hearty laugh. 
 
 But like the actor who never thinks that the 
 part in which he has achieved his greatest popularity 
 is his best assumption, the author of " The Heathen 
 Chinee " never seemed to see the merit of his achieve- 
 ment, and was unelated by the cordiality of its 
 reception. He did not value it, and seemed to deplore 
 
 109 
 
IN LIFE'S STREAM: 
 
 the extraordinary interest it excited. Mr. Stoddard 
 believed that he even sought consolation in the know- 
 ledge that rash enthusiasm is generally ephemeral. 
 
 But on this occasion the enthusiasm was anything 
 but ephemeral, and in quite recent years I have seen 
 Bret Harte, while reading his morning papers, make 
 half humorous, half earnest protest against the con- 
 stancy with which the sayings of Ah Sin, Bill Nye, 
 and Truthful James, and the doings connected with 
 the game of euchre, played on Table Mountain in 
 1870, were quoted. One can see it in the papers of 
 to-day. Mr. Stoddard is right in declaring that even 
 the sensational success of " The Heathen Chinee " 
 could not endanger a reputation founded upon a basis 
 of solid worth. " Its establishment was sudden," he 
 says, " one might almost say instantaneous ; for paral- 
 lels I recall ' Waverley ' and ' The Pickwick Papers.' " 
 Bret Harte, however, was always singularly sensitive 
 with regard to Ah Sin, and in this connection a 
 rather amusing story may be told. Soon after his 
 first arrival in London his acquaintance was sought 
 by a certain noble Lord of high literary reputation, 
 and, after the customary formal call, he was invited 
 to dine at the great man's house. Always anxious 
 to escape being lionised, he told a friend, who was 
 to be of the party, that he should not go if he thought 
 " The Heathen Chinee " would be quoted at table. 
 The well-meaning friend sent a note of warning to 
 their host ; but his lordship loved a joke, and, giving 
 his other guests a hint, they talked " Heathen 
 
 Chinee " and nothing else ! At first perplexed and 
 
 no 
 
'SWIMMING" 
 
 annoyed, Bret Harte soon saw through the little 
 plot, and heartily joined in the laugh he had helped 
 to raise against himself. 
 
 For a long time it was little suspected that the 
 familiar, whimsical, and lapidary-cut lines had a 
 Greek source, but the fact was discovered by one 
 of our English poets. Being challenged on the sub- 
 ject the author at once admitted that his metre 
 had been suggested by the threnody in Swinburne's 
 , " Atalanta in Calydon ; " and it had oddly occurred 
 to him that the grand and beautiful sweep of that 
 chorus was just the kind of thing that Truthful 
 James would not be likely to use in relating his 
 experiences. " Listen," he would say when he spoke 
 on this subject, " listen while I alternate the lines, 
 and you will see what I mean : — 
 
 * Atalanta, the fairest of women, whose name is a blessing to speak — 
 [Yet he played it that day upon "William and me in a way I 
 
 despise.] 
 The narrowing Symplegades whitened the straits of Propontis 
 
 with spi'ay — 
 [And we found on his nails which were taper, what's frequent in 
 
 tapers that's wax. ]' " 
 
 And then he would laugh with that happy laugh 
 at his own sense of fun with which his most intimate 
 friends were familiar ; and then, suddenly becoming 
 serious, would be quite anxious to assure you that 
 though he had used Swinburne's methods for the 
 purposes of parody, he had the highest respect for 
 his genius. 
 
 V In 1870 Bret Harte was not only an exceedingly 
 ^ III 
 
IN LIFE'S STREAM: 
 
 busy man, but his society was in great request. 
 Loving the quiet of home Hfe and longing for the 
 leisure that he felt his literary work needed, he had 
 taken a house outside the city ; but he found it 
 difficult to escape from all social engagements. Wit- 
 ness the following letter to his wife : — 
 
 "To Mrs. Anna Harte, San Jose. 
 
 " Rooms op The Overland Monthly, San Francisco, 
 
 Wednesday. 
 
 " My dear Anna, — Felton asked me to dine at 
 Pioche's to-night to meet Professor Price and some 
 of the Regents. I declined at first, saying I wished 
 to go to San Josd to-night ; but he pressed it on 
 the ground of practical utility, and I assented. I 
 suppose this is the way these things are done in 
 California. Yet I would rather have ' a dinner of 
 herbs ' in San Jose than the ' stalled ox ' up at 
 Pioche's, but that there is a prospect of the East 
 of Europe in the distance. I suppose you will be 
 doubly disappointed that Mrs. Leech does not come 
 down to-night ; but she says she will not be able 
 to leave here till Saturday night, when she and 
 Leech will go down — the latter to return Monday, 
 the former to stay later, if we stay. I met Mr. 
 Beard of San Josd Mission in the cars yesterday. 
 He repeated his old invitation, and in very shame 
 I at last accepted, promising to bring you and the 
 boys on Saturday morning by the R. R. to Wash- 
 ington Station, when he will meet us with a carriage 
 to take us to the Mission, a mile or two distant, 
 
 112 
 
"SWIMMING" 
 
 where we are to spend the day, returning by the 
 evening train to San Jos^. So don't make any other 
 plans for Saturday. 
 
 " I've seen Barrett. He will not make any 
 other than his first offer, and of course I declined 
 to accept it. But of this I will say more when I 
 see you to-morrow (Thursday) night. Your affec- 
 tionate Frank." 
 
 Whether he willed it or not, the excitement created 
 by " The Heathen Chinee " was destined to have a 
 great effect upon his career. Soon after the verses 
 . appeared, a single new firm in New York was taking 
 twelve hundred copies of The Overland Monthly, 
 and the offers he now received to take his standing in 
 Western America became too tempting to be refused. 
 ' Considering his wife and children he felt he had no 
 I right to decline them, though it was not without a 
 pang that he left the shores on which he had so firmly 
 planted his foot, and the colleagues and comrades 
 whom he loved. But probably he had lingered long 
 enough, and Mr, Stoddard who had, as we have seen, 
 worked side by side with him in San Francisco, says : — 
 "When he left California in ,1871, he left it be- 
 times ; he took with him about all that was worth 
 taking, and the California he once knew, and surely 
 must have loved, lives forever in his pages. It no 
 longer exists in fact ; but for him, in another genera- 
 tion, it would have been forgotten. Because he had 
 penetration such as few possess, and exceptional fancy, 
 imagination, and literary art, he has been thought 
 
 113 H 
 
IN LIFE'S STREAM: 
 
 untrue to nature ; those whom he has pictured would 
 have no difficulty in recognising themselves and each 
 other could they but see the types he has made his 
 own. It has been said, too, that he repeats himself. 
 He does ; so does spring and so does summer — each is 
 but another spring, another summer ; but they are 
 never twice alike, nor would we have them other than 
 they are. Any one can vouch for Bret Harte's truth 
 to nature who knew San Francisco in the fifties, 
 and is familiar with his civic and character sketches ; 
 what is true of one page is true of all. It is the point 
 of view in every case that determines to whom the 
 page or the picture shall appeal, and whether favour- 
 ably or not. His experience in New England weighs 
 little in the balance with his experience in Cali- 
 fornia ; his experience abroad even less. It was 
 California, and early California — and let me say 
 picturesque California — that first appealed to him, 
 and through him to all the civilised nations in their 
 several tongues." 
 
 Of course his friends had to give him a little 
 " send off." " The night before he left California for 
 New York," records Mr. Noah Brooks, " a little party 
 of us, eight, all working writers, met at a farewell 
 dinner. It was one of the veritable nodes amhrosianae ; 
 the talk was intimate, heart-to-heart, and altogether 
 of the shop. Naturally Harte was the centre of the 
 little company, and he was never more fascinating 
 and companionable. Day was breaking when the 
 party dispersed, and the ties that bound Harte to 
 
 California were sundered." 
 
 114 
 
"SWIMMING" 
 
 Such a gathering as this would appeal to Bret 
 Harte, and I know that the memory of it lived 
 pleasantly in his mind. But of his hatred of any 
 public demonstration made on his behalf, and of his 
 keen desire to avoid any such function, Mr. Brooks 
 narrates the following characteristic anecdote : — 
 
 " Chicago," he says, " had put in a bid for the 
 author of ' The Luck of Roaring Camp,' and a dinner 
 was made for him as he passed through that city. 
 He accepted the invitation, but did not appear at the 
 dinner, much to the disgust of his hosts, who after- 
 wards said that a cheque of liberal figures, or a deed 
 for a house and lot, or both, had been laid under his 
 plate, but were saved by his ' bad manners.' When 
 I met Harte in New York, I asked him about the 
 incident, and he said, ' In Chicago I stayed with 
 relations of my wife's, who lived on the North Side, 
 or the East Side, or the North-east Side, or Lord 
 knows where, and when I accepted an invitation to 
 a dinner in a hotel in the centre of the city, I ex- 
 pected that a guide would be sent me, I was a 
 stranger in a strange city ; a carriage was not easily 
 to be obtained in the neighbourhood where I was, 
 and, in utter ignorance of the way I should take to 
 reach the hotel I waited for a guide until the hour 
 for dinner had passed, and then sat down, as your 
 friend S. P. D. said to you in California, " en famille 
 with my family." That's all there was in it.' " 
 
 It is a little difficult to swallow that part of the 
 story that deals with the " cheque under the plate," 
 I but I can readily picture Bret Harte, as the un- 
 
 115 
 
IN LIFE'S STREAM 
 
 welcome dinner hour approached, making excuses to 
 himself for himself and conjuring up that hitherto 
 unsuggested '''guide." 
 
 With his diffident nature he no doubt approached 
 his native State and the great city of New York with 
 some misgivings. But the self-imposed wanderings of 
 the enterprising young Argonaut were at an end : his 
 Golden Fleece had been won and must be brought 
 " home " — there to be beholden by all men. 
 
 ii6 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 FROM PACIFIC TO ATLANTIC SHORES 
 
 I HAVE before me a copy of the London Daily News 
 of March 21, 1871, which at the time of its appear- 
 ance so amused Bret Harte that he (generally very 
 indifferent to such matters) always kept it. He liked 
 the good temper of the banter to which he was sub- 
 jected, and he was greatly diverted to find himself 
 such a celebrity. He was neither flattered nor grati- 
 fied ; in another mood he might have been annoyed. 
 As it happened the leading article that dealt with 
 him tickled his fancy, and he liked laughingly to 
 recall its memory. 
 
 This is what the Daily Neivs said : — 
 " America has a new star. The planet which 
 Tycho Brahe saw suddenly kindled in the heavens 
 and gradually increasing to the size of Jupiter has 
 been questioned by more recent astronomers ; but the 
 full-orbed fame of Mr. Bret Harte among his country- 
 men comes to us in no questionable shape. The East 
 and the West contend for the reflected rays of his 
 celebrity ; cities dispute for the honour of his pre- 
 sence ; Chicago beguiles him from San Francisco, 
 New York snatches him from Chicago, and Boston 
 plots deeply his abstraction from New York. His 
 
 117 
 
FROM PACIFIC 
 
 lightest movement is chronicled in every paper, and 
 where he stops for a few days a kind of ' Bret Harte 
 Circular ' appears in the daily press. 
 
 " ' Mr. F. Bret Harte arrived in this city about 
 eleven o'clock, Saturday forenoon, and went im- 
 mediately to the residence of Mr. W. D, Howells in 
 Cambridge. Mr, Harte is accompanied by his family, 
 consisting of his wife and two children.' ' Mr. Bret 
 Harte on his first day in Boston dined with the 
 Saturday Club, where he met amongst others Louis 
 
 -^Agassiz, Henry W. LongfelloM^, James Bussell Lowell, 
 Oliver Wendell Holmes, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and 
 Bichard H. Dana, junior.' ' Mr. Bret Harte visited 
 the Consumptives' Home fair yesterday accompanied 
 by Mr. James T. Fields.' ' Bret Harte returns to 
 New York from Boston to-morrow (ist) and goes at 
 
 >once at his work of writing for Eastern magazines. 
 
 Probably his first new work will appear in Harper J 
 
 These are items from our Boston files of two or three 
 
 days, and similar passages have attended the young 
 
 author's triumphal progress through various cities 
 
 from the Pacific to the Atlantic. The Americans may 
 
 at least claim that in this case they have been the 
 
 first to recognise their own great man. It was once 
 
 asked in derision, Who reads an American book ? The 
 
 question is now repeated only as a note of triumph. 
 
 But since Sydney Smith's phrase has become its own 
 
 refutation, there have not been wanting those who, in 
 
 the spirit of it, have asserted that America has not 
 
 known its great writers until they had been recog- 
 
 ii8 
 
TO ATLANTIC SHORES 
 
 nised by the Old World, and the earliest fame of 
 Irving, Emerson, and Hawthorne, has been claimed 
 as European. Whatever may be said on this very 
 doubtful theory, certain it is that in the present in- 
 stance America has got far ahead of us, for we fear 
 that not a few of the most intelligent English readers 
 will be found asking, Who is Mr. Bret Harte ? — and 
 what has he said or done ? 
 
 " We answer, he is a young author who has suc- 
 ceeded in making all America burst into inextinguish- 
 able laughter. He has done this not by ingenuity of 
 misspelling, nor by grotesqueness of literary grimace, 
 but by a series of really humorous works, capped by a 
 local satire which has raised the cachinnations into a 
 hearty roar that can only be described as national. 
 Though Mr. Harte's universal popularity is in his own 
 country recent, and has not found us on this side of 
 the water suiiiciently released from the heaviness of 
 the tragedy at our doors to swell it, yet there are 
 some in this country, as in America, whose divining 
 rods search out genius as far as California, and distin- 
 guish it from the base ores, as the miners, with whom 
 Mr. Harte is so familiar, their nuggets of gold. There 
 have been readers here also of the excellent Overland 
 Monthly, whose appearance in California was one sign 
 of the disappearance of chaos and of the beginning 
 of a higher social stratification. They have marked 
 in that periodical the exquisite sketches of life, por- 
 traits of character, curious stories — now replete with 
 drollery, now deepening with pathetic touches — which 
 
 119 
 
FROM PACIFIC 
 
 already announced that a mind of singular power and 
 originality had begun its task in that far-off country. 
 Now and then too there appeared therein poems, 
 with a certain untamed flavour about them like the 
 Catawba grape, and an earnest sympathetic tone 
 toward the wild features of occidental scenery, as if 
 the poet found in the mighty pines and heights 
 something adapted to the climbing of his vague 
 ideals. These poems have been published, but they 
 are studies rather than complete works of art, and 
 have probably not contributed the most to Mr. Bret 
 Harte's present popularity. The prose sketches 
 collected under the name of the most important of 
 them, ' The Luck of Roaring Camp,' constitute by 
 far the best specimens of American humour which 
 have appeared since The Bigelow Papers, and show 
 a variety of ability not at all equalled by their 
 author's old friend Artemus Ward. But there is 
 about these sketches a subtlety, a keenness of satire, 
 an impatience of humbug and meanness which, while 
 they would naturally earn for their writer the fra- 
 ternal welcome among thinkers and scholars which 
 he has received, could hardly alone have commanded 
 the attention of vast populations. This achievement^ 
 was the work of a happy hour, and might easily have 
 seemed to some one of his idlest ; but it really was 
 one of those works of pure art for which a long 
 training is necessary, and which suggest as their 
 
 1 Needless to say the writer alludes here to Bret Harte's bugbear, 
 " The Heathen Chinee." 
 
 1 20 
 
 I 
 
TO ATLANTIC SHORES 
 
 parallel the touch at which some common substance 
 flashes to its crystal." 
 
 Judging from what he told me in after years, T 
 do not think that the successful author, as he tra- 
 velled from city to city to the accompaniment of a 
 constant ovation, was thinking so much of the fame 
 which he had achieved and which was now being 
 thrust upon him — of the passing events of his journey, 
 or of the work that lay before him at its end — as 
 of the memories he was leaving behind him. No 
 doubt it was with true regret that he quitted the 
 editorial chair of his beloved Overland Monthly, and 
 it was not without a pang that he resigned the 
 Professorship of Literature in the University of Cali- 
 fornia, to which he had recently been appointed. 
 
 His mind dwelt wistfully too on his first Cali- 
 fornian home in Oakland, where, with his own hands, 
 he had made a garden fence with laths laid close 
 together in a small diamond pattern. My kind friend 
 Mr. Stoddard has written me about that pleasant and 
 peaceful spot, and of the bungalow that was sheltered 
 by the largest " live oak " in the vicinity. Bret 
 Harte had taken great pride in his handiwork, and 
 I his fence was always fresh with whitewash. Oakland, 
 with its bungalow and fenced-in garden, had been his 
 starting-point, and, ever mistrustful of himself, he 
 1 now wondered if he would not have been happier if 
 !» he had adapted himself to the work that then lay 
 within his reach, instead of embarking on the uncer- 
 tain seas of authorship. 
 
 121 
 
FROM PACIFIC 
 
 '^B 
 
 But he had to accept the position he had made 
 for himself, and to bow to a reception of which the 
 greatest of authors might have been proud. That 
 in his heart of heart he took a proper pride in his 
 Hterary triumphs is beyond question ; but it is equally 
 certain that he could not bear to hear them proclaimed 
 from the housetops. On such occasions he longed 
 for the seclusion of the basement ; and this earnest 
 desire for self-effacement never left him. It did not, 
 however, stand in the way of his keen enjoyment 
 of congenial society, or his delight in meeting the 
 distinguished people whose work he admired. All 
 that he asked was that he and his own work should 
 not be the sole topic of conversation. 
 
 His life in New York was naturally less varied, 
 and so, in a way, less interesting than it had been 
 in California. The demand for his stories kept his 
 pen constantly at work, and in his hours of relaxation 
 he formed many new friendships. It has been said 
 that his residence in the great American city added 
 little to his literary skill or to his store of literary 
 material. The fact is that his literary skill had been 
 perfected before he left California, and his old mate- 
 rial was in such constant request that he had no need 
 to seek anything new. The public wanted to hear 
 more from him concerning the gold miners, their asso- 
 ciates, and environment, and the publishers had to 
 attend to the wants of the public. 
 
 That he longed for some of his old friends is 
 certain. When he heard that Noah Brooks, his 
 
 122 
 
TO ATLANTIC SHORES 
 
 colleague on the Overland, was coming to live in 
 
 New York, he said gleefully : " He and I will found 
 
 the Society of the Escaped Californians." Mr. Brooks 
 
 says that he found his friend " a little bewildered by 
 
 the strangeness of his new surroundings ; and he was 
 
 puzzled to decide whether he should venture into 
 
 these new fields ; " and, he adds, " he came to the 
 
 wise conclusion that his best work was to be done 
 
 with the bulky portfolio of mental photographs which 
 
 he had gathered in California. And so he returned 
 
 to the old trails ; and in the old trails he remained to 
 
 the day of his death." 
 
 Very wisely, too, he determined through the hot 
 
 summer months he would always go with his wife 
 
 and family into some country home. His first haunt 
 
 of this description was Newport on the sea coast, and 
 
 I there many happy months were passed. In a similar 
 
 j way several summers were spent at Morristown, New 
 
 I Jersey, in a beautiful old house associated with the 
 
 I Washington family. There the beautiful tale entitled- 
 
 I " Thankful Blossom " was written. This, of course, 
 
 was a distinct departure from the " Argonaut" stories, 
 
 and since it became one of his great successes it proves 
 
 that Bret Harte, if he had been given rein, could very 
 
 easily get away from his accustomed groove. By the 
 
 way, I have often heard it said the name of the sweet 
 
 maiden — Thankful Blossom — is more far-fetched than 
 
 fanciful. As a matter of fact it was the true name of 
 
 an ancestress of the Harte family. No doubt the 
 
 story gained some inspiration from the fact that it 
 
 123 
 
FROM PACIFIC 
 
 was written on the historic scene of Washington's 
 headquarters, and that the great General must have 
 experienced the bitter winter so graphically described 
 in it. I believe I am right in saying that partly 
 through Bret Harte's influence the interesting old 
 house to which I have referred was purchased by the 
 State, and is now most carefully preserved. Another 
 favourite warm weather resort was Cohasset. There, 
 one year, he found himself the neighbour of Lawrence 
 Barrett, the eminent actor, and of Stuart Robson, the 
 well-known comedian, for whom he was writing the 
 play called " Two Men of Sandy Bar." Barrett took 
 immense interest in the piece, and as it progressed 
 used to read it aloud to the Harte family and their 
 friends. It is safe to assume that on those occasions 
 the author was not present ! 
 
 He must at that time have been one of the busiest 
 of men, for, in addition to his play, he was at work 
 upon his one great attempt at a prolonged story, 
 ►or novel, " Gabriel Conroy." 
 
 Does the reader remember the graphic opening 
 pages of that striking romance ? 
 
 " Snow. Everywhere. As far as the eye could 
 
 reach — fifty miles looking southward from the highest 
 
 white peak — filling ravines and gulches, and dropping 
 
 from the walls of canons in white shrouds like drifts, 
 
 fashioning the dividing ridge into the likeness of a 
 
 ^monstrous grave, hiding the bases of giant pines, and 
 
 completely covering young trees and larches, riming 
 
 with porcelain the bowl-like edges of still, cold lakes, 
 
 124 
 
TO ATLANTIC SHORES 
 
 and undulating in motionless white billows to the 
 
 edge of the distant horizon. Snow lying everywhere 
 
 over the Californian Sierras on the 15th day of 
 
 March 1848, and still falling. 
 
 " It had been snowing for ten days ; snowing in 
 
 finely granulated powder, in damp, spongy flakes, in 
 
 thin feathery plumes ; snowing from a leaden sky 
 
 steadily, snowing fiercely, shaken out of purple-black 
 
 clouds in white, flocculent masses, or dropping in long 
 
 level lines, like white lances from the tumbled and ' 
 
 broken heavens. But always silently ! The woods 
 
 were so choked with it, the branches were so laden 
 
 with it — it had so permeated, filled and possessed 
 
 earth and sky ; it had so cushioned and muffled the 
 
 ringing rocks and echoing hills that all sound was 
 
 deadened. The strongest gust, the fiercest blast 
 
 awoke no sigh or complaint from the snow-packed 
 
 rigid files of forest. There was no cracking of bough 
 
 nor crackle of underbrush ; the overladen branches of 
 
 pine and fir yielded and gave way without a sound. 
 
 The silence was vast, measureless, complete ! Nor 
 
 could it be said that any outward sign of life or 
 
 motion changed the fixed outlines of this stricken 
 
 landscape. Above, there was no play of light and 
 
 shadow, only the occasional deepening of storm or 
 
 night. Below, no bird winged its flight across the 
 
 white expanse, no beast haunted the confines of the 
 
 backwoods ; whatever of brute nature might once 
 
 have inhabited these solitudes had long since flown 
 
 down to the lowlands. There was no track or imprint ; 
 
 125 
 
FROM PACIFIC 
 
 whatever foot might have left its mark upon this 
 waste, each succeeding snowfall obliterated all trace 
 or record. Every morning the solitude was virgin 
 and unbroken ; and a million tiny feet had stepped 
 into the track and filled it up." 
 
 Well, it is a noteworthy and curious fact that this 
 realistic picture of pitiless snow and biting cold was 
 conjured up and written down on one of the hottest 
 days of a notoriously hot summer, and while the 
 author was actually fanning himself But Bret Harte 
 never depended on his surroundings for his inspiration. 
 He could always draw on his marvellous memory, and 
 it never failed to respond to his call. Once I found 
 him writing in London with his house enveloped in 
 one of those pea-soup coloured fogs (one of Mr. Guppy's 
 "London particulars") which take rank among the 
 most depressing of earthly things ; but he told me 
 that, being in the heart of a story, it mattered little 
 to him, and that he could picture to himself the grand 
 canons and mighty pine-trees, the purple Sierras and 
 the dusty plains of California, as if they were before 
 him ; nay, that he could even gain exhilaration by 
 imagining the spicy scents of the fir-trees, and the 
 purity of the invigorating air of the land that formed 
 the background for his new set of characters. 
 
 Another favourite place of his was Lenox, and 
 here we get az± interesting peep at him through 
 the " Kecords " of Frances Anne Kemble (Mrs. 
 Butler), the renowned English actress. That grace- 
 ful writer has left a pretty word-picture of Lenox. 
 
 126 
 
11 ret Harte {i-'ircu 1,S71). 
 
 [To face p. 126. 
 
TO ATLANTIC SHORES 
 
 "It is astonishing how Hke Switzerland it is ! " 
 
 she says ; " not the Alpine magnificent side of 
 
 Switzerland, but the whole of the valley of the 
 
 1 lake of Neufchatel, looking towards the Jura, It is 
 
 I like the neighbourhood of La Jonchere and all that 
 
 I family of Jura valleys. The village of Lenox itself 
 
 has immensely improved. The beautiful trees along 
 
 its two streets, which cross each other at right 
 
 I angles on the top of a steep hill, have grown tall 
 
 , and thick, so that in looking: down on the small 
 
 ! table-land, where the houses are clustered together 
 
 for a considerable height, on which stands the oldest 
 
 I village church (whose clock, with which I endowed 
 
 it, still shows the inhabitants the time of day), the 
 
 whole place is embowered in foliage, and with the 
 
 , deep valleys below it, and the blue distant hills 
 
 ! rising up almost to mountains beyond, is a most 
 
 charming piece of scenery." 
 
 As the readers of the fascinating '* Records " are 
 I aware, they chiefly took the form of letters. Here 
 is the one that contains the allusion to Bret 
 Harte : — 
 
 "Lenox, October 6th, 1875. 
 
 " My dearest H , — You will learn where I 
 
 am by the date of my letter in this formerly 
 
 familiar dwelling of mine, whither I came to-day 
 
 from Boston, where I parted with M , who is 
 
 going to spend a few days at Newport, which I 
 
 shall pass here, after which we meet again at 
 
 Boston, and return together to Philadelphia, I 
 
 127 
 
FROM PACIFIC 
 
 shall be away from York Farm about ten days, and 
 your letters will not be forwarded to me, as I had 
 much rather wait a few days to receive them than 
 run the risk of losing them involved in their follow- 
 ing me through two or three American post offices. 
 
 " F and Mr. L. are staying here, and I knew 
 
 my coming would be a pleasant surprise to her. 
 There are still some old friends of mine here, and 
 several younger members of the Sedgwick family, 
 to whom I am much attached, and whom I am 
 very glad to see again, and I am charmed to be 
 once more in the picturesque country of which I 
 am so fond, and where I have spent so many happy 
 days. 
 
 " The autumn is now in its full beauty, and 
 nothing can exceed the splendour of the many- 
 tinted foliage — this Joseph's coat given to the 
 youngest of worlds, or rather, of nations (for this 
 world, science says, is the older of the two). The 
 weather, too, is exquisite, wonderfully brilliant and 
 soft in its radiance, and though delightfully warm 
 and sunny, not in the least oppressive. This is 
 the only pleasant season of the American year, 
 unequalled, as the Italian spring in its way. It is 
 really delightful, and often protracted with us in 
 Pennsylvania till the end of November ; not up here, 
 though, where it is every now and then already 
 slightly chilly, and ere long will be unpleasantly so. 
 
 "I am tired, dearest H , with my six 
 
 hours' railway journey, and will bid you good-night, 
 
 128 
 
TO ATLANTIC SHORES 
 
 as it is just twelve o'clock. I do not like to think 
 that it will be a whole week before I hear from 
 you. God bless you, dear. — Ever as ever yours, 
 
 Fanny." 
 
 " During this visit of mine to Lenox 1 made the 
 acquaintance of Mr. Bret Harte, with whose original 
 stories I had been deeply interested and delighted. 
 He was staying in the same hotel with us, and did 
 us the favour of spending an evening with us. He 
 reminded me a good deal of our old pirate and 
 bandit friend, Trelawny, in his^appearance, though 
 the latter was an almost orientally dark-com- 
 plexioned man, and Mr. Bret Harte was com- 
 paratively fair. They _were^ both_ tall, well-made_ 
 men of fine figure ; both, too, were handsome, with 
 a peculiar expression of face, which suggested small 
 success to any one who might engage in personal 
 conflict with them. I had been told that Mr. Bret 
 Harte was an agent for some Eastern Express 
 Company, travelling for whom in the savage western 
 wilderness, among the worst kind of savages, the 
 outcasts of civilisation, he must often have carried 
 considerable sums of money about his person, and 
 always have ridden his long lonely journey with his 
 life in his hand. 
 
 " He told us of one of his striking experiences, 
 
 and his telling it made it singularly impressive. 
 
 He had arrived at night at a solitary house of call 
 
 on his way, absolutely isolated and far distant from 
 
 129 I 
 
FROM PACIFIC 
 
 any other dwelling - — a sort of rough, roadside 
 tavern, known and resorted to by the wanderers 
 in that region. Here he was to pass the night. 
 The master of the house, to whom he was known, 
 answered his question as to whether any one else 
 was there by giving the name of a notorious des- 
 perado, who had committed some recent outrage, 
 and in search of whom the wild justices — the 
 lynchers of the wilderness — were scouring the 
 district. This guest, the landlord said, was hiding 
 in the house, and was to leave it (if he was still 
 alive) the next day. Bret Harte, accustomed to 
 rough company, went quietly to bed and to sleep, 
 but was aroused in the middle of the night by the 
 arrival of a party of horsemen, who called up the 
 master of the house and inquired if the man they 
 were in pursuit of was with him. Upon receiving 
 his repeated positive assurance that he was not, they 
 remounted their horses and resumed their search. 
 
 " At break of day Bret Harte took his departure, 
 finding that for the first part of his journey he was 
 to have the hiding hero of the night (thief or 
 murderer, probably) for his companion, to whom, 
 on his departure, the master of the house gave the 
 most reiterated, precise, and minute directions as 
 to the only road by which it would be possible that 
 he could escape his pursuers, Bret Harte meanwhile 
 listening to these directions as if they were addressed 
 to himself They rode silently for a short time 
 
 and then the fugitive began to talk — not about 
 
 130 
 
TO ATLANTIC SHORES 
 
 his escape, not about the danger of the past night, 
 not about the crime he had committed, but about 
 Dlckenss last story, in which he expressed such an 
 eager and enthusiastic interest, that he would have 
 passed the turning in the road by which he was 
 to have made his escape if Bret Harte had not 
 pointed it out to him, saying, ' That is your way.' 
 I wish I could remember what story of Dickens's it 
 was, and that he could have been made acquainted 
 with this incident, worthy of a record in one of his 
 books. 
 
 "It is perhaps a cause of some slight monotony 
 in Bret Harte's admirably touching and powerful 
 pictures of the life and dwellers in the western 
 districts, that his men and women are almost uni- 
 versally and inevitably male or female good-for- 
 ► noughts.' It is part of his great merit to make 
 one feel how much good may remain in ' good-for- 
 noughts.' " 
 
 In speaking of Bret Harte as "an agent for some 
 Eastern Express Company," Mrs. Butler was of course 
 thinking of what she had heard of his earlier experi- 
 ences. The " Dickens story " referred to was " Our 
 Mutual Friend," which was first published in stimu- 
 lating but tantalising monthly numbers. Probably 
 the unhappy criminal had read some of the earliest of 
 these, and was quite as anxious to know the end 
 of the story as he was concerned about the 
 threatened and imminent horrible climax of his own 
 reckless career. 
 
 131 
 
FROM PACIFIC 
 
 But besides writing diligently, making new 
 friends, and accustoming himself to fresh sur- 
 roundings, Bret Harte had another matter to oc- 
 cupy time and attention in his changed life. When 
 he first came to New York it was suggested that 
 he, the literary celebrity of the day, should lecture 
 on his Californian experiences. That his hatred 
 of publicity prompted him to reject the proposal 
 may readily be imagined, but the offers made to 
 him were tempting ; he was not the man to selfishly 
 shirk a duty, and, yielding to the persuasion of 
 his friends, he reluctantly consented. Happily his 
 appearance in a new character at once commanded 
 success. That he felt this, and appreciated it, is 
 shown in the following letter to his wife : — 
 
 "MONONGHAELA HoUSE, PiTTSBURG, 
 
 ^'January gtJi, 1872, 2.50 p.m. 
 
 " My dear Nan, — I telegraphed you twice from 
 Washington and once to-day from Pittsburg. And 
 I now send you many and happier returns of your 
 birthday, dear little woman. I've gone along thus far 
 and very fairly and without delay. My Washington 
 lecture was crowded ; the audience almost as quick 
 and responsive as the Boston folk, and the committee- 
 men, to my great delight, told me that they made 
 money by me. You will be sorry to hear that I 
 felt dreadfully lonely on my Washington trip, and 
 you will be sorrier to hear, you infamous woman, 
 
 that my luncheon was mitigated by meeting Miss 
 
 132 
 
TO ATLANTIC SHORES 
 
 Binny Banks and her mother in the train. You 
 may remember that I met Miss Banks at Burhngam's 
 Httle dinner — but I don't know that I told you that 
 she was lovely. She and ' her ma ' went with me 
 to the lecture. 
 
 " I called on Charlton at the British Minister's 
 and had some talk with Sir Edward Thornton, which 
 I have no doubt will materially affect the foreign 
 policy of England. If I have said anything to 
 promote a better feeling between the countries I 
 am willing he should get the credit of it. 
 
 " I took a carriage and went alone to the Capitol 
 of my country. I had expected to be disappointed, 
 but not agreeably. It is really a noble building — 
 worthy of the Bepublic — vast, magnificent, sometimes 
 a little weak in detail, but in intent always high 
 toned, grand and large principled. I felt very 
 proud until I looked in upon Congress in Session ; 
 then it was very trying to compare the house with 
 its tenants. 
 
 " How you would have enjoyed this trip with 
 me ! 
 
 " Finding that I would be two or three hours in 
 Baltimore on my way to Pittsburg, I telegraphed 
 to Chiss Mayer to meet and sup with me. He met 
 me at the depot ; we went to ' Guy's ' — a famous 
 restaurant — and had a nice supper, and then we 
 spent the last half- hour of my limit at Branty 
 Mayer's house with your cousins. ' Miss Kate ' and 
 ' Jinny ' were on their way to a party, and there 
 
 133 
 
FROM PACIFIC 
 
 were one or two other sisters whom I had not seen 
 before. They all regretted you were not with me, 
 and made me promise to bring you in early spring 
 to spend a few days. All that I saw of the road 
 between Baltimore and Pittsburg was beautiful. 
 Its scenery is noted, I believe, but in the early grey 
 morning it came upon me, with its great white 
 distances of Allyghannies and rivers as a special 
 revelation. We passed the 'blue Juniata,' where 
 you remember the ' bright Alfaretta ' roamed and 
 ,--^wept. The spot where she wept is plainly to be 
 seen, and is still damp. 
 
 " I am looking from the windows of my hotel on 
 the Monongahela river, with all sorts of queer flat 
 boats and barges passing and repassing. How you 
 would have enjoyed it ! The mail leaves in a few 
 minutes. I conclude you are better or you would 
 telegraph me. Kiss the chickens for me, Nan, and 
 look for the safe return speedily of your own 
 
 Frank." 
 
 The following letter from a friend by whom he set 
 _ _!. great store vastly encouraged him : — 
 
 "148 Charles Street, Boston, 
 '■'■Sunday, Der. i^th, 1872. 
 
 " My dear Harte, — Only a word or two to say 
 you can have no idea how great a hit your lecture 
 made here. I have met, since that auspicious even- 
 ing, many men and women who heard it, and they 
 
 134 
 
TO ATLANTIC SHORES 
 
 are all of one opinion — that you cannot be beaten ! 
 We had a lot of people here last night (we are always 
 ' at home ' on Saturday night), and most of our 
 callers were in the Temple when you stood up for 
 to speak. I never heard warmer encomiums from 
 every mothers son and daughter of them. They 
 fairly boiled over with delight as they recalled your 
 numerous felicitous passages. ' They had never 
 thought of Bret Harte as a capital speaker!' In 
 short they swore so good a lecture, so delightful a 
 speaker, had not been produced on that platform for 
 many a year ! 
 
 " In the present condition of this lurid and small- 
 poxy city I feared your audience would not be of the 
 kind best adapted to hear the best. But you had 
 tip-toppers among your listeners — artists, clergymen — 
 chaps with brains, sir, in every walk of life crowded 
 your benches and applauded your wisdom and humour. 
 
 " You will make hoards of sequins by that pro- 
 duction, and I advise you to look sharp and see that 
 your fee is as high as that of any old and popular 
 stager in the country. Regards to Mrs. Harte. — 
 Cordially yours, J. T. Fields." 
 
 This was very pleasant hearing, and from his 
 audiences' point of view all, throughout the tour, was 
 couleur de rose. But of course all that glittered 
 was not gold. Bret Harte always hated the platform, 
 and naturally was from time to time troubled with 
 the woes that beset the little world behind the scenes 
 
FROM PACIFIC 
 
 even of the lecturer's modest desk, with hghts, manu- 
 script, and glass of water for stage properties. 
 
 Thus he revealed some of his sorrows to his wife : — 
 
 "To Mrs. Anna Harte, No. 45 Fifth Avenue, 
 New York City, U.S.A. 
 
 "Montreal, March 2^th, 1873. 
 
 " My dear Nan, — I telegraphed my arrival in 
 Ottawa on the 21st and to-day my arrival here. 
 But I did not write because I really did not know, 
 and do not know now, whether I shall not have to 
 give up the Canadian engagement entirely. 
 
 " In Ottawa I lectured twice, but the whole thing 
 was a pecuniary failure. There was scarcely enough 
 money to pay expenses, and of course nothing to pay 
 
 me with. has no money of his own, and 
 
 although he is blamable for not thoroughly examin- 
 ing the ground before bringing me to Ottawa, he was 
 evidently so completely disappointed and miserable 
 that I could not find it in my heart to upbraid him. 
 So I simply told him that unless the Montreal receipts 
 were sufficient to pay me for my lecture there, and a 
 reasonable part of the money due me from Ottawa, I 
 would throw the whole thing up. To-night will in all 
 probability settle the question. Of course there are 
 those who tell me privately that he is no manager, 
 but I really do not see but that he has done all that 
 he could, and that his only fault is in his sanguine 
 and hopeful nature. 
 
 " I did not want to write this disappointment to 
 
 136 
 
TO ATLANTIC SHORES 
 
 you as long as there was some prospect of better 
 things. You can imagine, however, how I feel at this 
 cruel loss of time and money — to say nothing of my 
 health, which is still so poor. I had almost recovered 
 from my cold, but at lecturing at Ottawa at the 
 Skating Rink, a hideous, dismal damp barn — the 
 only available place in town — I caught a fresh cold 
 and have been coughing badly ever since. And you 
 can well imagine that my business annoyances do not ^- 
 add greatly to my sleep or appetite. 
 
 " Apart from this the people of Ottawa have 
 received me very kindly. They have vied with each 
 other in social attention, and if I had been like John 
 Gilpin, ' on pleasure bent,' they would have made 
 my visit a success. The Governor-General of Canada 
 and his wife — the Earl and Countess of Dufferin — 
 invited me to stay with them at their seat, Rideau 
 Hall, and I spent Sunday and Monday with them. 
 Sir John and Lady Macdonald were also most polite 
 and courteous. 
 
 " I shall telegraph you to-morrow if I intend to 
 return at once. Don't let this worry you, but kiss-^ 
 the children for me and hope for the best. I would 
 send you some money but there isn't any to send, 
 and maybe I shall only bring back myself — Your 
 affectionate Frank. 
 
 " P.S.—26th. 
 
 " Dear Nan, —- 1 did not send this yesterday, 
 waiting to find the result of last night's lecture. It 
 
 137 
 
FROM PACIFIC 
 
 was 2o fair house and this mornmg paid me 150 
 
 dollars, of which I send you the greater part. I 
 lecture again to-night, with fair prosj^ects, and he is 
 to pay something on account of the Ottawa engage- 
 ment besides the fee for that night. I will write 
 again from Ogdensburg. — Always yours, Frank." 
 
 Herein lies a grievance in another and more divert- 
 ing direction : — 
 
 " For Mrs. Bret Harte, ' 
 
 45 Fifth Avenue, New York, 
 
 "St. Louis, Od. igth, 1873, Sunday, p.m. 
 
 " My dear Anna, — As my engagement is not until 
 the 2ist at Topeka, Kansas, I lie over here until 
 to-morrow morning in preference to spending the extra 
 day in Kansas. I've accepted the invitation of Mr. 
 Hodges, one of the managers of the lecture course, 
 to stay at his house. He is a good fellow, with the 
 usual American small family and experimental house- 
 keeping, and the quiet and change from the hotel is 
 very refreshing to me. They let me stay in my own 
 room — which by the way is hung with the chintz of 
 our 49th Street house — and don't bother me with 
 company. So I was very good to-day and went toU-^ 
 church. There was fine singing. The contralto sang 
 your best sentences from the Te Deum, ' We believe 
 that Thou shalt come,' &c., &c., to the same minor 
 chant that I used to admire. 
 
 " The style of criticism that my lecture — or rather 
 myself as a lecturer — has received, of which I send 
 
 138 
 
TO ATLANTIC SHORES 
 
 you a specimen, culminated this morning in an 
 editorial in the Republican, which I shall send you, 
 but have not with me at present. I certainly never 
 expected to be mainly criticised for being what I am, 
 not, a handsome fop ; but this assertion is at the 
 bottom of all the criticism. They may be right — I 
 dare say they are — in asserting that I am no orator, 
 have no special faculty for speaking, no fire, no 
 dramatic earnestness or expression, but when they 
 intimate that I am running on my good looks — save 
 the mark ! I confess I get hopelessly furious. You 
 will be amused to hear that my gold ' studs ' have 
 again become ' diamonds,' my worn-out shirts ' fault- 
 less linen,' my haggard face that of a ' Spanish- 
 looking exquisite,' my habitual quiet and ' used up ' 
 way, 'gentle and eloquent languor.' But you will 
 be a little astonished to know that the hall I spoke 
 in was worse than Springfield, and notoriously so — that 
 the people seemed genuinely pleased, that the lecture 
 inaugurated the ' Star ' course very handsomely, and 
 that it was the first of the first series of lectures ever 
 delivered in St. Louis. 
 
 " My dates in Kansas are changed thus, Topeka 
 2ist, Achinson 22nd, Lawrence 23rd, Kansas City 
 24th, but they are not distant from each other, and 
 I shall probably get any letters without trouble. 
 
 " I hope to hear that you have got a house and^ 
 are settled, in your next letter. I shall write again this 
 week, probably from Kansas City. — Your affectionate 
 
 Frank." 
 139 
 
FROM PACIFIC 
 
 The allusion to the Te Deum had connection with 
 Mrs. Bret Harte's beautiful singing voice. Her render- 
 ing of sacred music was one of her husband's delights. 
 
 The promised letter from Kansas soon came : — 
 
 " For Mi^s. Bret Harte, 
 
 Box 570 P.O., Marietown, New Jersey. 
 
 "Lawuence, Kansas, October 2^rd, 1873. 
 
 " My dear Anna, — I left Topeka, which sounds 
 like a name Franky might have invented, early 
 yesterday morning, but did not reach Achinson, only 
 sixty miles distant, until seven o'clock at night — an 
 hour before the lecture. The engine as usual had 
 broken down, and left me at four o'clock fifteen miles 
 from Achinson, on the edge of a bleak prairie with 
 only one house in sight. But I got a saddle-horse — 
 there was no vehicle to be had — and strapping my 
 lecture and blanket to my back I gave my valise to 
 a little yellow boy — who looked like a dirty terra- 
 cotta figure — with orders to follow me on another 
 horse, and so tore off towards Achinson. I got there 
 in time ; the boy reached there two hours after. 
 
 " I make no comment ; you can imagine the half- 
 ^, ^ciir>.k utterly disgusted man who glared at that audience 
 over his desk that night, and d — d them inwardly 
 in his heart. And yet it was a good audience, thor- 
 oughly refined and appreciative, and very glad to see 
 me. I was very anxious about this lecture, for it was 
 a venture of my own, and I had been told that Achin- 
 son was a rough place — energetic but coarse. I think 
 
 I wrote you from St. Louis that I had found there 
 
 140 
 
TO ATLANTIC SHORES 
 
 were only three actual engagements in Kansas, and 
 that my list which gave Kansas City twice was a 
 mistake. So I accepted to take Achinson. I made 
 a hundred dollars by the lecture, and it is yours, for 
 yourself, Nan, to buy ' Minxes ' with, if you want, for 
 it is over and above the amount Eliza and I footed 
 up on my lecture list. I shall send it to you as soon 
 as the bulk of the pressing claims are settled. 
 
 " Everything thus far has gone well ; besides my 
 lecture of to-night I have one more to close Kansas, 
 and then I go on to St. Joseph. 
 
 " I've been greatly touched with the very honest 
 and sincere liking which these Western people seem, 
 to have for me. They seem to have read everything 
 I have written — and appear toappreci ate the__best. 
 Think of a rough fellow in_a^earskin robe^and blue ^ 
 shirt repeating to me ' Crucif iciar de Aeguiallo .' 
 Their strange good taste and refinement under that 
 rough exterior — even their tact — is very wonderful j 
 to me. They are ' Kentucks ' and ' Dick BuUens ' 
 with twice the refinement and tenderness of their 
 Californian brethren. 
 
 " And of course, as in all such places, the women 
 
 contrast^ poorly with the men — even in feminine 
 
 qualities. Somehow a man here may wear fustian_ 
 
 and glaring colours and paper collars and yet keep 
 
 his gentleness and delicacy, but a woman in glaring 
 
 ' Dolly Vardens ' and artificial flowers changes natures^- 
 
 with him at once. 
 
 " I've seen but one that interested me — an old 
 
 141 
 
FROM PACIFIC 
 
 negro wench. She was talking and laughing outside 
 my door the other evening, but her laugh was so 
 sweet and unctuous and musical — so full of breadth 
 and goodness that I went outside and talked to her 
 while she was scrubbing the stones. She laughed 
 Jias a canary bird sings — because she couldn't help 
 . it. It did me a world of good, for it was before ( 
 )the lecture, at twilight, when I am very blue and ) 
 I low tuned. She had been a slave. 
 
 " I expected to have heard from you here. I've 
 nothing from you or Eliza since last Friday when 
 I got yours of the 12th. I shall not write again 
 until I hear further. I shall direct this to Eliza's 
 care, as I do not even know where you are. — Your 
 affectionate Frank." 
 
 It was a hard-working time, and no doubt the 
 anxiety of the evening's lecture did much to destroy 
 his day's enjoyment ; but in the course of his wander- 
 ings he saw much that interested him, he was pleased 
 at the heartiness of his receptions, and was without 
 doubt glad to add grist to his mill. His chief annoy- 
 ance was that his frequent journeys sorely interfered 
 with the literary work that formed the backbone 
 of his present income. In the following letter he 
 refers to Stuart Hobson, the actor, who was to appear 
 as Colonel Starbottle in his " Two Men of Sandy 
 Bar." Of the production and fate of the play, of 
 which great things were expected, I shall speak in 
 
 another chapter. 
 
 142 
 
TO ATLANTIC SHORES 
 
 " To Mrs. Bret Harte. 
 
 " Berkely Springs, Va., Saturday. 
 
 " My dear Nan, — Pellis said he kept my note 
 until he reached Washington instead of posting it 
 at Baltimore, so that it must have reached you two 
 days late. I telegraphed yesterday, thinking you 
 might be worried. 
 
 " I hardly believe I shall ever be able to leave 
 Virginia. At least if I do I shall come back here 
 instead of going to Europe. Such people as I have 
 seen ! Imagine my sitting down to dinner with a 
 gentleman in the dress of the early century — ruffles, 
 even hag-ivig complete — a gentleman who has visited 
 these Springs" for the last forty years ! Who re- 
 members ' Maddison, Sir,' and ' Mousie, Sir,' and 
 asked me what I thought of the poems of Matthew 
 Prior ! I have seen people that I believed never 
 existed off the stage — gouty old uncles in white 
 flannel ; stiff old dowagers who personify the centen- 
 nial. And all this undiscovered country within 400 
 miles of New York. I never had such a chance in 
 my life, and I look back upon poor Colonel Starbottle 
 as an utter failure. If I could dress Robson and get 
 him to speak as I heard the real Virginia Colonel 
 Starbottle speak yesterday, I could make him famous. 
 
 " I shall return Monday or Tuesday next, I think ; 
 until then I hope you will not be worried. I am 
 better physically and I think in every way. Don't 
 mind my incoherency. I am writing just now to 
 
 143 
 
FROM PACIFIC 
 
 keep up with the ' post-boy ' — a real ' post-boy,' 
 who is to pass here on his pony in five minutes. — 
 Your affectionate Frank." 
 
 Later a warning note of coming trouble was 
 sounded. In New York and its vicinity Bret Harte, 
 with an increased family and consequently increased 
 expenses, was living at a far higher rate than in 
 San Francisco. The welcome guest of every one, he 
 was shown much and profuse hospitality, and, ever 
 open-handed and generous, he loved to return it. 
 But after a time the position became a source of 
 anxiety to him. He bethought himself of his beloved 
 ^sop and the fable that told how : " An earthen 
 pot, and one of brass, standing together on the river's 
 brink, were both carried away by the flowing in of 
 the tide. The earthen pot showed some uneasiness, 
 as fearing he should be broken ; but his companion 
 of brass bid him be under no apprehensions, for 
 that he would take care of him. ' Oh,' replied the 
 other, ' keep as far off as ever you can, I entreat 
 you ; it is you I am most afraid of, for whether the 
 stream dashes you against me, or me against you, I 
 am sure to be the sufferer, and therefore, I beg of 
 you, do not let us come near to one another.' " 
 
 How quaint is the " application " appended to 
 that famous old fable, and how fond he was of it, 
 as he was, indeed, of each page of ^sop and every- 
 thing associated with him : " A man of a moderate 
 
 fortune, who is contented with what he has, and 
 
 144 
 
Jint Ilaitc {circa 1870). 
 
 [To face p. 144. 
 
TO ATLANTIC SHORES 
 
 finds he can live happily upon it, should take care 
 not to hazard and expose his felicity by consorting 
 with the great and the powerful. People of equal 
 conditions may float down the current of life without 
 hurting each other ; but it is a point of some difficulty 
 to steer one's course in the company of the great so^-^ — ' 
 as to escape without a bulge. One would not choose 
 to have one's little country-box situated in the 
 neighbourhood of a very great man, for whether I 
 ignorantly trespass upon him or he knowingly en- 
 croaches upon me, I only am like to be the sufferer. 
 I can neither entertain nor play with him upon his 
 own terms ; for that which is moderation and diver- 
 sion to him, in me would be extravagance and ruin." 
 
 No doubt at the time of which I am writing 
 Bret Harte was worried with the idea that he was 
 somewhat dangerously drifting, and he had no desire 
 to be in the position of the earthen pot, but he 
 loved the society of his friends, and could not bear 
 to seem indifferent to the great kindness shown 
 him. 
 
 But that his mind was troubled is shown by the 
 following letter to his wife : — 
 
 '* Mrs. Bret Harte, Sea Cliff House, 
 Sea Cliff, L.I. 
 
 " TTiursday Night. 
 
 " Thank you, dear Nan, for your kind, hopeful ^1- — 
 letter. I have been very sick ; very much disap- 
 pointed, but I'm better now, and am only waiting 
 
 145 K 
 
FROM PACIFIC 
 
 isome money to return. I ought to have, for the 
 
 work that I have done, more than would help us 
 out of our difficulties. But it doesn't come, and 
 even the money I've expected from the gapital for 
 my story is signed by its creditors. That hope and 
 the expectations I had from the paper and Piatt 
 in the future amount to nothing. I have found that 
 it is bankrupt. 
 
 " Can you wonder, Nan, that I have kept this 
 from you ? You have so hard a time of it there, 
 and I cannot bear to have you worried if there is 
 the least hope of a change in my affairs as they 
 look, day by day. Piatt has been gone nearly a 
 month, was expected to return every day, and only 
 yesterday did I know positively of his inability to 
 
 fulfil his promises. came here three days ago, 
 
 and in a very few moments I learned from him 
 that I need expect nothing for the particular service 
 I had done him. I've been vilified anij abused in 
 the papers for having received compensation for my 
 services, when really and truly I have only received 
 less than I should have got from any magazine or 
 newspaper for my story. 
 
 " I sent you the fifty dollars by Mr. D , 
 
 because I knew you would be in immediate need,^ 
 and there is no telegraph transfer office on Long 
 Island. It was the only fifty I have made since 
 I've been here. 
 
 " I am waiting to hear from Osgood regarding 
 
 an advance on that wretched story. He writes me 
 
 146 
 
TO ATLANTIC SHORES 
 
 »he does not quite like it. I shall probably hear 
 from him to-night. When the money comes I shall 
 come with it. 
 
 >"God bless you and keep you and the children 
 safe for the sake of Frank." 
 
 Not unnaturally debts had been incurred, and 
 not only did these cause him anxiety, but exaggerated 
 reports concerning them angered him intensely. In 
 this connection Mr. Noah Brooks relates the following 
 story. A rich man in New York, a banker and 
 broker, with an ambition to be considered a patron 
 of the arts and literature, made much of the new 
 literary lion, and from him Bret Harte, regarding 
 the whole matter from a banking point of view, 
 obtained ajdyances_of.^some five hundred dollars, in 
 sums varying from five dollars to fifty dollars at a 
 time. One New Year's Day Bret Harte, in as much 
 wrath as he was ever capable of showing, handed 
 a friend a note from the rich banker, in which the 
 writer, who was not famous for being a generous 
 giver, reminded him that this was the season of 
 the year when business men endeavoured to enter 
 a new era with a clean page in the ledger ; and 
 that, in order to enable his literary friend to do 
 that, he returned to him the I.O.UJs which, by 
 way of security, had been signed from time to time. 
 " Damn his impudence," exclaimed poor Bret Harte. 
 "What are you going to do about it?" asked the 
 friend. " Going to do about it ? " was the reply, 
 
 147 
 
FROM PACIFIC 
 
 with much emphasis on the first word. " Going ! I 
 have made a new note for the full amount of these, 
 and have sent it to him with an intimation that I 
 never allow pecuniary matters to trespass on the 
 domain of friendship." 
 
 " He was utterly," Mr. Brooks continues, " desti- 
 tute of what is sometimes called the ' money sense.' 
 He could not drive a bargain, and he was an easy 
 mark for any man who could. Consequently he was 
 continually involved in troubles that he might have 
 escaped with a little more financial shrewdness. 
 ■^ Once he lectured in Boston with a bailiff, or deputy- 
 sheriff, sitting in the ante-room near an open door 
 so that Bret Harte could not escape him. A literary 
 friend good-naturedly rallied him on the situation, 
 and the persecuted lecturer, laughing heartily, said, 
 ' Yes, that's it ; we can see it all now — the Fleet 
 Prison, with Goldsmith, Johnson, and all the rest 
 of the old masters in a bunch ! ' 
 
 " Once when we were waiting on Broadway for 
 
 a stage to take him down town, he said, as the 
 
 lumbering vehicle hove in sight, ' Lend me a quarter ; 
 
 I haven't money enough to pay my stage fare.' 
 
 Two or three weeks later, when I had forgotten 
 
 the incident, we stood in the same place waiting 
 
 for the same stage, and Bret Harte, putting a quarter 
 
 of a dollar in my hand, said : ' I owe you a quarter, 
 
 and there it is. You hear men say that I never 
 
 pay my debts, but ' (this with a chuckle) ' you can 
 
 deny the slander. 
 
 148 
 
TO ATLANTIC SHORES 
 
 Another story was to the effect that while he 
 Uved at Morristown he retained the postage stamps 
 sent to him for his autographs, and these apphca- 
 tions were so numerous that with them he paid his 
 butcher's bill ; but that the slander had been denied 
 on the authority of the butcher ! 
 
 It is said that when he heard this invention 
 he laughed more heartily than any one ; but though 
 the humour of a particular canard may have tickled 
 him, his sensitive nature winced under such implied 
 slurs. His pen had made him one of the celebrities 
 of the day, and though he was surrounded by many 
 who could appreciate him at his true worth, he had 
 to listen to the ever-existing crowd — existing, and 
 certainly not diminishing, in every clime — of those 
 who take an unholy joy in throwing stones. He 
 who never cast a stone himself could not under- 
 stand it. 
 
 As, by the malicious, these rumours of American 
 unpaid debts have been revived from time to time 
 and require dispelling, I shall quote Mr. Joaquin 
 Miller, who, writing of Bret Harte after his death, 
 and speaking with authority, says : — 
 
 " It was published up and down " (in California) 
 
 i" for years that he left a lot of bills unpaid. When 
 
 I returned to settle down here in the early eighties I 
 
 found these stories furiously revived. I denied them. 
 
 Then it was published that he had left a lot of unpaid 
 
 bills in New York also. I wrote to John Hay, then 
 
 editing The Tribune. Hay assured me that he did 
 
 149 
 
FROM PACIFIC 
 
 not owe one dollar in New York ; that he was a man 
 of singularly strict sense of honour in money matters ; 
 that he had once offered to assist him when ill in 
 Washington, but that Bret Harte had seemed so hurt 
 at the idea that he was sorry he had tried to help 
 him. . . . Yes, our gifted Secretary of State knew 
 Bret Harte a heap better than any one else, and, as 
 you can see, loved him and trusted him entirely. 
 
 " I may mention that after I had the letter from 
 Hay I advertised here in St. Louis for any and all 
 bills against Bret Harte, promising to pay in full 
 without regard to the statute of limitations. Only 
 one man, a printer, put in any sort of a claim, and 
 this one man's own statement was to the effect that 
 Bret Harte paid the most of the bill, claiming that 
 was all he had agreed to pay. Sic ! " 
 
 In face of such evidence as this surely the viper — 
 slander — may be ruthlessly trodden under foot. 
 
 But I am afraid that the poor author knew that 
 he was calumniated, and that it sorely vexed him as 
 he incessantly toiled with his pen and grappled with 
 his arrears. I believe he was always well paid for 
 his work — or that at any rate he got the full price of 
 his day. In talking of these times to me he never 
 complained on this score, though he has often said 
 that he got better remuneration for his work in 
 England. 
 
 Of the writer's emoluments Grant Allen has 
 
 bitterly declared : " Brain for brain, in no market 
 
 can you sell your abilities to such poor advantage. 
 
 150 
 
TO ATLANTIC SHORES 
 
 Don't take to literature if you've capital enough in 
 hand to buy a good broom, and energy enough to 
 annex a vacant crossing." 
 
 Bret Harte never had occasion to feel this, but the 
 old fear that his pen might either fail him, or not 
 earn a sufficiency for his household, lay heavily upon 
 him. Once more he sought additional employment, 
 and, though he had no desire to leave America, when 
 the Consulate of Crefeld in Prussia^ was offered to 
 him he accepted it. And so it came about that (in 
 1878), having established his wife and family at Sea 
 Cliff, he quitted his native land, little thinking he was 
 never to see it again. 
 
 151 
 
CHAPTEK V 
 
 FROM THE NEW WORLD TO THE OLD 
 
 Although, as we have seen, the Daily Neivs feared 
 that not a few of the most intelhgent EngHsh readers 
 would be found asking, " Who is Mr. Bret Harte ? 
 and what has he said or done?" he had had his 
 enthusiastic admirers on this side of the Atlantic ever 
 since the first appearance of The Overland Monthly, 
 and when, on his way to Crefeld, he first landed on 
 British soil, he must have known he would have a 
 hearty reception. 
 
 Thomas Hood the younger, or Tom Hood, as he 
 was generally called, was among the first, if not the 
 very first Englishman to discover and delight in the 
 crack of the new American whip. 
 
 To the first volume of his stories published in 
 England, Hood wrote an introduction, and in it he 
 said: "Early in the January of 1869 I received a 
 batch of new magazines, which on inspection proved 
 to be the first five numbers of The Overla^id Monthly, 
 which had been started at San Francisco in the July 
 preceding. I had for some time been acquainted 
 with that clever and most audacious print. The San 
 Francisco Newsletter, and was therefore prepared to 
 find merits in the new periodical. Nevertheless to 
 
 152 
 
THE NEW WORLD TO THE OLD 
 
 eyes accustomed to the gorgeous covers and superfine 
 getting up of our English magazines, the appearance 
 of the newcomer was not attractive. It was printed 
 on paper seemingly related to that species in which 
 >Beauty puts away her ringlets for the night, and its 
 brown wrapper was of texture and tint suggestive of 
 parcels of grocery. But if the exterior was unpre- 
 tentious, the contents were attractive enough. The 
 magazine had as it were a fragrance of its own, like 
 ' a spray of Western pine.' The articles were fresh 
 and original, the subjects they treated of were novel 
 and interesting. I believe I read every page of those 
 five numbers, and I looked forward anxiously for the 
 arrival of the sixth. One feature in the magazine I 
 commend to the consideration of editors generally. 
 Each monthly number had its table of contents, 
 wherein the articles were anonymous ; but in the 
 index in the sixth, and last in each volume, the 
 names of the authors were given. It gave a peculiar 
 relish to one's reading, after one became acquainted 
 with the various styles of the writers, to guess the 
 authors, and compare conjectures with the index. 
 
 " The editor's name did not appear, but in a 
 gossip entitled ' Etc' at the end of each number, he 
 from time to time inserted little bits of verse that 
 had a local flavour that was very agreeable. The 
 second number contained ' The Luck of Roaring 
 Camp.' The critiques on new books here and there 
 betrayed his hand. The ' Etc' in number five opened 
 with a quaint mention of ' an earth-wave, which, 
 
 ^53 
 
FROM THE NEW WORLD 
 
 passing under San Francisco, had left its record upon 
 some sheets of the number, by the falHng of the roof 
 of the building in which they were stored,' and asking 
 readers, it having been too late to reprint, to pardon 
 ' any blemishes on those signatures to which the great 
 earthquake had added its mark.' 
 
 " The sixth number arrived, and turning to the 
 index, I found the authors' names were given there, 
 and that the writer of the articles which had inter- 
 ested me most was ' F. B. Harte.' With the first 
 number of the second volume, ' The Holiday Number,' 
 he resumed the ' Roaring Camp ' vein, in ' The Out- 
 casts of Poker Flat.' 
 
 " From that time he became a writer to be looked 
 for, and he never disappointed me. In prose or verse 
 he was sure to be good, whether he was humorous or 
 pathetic. In volume iii. the index made a further 
 revelation of his name as ' Fr. Bret Harte.' " 
 
 To his discoveries in the "gossip entitled 'Etc.,'" 
 I think Tom Hood might have safely added the fol- 
 lowing : — 
 
 " ' There are,' says a pleasant authority in a late 
 number of the Overland, 'more than 5000 Springs 
 in the Coast Range.' How many there are in other 
 parts of California we cannot estimate, for our spas 
 have yet to be written up. Oral tradition gives a 
 glowing but vague account of their peculiar and won- 
 derful virtues. We all know some man who knew 
 another man who, after having been given over by 
 the faculty, was cured by two baths in the Scald- 
 
 154 
 
TO THE OLD 
 
 ing Spring, the Lukewarm Spring, or the Spring 
 of Abominable Odours. We all know the familiar 
 Thompsonian Spring of San Andreas, where Nature 
 offers boiling pennyroyal tea and boneset to the 
 exhausted invalid, and the Compound Cathartic 
 Spring, of San Antonio, whose waters, impregnated 
 with magnesia, percolating a plantation of rhubarb, 
 are so famous ; but we want details. The fol- 
 lowing is a contribution towards making up those 
 deficiencies : — 
 
 THE ARSENICAL SPRING OF SAN JOAQUIN. 
 
 Of all the fountains that poets sing — 
 
 Crystal, thermal, or mineral spring, 
 
 Ponce de Leon's Fount of Youth ; 
 
 Wells — with bottoms of doubtful truth — 
 
 In shoi-t, of all the springs of Time 
 
 That were ever flowing in fact or rhyme, 
 
 That were ever tasted, felt or seen, 
 
 There were none like the Spring of San Joaquin. 
 
 Anno Domini Eighteen-seven, 
 
 Father Dominguez (now in Heaven — 
 
 Ohiit, Eighteen twenty-seven) 
 
 Found the spring, and found it, too, 
 
 By his mule's miraculous cast of a shoe, 
 
 For his beast — a descendant of Balaam's ass — 
 
 Stopped on the instant, and would not pass. 
 
 The Padre thought the omen good. 
 
 And bent his lips to the trickling flood ; 
 
 Then — as the chronicles declare. 
 
 On the honest faith of a true believer — 
 
 His cheeks, though wasted, lank and bare, 
 
 Filled like a withered russet-pear 
 
 In the vacuum of a glass receiver, 
 
 ^S5 
 
FROM THE NEW WORLD 
 
 And the snows that seventy winters bring 
 Melted away in that magic spring. 
 
 Such, at least, was the wondrous news 
 The Padre brought into Santa Cruz. 
 The Church, of course, had its own views 
 Of who were worthiest to use 
 The magic spring ; but the prior claim 
 Fell to the aged, sick, and lame. 
 Far and wide the people came : 
 Some from the healthful Aptos creek 
 Hastened to bring their helpless sick ; 
 Even the fishers of rude Soquel 
 Suddenly found they were far from well ; 
 The brawny dwellers of San Lorenzo 
 Said, in fact, they had never been so ; 
 And all were ailing — strange to say — 
 From Pescadero to Monterey. 
 
 Over the mountain they poured in 
 With leathern bottles and bags of skin. 
 Through the caiions a motley throng 
 Trotted, hobbled, and limped along. 
 The fathers gazed at the moving scene 
 With pious joy and with souls serene, 
 And then — a result perhaps foreseen — 
 They laid out the Mission of San Joaquin. 
 
 Not in the eyes of Faith alone 
 
 The good effects of the waters shone ; 
 
 But skins waxed rosy, eyes grew clear, 
 
 Of rough vacquero and muleteer. 
 
 Angular forms were rounded out, 
 
 Limbs grew supple and waists grew stout ; 
 
 And as for the girls — for miles about 
 
 They had no equal ! To this day. 
 
 From Pescadero to Monterey, 
 
 You'd still find eyes in which are seen 
 
 The liquid graces of San Joaquin. 
 
 156 
 
TO THE OLD 
 
 There is a limit to human bliss, 
 
 And the Mission of San Joaquin had this : 
 
 None went abroad to roam or stay, 
 
 But they fell sick in the queerest way — 
 
 A singular sort of malade du payi< 
 
 With gastric symptoms ; so they spent 
 
 Their days in a sensuous content. 
 
 Caring little for things unseen 
 
 Beyond their bowers of living green — 
 
 Beyond the mountains that lay between 
 
 The world and the Mission of San Joaquin. 
 
 Winter passed, and the summer came ; 
 
 The trunks of madw/le, all aflame. 
 
 Here and there through the underwood 
 
 Like pillars of fire starkly stood. 
 
 All of the breezy solitude 
 
 Was filled with the spicing of pine and bay 
 
 And resinous odours mixed and blended. 
 
 And dim and ghost-like far away 
 
 The smoke of the burning woods ascended. 
 
 Then of a sudden the mountains swam. 
 
 The rivers piled their floods in a dam ; 
 
 The ridge above Los Gatos creek 
 
 Arched its spine in a feline fashion ; 
 
 The forests waltzed till they grew sick, 
 
 And Nature shook in a speechless passion ; 
 
 And, swallowed up in the earthquake's spleen, 
 
 The wonderful Spring of San Joaquin 
 
 Vanished, and never more was seen ! 
 
 Two days passed ; the Mission folk 
 
 In languid patience bore their yoke ; 
 
 Some of them looked a trifle white. 
 
 But that, no doubt, was from earthquake fright. 
 
 Three days ; there was sore distress. 
 
 Headache, nausea, giddiness. 
 
 Four days ; faintings, tenderness 
 
 Of the mouth and fauces, and in less 
 
FKOM THE NEW WORLD 
 
 Than one week — here the stoiy closes — 
 We won't continue the prognosis — 
 Enough that now no trace is seen 
 Of the Spring or Mission of San Joaquin. 
 
 MOEAL. 
 
 You see the point ? Don't be too quick 
 To break bad habits — better stick, 
 Like the Mission folk, to your arsenic ! " 
 
 This was surely Bret Harte's. The old experiences 
 of the drug store run through it, and he was always 
 interested in the effect of arsenic on the human 
 system. I have already made mention of one of his 
 latest stories (" Liberty Jones's Discovery ") in which 
 a plain girl becomes beautiful by unconsciously drink- 
 ing of and bathing in the waters of an arsenical 
 spring. There in a serious narrative he described 
 the symptoms humorously alluded to in the fore- 
 going stanzas. 
 
 Referring to his career before the appearance of 
 
 this magazine, Hood says : "I do not think that as 
 
 yet the public had discovered him ; for Joaquin 
 
 Miller, when in London, told me a volume of his 
 
 poems, entitled ' The Lost Galleon,' published in 
 
 1867, had not met the success it deserved ; " and adds, 
 
 " I must, in concluding this Preface, acknowledge my 
 
 indebtedness for the chief facts in it to my friend 
 
 Mr. Justin McCarthy, who has on his recent return 
 
 from America brought a few pleasant words from 
 
 Bret Harte to me, in allusion to my having been one 
 
 of the first to take note of his work in England, a 
 
 158 
 
TO THE OLD 
 
 fact due rather to my good luck in receiving early 
 copies of the Overland than to any merit in recog- 
 nising what any one who reads his contributions 
 must have recognised — the undoubted genius of 
 Bret Harte." 
 
 In the early days of the Overland, Tom Hood 
 was the editor of Fun. He was an exceedingly 
 popular man, and he loved to gather around him the 
 best known and rising young writers of the day. 
 These included T. W. Kobertson (the dramatist), the 
 brothers Brough, Clement Scott, H. J. Byron, W. S. 
 Gilbert, Geoffrey Prowse, Edmund Yates, Sutherland 
 Edwards, Godfrey Turner, and others whose names 
 have since become household words. Those were the 
 golden days of literary Bohemia, that pleasant land 
 of whose Capital poor Prowse wrote — 
 
 " The longitude's rather uncertain, 
 The latitude's equally vague ; 
 But that person I pity who knows not the city, 
 The beautiful city of Prague ; " 
 
 and within the gates of that Capital the name of 
 Bret Harte, thanks to Hood, soon became a familiar 
 one. If he had only known it, the young American 
 author had enlisted in London a strong and unique 
 body of " Koaring Camp " and " Poker Flat " en- 
 thusiasts, and one and all longed to see him and 
 thank him for the delight his work had given them. 
 
 I was too young to make one of that " goodly 
 company," but thanks to the kindness of my dear old 
 
 159 
 
FROM THE NEW WORLD 
 
 friend, E. A. Sothern (the comedian of Lord Dun- 
 dreary fame), I made firm friendships with many of 
 them, became infected with their ardour, and have 
 ever remained one of the most loyal of Bret Harte's 
 followers. 
 
 When I think of the hours and hours of keen 
 pleasure his writings have given me, and the numbers 
 of years over which that joy has continued, I feel I 
 can never be too grateful to his memory. I have 
 always felt with Tom Hood that he never dis- 
 appointed me. In prose or verse he was sure to be 
 good, whether he was humorous or pathetic. I 
 know that some latter day critics have held that 
 after the lapse of years his stories deteriorated in 
 merit, but on that point I have something to say in 
 another chapter. 
 
 In the pages of Fun, in the dying sixties and the 
 dawning seventies, Hood was never tired of bringing 
 the new author before the British public, and as the 
 paper circulated widely and carried weight, gained 
 for him an ever increasing number of readers. Poor 
 Hood ! How he would have rejoiced to listen, as I 
 have often done, to Bret Harte's delighted and 
 appreciative talk of his father's touching and spark- 
 ling poems. He knew many of them by heart, and as 
 he sat by the fireside on a winter's night he loved to 
 quote from them. 
 
 But even better than all this, Charles Dickens 
 
 had found him out. His biographer, John Forster, 
 
 records : — 
 
 1 60 
 
TO THE OLD 
 
 " Not many months before my friend's death he 
 
 had sent me two Overland Monthlies, containing two 
 
 sketches by a young American writer far away in 
 
 CaHfornia, ' The Luck of Roaring Camp ' and ' The 
 
 Outcasts of Poker Flat,' in which he had found such 
 
 subtle strokes of character as he had not anywhere 
 
 else in late years discovered ; the manner resembling 
 
 himself, but the matter fresh to a degree that had 
 
 surprised him ; the painting in all respects masterly, 
 
 and the wild rude thing painted a quite wonderful 
 
 reality, I have rarely known him more honestly 
 
 moved. A few months passed ; telegraph wires 
 
 flashed over the world that he had passed away on 
 
 the 9th of June, and the young writer of whom he 
 
 had then written to me, all unconscious of that praise, 
 
 put his tribute of gratefulness and sorrow into the 
 
 poem called ' Dickens in Camp.' It embodies the 
 
 same kind of incident which had so affected the 
 
 master himself in the papers to which I have referred ; 
 
 it shows the gentler influences which, in even those 
 
 Californian wilds, can restore outlawed ' roaring 
 
 campers ' to silence and humanity ; and there is 
 
 hardly any form of posthumous tribute which I can 
 
 imagine likely to have better satisfied his desire of 
 
 fame than one which should thus connect with the 
 
 special favourite among all his heroines, the restraints 
 
 and authority exerted by his genius over the rudest 
 
 and least civilised of competitors in that far, fierce 
 
 race for wealth." 
 
 Most English readers are familiar with that 
 
 161 L 
 
FROM THE NEW WORLD 
 
 beautiful poem which tells how a party of rough 
 Californian miners, sitting by the blazing camp-fire 
 at the foot of the snow-capped Sierras, with the moon 
 slowly drifting above the pines, and to the accom- 
 paniment of the endless music of the swiftly-flowing 
 river, were held enthralled while one of them, from a 
 treasured copy of " The Old Curiosity Shop," read to 
 them the touching narrative of the devoted Nell and 
 her weak old grandfather's wanderings o'er English 
 meadows. Thousands of English men and women 
 were grateful to the American poet who thus paid his 
 tender tribute to their loved author : — 
 
 The roaring camp-fire with rude humour painted 
 
 The ruddy tints of health 
 On haggard face and form that diooped and fainted 
 
 In the fierce race for wealth. 
 
 Till one arose and from his pack's scant treasure 
 
 A hoarded volume drew, 
 And cards were dropped from hands of listless leisure 
 
 To hear the tale anew. 
 
 And so in mountain solitudes o'ertaken 
 
 As by some spell divine — 
 Their cares dropped from them like the needles shaken 
 
 F)-om out the gusty pine. 
 
 Lost is that camp and wasted all its fire : 
 
 And he who wrought that spell ? 
 Ah, towering pine and stately Kentish spire. 
 
 Ye have one tale to tell. 
 162 
 
TO THE OLD 
 
 Lost is that camp, but let its fragrant story 
 
 Blend with the breath that thrills 
 With hop-vine's incense all the pensive glory 
 
 That fills the Kentish hills. 
 
 And on that grave where English oak and holly, 
 
 And laurel wi-eatha entwine, 
 Deem it not all a too presumptuous folly 
 
 This spray of "Western pine ! " 
 
 July 1870. 
 
 Bret Harte told me the little history of that 
 ever-green poem, of how it was written on the day 
 that the news of the death of Dickens reached him 
 at San Rafael, California, while the last sheets of the 
 July Overland, already edited by him, were going to 
 press. After stifling the emotion that he felt (for he 
 dearly loved his "Boz"), he hurriedly sent his first 
 and only draft of the verses, which were destined to 
 live so long, to the office at San Francisco. They 
 were written in two or three hours, and at his 
 urgent request the publication of the magazine was 
 held back until they could appear. 
 
 When Mr. Frederic G. Kitton was preparing his 
 sumptuous volume, " Charles Dickens by Pen and 
 Pencil," he wrote to Bret Harte asking him if it 
 would be possible for him to insert in it a facsimile of 
 the poem as it was written. To this request he had 
 reply :— 
 
 "^ May 2,otJ), 1890. 
 
 " Dear Sir, — I am very sorry that I have not 
 
 the original MS. of ' Dickens in Camp.' I hurriedly 
 
 sent the first and only draft of the verses to the office 
 
 163 
 
FROM THE NEW WORLD 
 
 at San Francisco, and I suppose after passing the 
 printer's and proof-reader's hands, it lapsed into the 
 usual oblivion of all editorial ' copy.' 
 
 " I remember that it was very hastily but very 
 honestly written, and it is fair to add it was not 
 until later that I knew for the first time that those 
 gentle and wonderful eyes, which I was thinking of 
 as being closed for ever, had ever rested kindly upon 
 a line of mine. — I am. Dear Sir, yours very sincerely, 
 
 Bret Harte." 
 
 With this letter he enclosed a copy of the poem 
 in his own handwriting. Needless to say this was re- 
 produced, and it exists in the beautiful monument 
 Mr. Kitton has raised to the memory of the master 
 he so well loves and so loyally serves. 
 
 Concerning his early manuscripts Bret Harte was 
 careless. Unluckily he set no more store by them 
 than the ordinary journalist does by his "copy" for 
 the press. Absurd stories have been told about them. 
 Some years ago it was currently reported that the 
 original draft of "The Heathen Chinee" was safely 
 lodged in the British Museum. He wanted to dis- 
 prove this, and asked me to make inquiries about it. 
 Taking some pains I did so, and found that the 
 Museum authorities, while all admiring Ah Sin, 
 Bill Nye, and Truthful James, knew nothing of the 
 document of which I was in search. 
 
 Well, to return to my subject. On the day when, 
 
 amidst " a rain of tears and flowers" — many flowers 
 
 164 
 
TO THE OLD 
 
 brought by unknown hands, many tears shed from 
 unknown eyes — Charles Dickens was laid to rest in 
 Westminster Abbey, a letter in his handwriting (the 
 magic handwriting that brought and still brings 
 merriment and comfort to millions), addressed to 
 Bret Harte, was on its way across the Atlantic. 
 It was a letter in his usual hearty, breezy style, 
 telling the young author how highly he thought of 
 his work, asking him to contribute to All the Year 
 Round (of which he was then editor), and bidding 
 him, when he came to England, which he was " certain 
 soon to do," to visit him at his delightful home at 
 Gad's Hill—" a spot with which you are no doubt 
 already familiar in connection with one William 
 Shakespeare and a certain Sir John FalstafF." 
 
 Bret Harte's first visit to London was perforce a 
 short one. There he found his old friend Joaquin 
 Miller, who concerning it made this record : — 
 
 " He came to me in London late in the seventies, 
 on his way to the Consulate at Crefeld, up the Rhine, 
 a piteously small place for such a large man. He 
 had a French dictionary in one pocket, he told me, 
 half laughing, and a German dictionary in the other. 
 London wanted to see him of course, and although 
 ' the season ' was over, all the literary men and 
 women gathered about, and were simply charmed by 
 his warm-hearted and perfect ways. ' George Eliot ' 
 asked after John Hay, and told Bret Harte that one 
 of his poems was the finest thing in our language 
 
 " He could not rest until he stood by the grave of 
 
 165 
 
THE NEW WORLD TO THE OLD 
 
 Dickens. But I drove him here and I drove him 
 there to see the Hving. The dead would keep. But 
 at last, one twilight, I led him by the hand to where 
 some plain letters, in a broad, flat stone, just below 
 the bust of Thackeray, read ' Charles Dickens.' 
 
 " Bret Harte is dead now, and it will not hurt him 
 in politics, where they seem to want hard and heart- 
 less men for high places — not hurt him in politics or 
 in anything anywhere — to tell the plain truth, how 
 he tried to speak, but choked up, how tears ran down 
 and fell on the stone as he bowed his bare head very 
 low ; how his hand trembled as I led him away." 
 
 Bret Harte was, indeed, a true believer in the 
 genius of Charles Dickens. His knowledge of his 
 books was unrivalled, and he could not only enjoy 
 his humour, but appreciate to the utmost his pathos. 
 He could have passed Charles Calverley's famous 
 " Pickwick " Examination Paper with honours. 
 
 i66 
 
 
CHAPTEE VI 
 
 THE CONSUL 
 
 With his own irresistible blend of mirth and sadness 
 
 Bret Harte often spoke to me of the awful sense of 
 
 loneliness that came over him when he found himself 
 
 a solitary stranger in Crefeld. It was a keen sense 
 
 of duty that had induced him to leave his family 
 
 and friends in America ; he had no doubt hated the 
 
 idea of his self-imposed exile, and now that the test 
 
 point had come he found it almost unendurable. In 
 
 the evenings he would stroll listlessly around the 
 
 unknown streets longing to see a face that would 
 
 greet him with a smile, some familiar figure that 
 
 would extend to him the hand of welcome ; but he 
 
 was a stranger among people speaking a strange 
 
 language, and the sense of his isolation troubled him 
 
 sorely. He became very sad when he recalled those 
 
 early days at Crefeld, and when it was suggested 
 
 that Mill had said, " Solitude, in the sense of being 
 
 frequently alone, is necessary to the formation of any 
 
 depth of character," he answered, " Yes, yes, that's 
 
 true enough, but Mill didn't think of my solitude in 
 
 that uncongenial German town." 
 
 The following letter to his wife tells of his 
 
 endurances :— 
 
 167 
 
THE CONSUL 
 
 " Mrs. Bret Harte, 
 
 Sea Cliff Hotel, Long Island. 
 
 " Crefeld, July 17, 1878. 
 
 "My dear Nan, — At last! I arrived here at 
 eight o'clock this morning, after a long sleepless ride 
 of twelve hours from Paris, and fomid your letter of 
 June 28th awaiting me. It was only a day's later 
 news, but it was the first news I had from home since 
 I left three weeks ago. 
 
 " I left London Friday morning and reached Paris 
 
 the same night, intending to come here the next day, 
 
 but I found myself so worn out that I lingered at 
 
 Paris until last night — three days. I saw Dora and 
 
 Gertie. They were both glad to see me, were very 
 
 kind, and found a nice little hotel for me, and helped 
 
 me in many ways in my lingual helplessness, although 
 
 I was dreadfully disappointed that they could not 
 
 come to Crefeld with me, where so much depended 
 
 upon my having some friend with me who understood 
 
 the language. But I have audaciously travelled alone 
 
 nearly four hundred miles, through an utterly foreign 
 
 country, on one or two little French and German 
 
 phrases, and a very small stock of assurance, and 
 
 have delivered my letters to my predecessor, and 
 
 shall take possession of the Consulate to-morrow. 
 
 Mr. , the present incumbent, appears to me — 
 
 I do not know how far I shall modify my impression 
 
 hereafter — as a very narrow, mean, ill-bred, and not 
 
 over-bright Puritanical German. It was my intention 
 
 to appoint him my Vice-Consul — an act of courtesy 
 
 168 
 
THE CONSUL 
 
 suggested both by my own sense of right and Mr. 
 Lenard's advice, but he does not seem to deserve it, 
 and has even received my suggestion of it with the 
 suspicion of a mean nature. But at present I fear 
 I may have to do it, for I know no one else here — 
 I am to all appearance utterly friendless ; I have not 
 received the first act of kindness or courtesy from 
 any one, and I suppose this man sees it. I shall go 
 to Bavaria to-morrow to see the Consul there, who 
 held this place as one of his dependencies, and under 
 
 whose directions was, and try to make matters 
 
 straight. 
 
 " It's been up-hill work ever since I left New 
 York, but I shall try to see it through, please God ! 
 I don't allow myself to think over it at all, or I 
 should go crazy. I shut my eyes to it, and in doing 
 so perhaps I shut out what is often so pleasant to 
 a traveller's first impressions, but thus far London 
 has only seemed to me a sluggish nightmare through 
 which I have waked, and Paris a confused sort of 
 hysterical experience. I had hoped for a little kind- 
 ness and rest here. Perhaps it may come. To-day 
 I found here (forwarded from London) a kind little 
 response to my card from Froude, who invites me 
 to come to his country place — an old seaport village 
 in Devonshire. If everything had gone well here — 
 if I can make it go well here — I shall go back to 
 London and Paris for a vacation of a few weeks, and 
 see Froude at least. 
 
 " At least, Nan, be sure I've written now the 
 
 169 
 
THE CONSUL 
 
 worst ; I think things must be better soon. I shall, 
 
 please God, make some friends in good time, and will 
 
 try and be patient. But I shall not think of sending 
 
 for you until I see clearly that I can stay myself 
 
 If the worst comes to the worst I shall try to stand 
 
 it for a year, and save enough to come home and 
 
 begin anew there. But I could not stand it to see 
 
 you break your heart here through disappointment, 
 
 as I mayhap may do. 
 
 " I shall write again in a day or two when I have 
 
 taken my place. — Your affectionate 
 
 Frank. 
 
 "P.S. — My health is pretty fair. It would be 
 unfair to judge of it now until I get over my 
 ennui." 
 
 It is characteristic of Bret Harte that when within 
 a few hours he saw a glimpse of blue in his cloudy 
 sky, he did not wait for a " day or two," but hastened 
 to send home more cheering news. 
 
 " Mrs. Bret Harte, 
 
 Sea Cliff Hotel, Sea Cliff, Long Island. 
 
 "Crefeld, July 17, 1878, Midnight. 
 " My dear Nan, — I wrote and mailed you a letter 
 this afternoon that I fear was rather disconsolate, 
 so I sit down to-night to send another, which I hope 
 will take a little of the blues out of the first. Since 
 I wrote I have had some further conversation with 
 
 my predecessor, Mr. , and I think I can manage 
 
 170 
 
Bret Harte. From the oripincil painfinn hy John Pettie, B.A. 
 
 [To face p. 170. 
 
THE CONSUL 
 
 matters with him. He has hauled in his horns 
 considerably since I told him that the position I 
 offered him — as far as the honour of it went — 
 was better than the one he held. For the one 
 thing pleasant about my office is that the dignity 
 of it has been raised on my account. It was only 
 a dependence — a Consular agency — before it was 
 offered to me. 
 
 " I feel a little more hopeful, too, for I have 
 been taken out to a ' fest '—or a festival — of one 
 of the viners, and one or two of the people were 
 a little kind. I forced myself to go ; those German 
 festivals are distasteful to me, and I did not care 
 to show my ignorance of their language quite so 
 prominently, but I thought it was the proper thing 
 for me to do. It was a very queer sight. About five 
 hundred people were in an artificial garden beside an 
 artificial lake, looking at artificial fireworks, and 
 yet as thoroughly enjoying it as if they were 
 children. Of course there was beer and wine./ 
 Here as in Paris everybody drinks, and all the 
 time, anJ^ nobody gets drunk, "^eer, beer, beer ; 
 and meals, meals, meals ; food and drink, and drink 
 and food again. Everywhere the body is wor- 
 shipped. Beside them we are but unsubstantial 
 spirits. 
 
 " I write this in my hotel, having had to pass 
 through a mysterious gate and so into a side court- 
 yard and up a pair of labyrinthine stairs, to my 
 
 dim ' zimmer ' or chamber. The whole scene 
 
 171 
 
THE CONSUL 
 
 as I returned to-night looked as it does on the 
 stage, the lantern over the iron gate, the inn 
 strutting out into the street with a sidewalk not a 
 foot wide. I know now from my observations both 
 here and in Paris and London where the scene- 
 painters at the theatres get their subjects. Those 
 impossible houses — those unreal silent streets all 
 exist in Europe. 
 
 " Good-night. I go to Bavaria to-morrow. 
 
 Frank. 
 
 " I send Frankie a little book of songs which were 
 sung by the people at the ' fest.' Tell him to 
 look at page 13, and try to get it translated and 
 imagine how his papa felt when he heard those 
 grown men sing it. I think you will recognise it 
 at once." 
 
 In the course of one of his solitary rambles in 
 the Crefeld streets, he found himself listlessly gaz- 
 ing at a bookseller's window, and there in the 
 displayed volumes he saw the name of 
 
 Bret Harte. 
 
 In a moment his feelings changed. If he was so 
 far a stranger in the land, his works had preceded 
 him ! That was something / Alone, and in a foreign 
 town, he was face to face with his own name, and 
 knew that it was honoured. This episode acted 
 as a glorious tonic. He bought a copy of one 
 
 of the books containing his translated work and 
 
 172 
 
THE CONSUL 
 
 sent it to his young son. Here is a letter to 
 him : — 
 
 " Mr. Francis King Hakte, 
 Sea Cliff Hotel, 
 
 Sea Cliff, Long Island, 
 I New York. 
 
 "Crefeld, July 25, 1878. 
 " My dear Frankie, — I was very glad to get 
 ' your letter, although the Private Secretary required 
 spanking for writing so badly. The letter was 
 good enough for a bad boy like you, but wouldn't 
 do for a Private Secretary just yet. And in this 
 I country of wonderful schools there are little boys 
 that I have met who speak two or three languages 
 and write even their own difficult one elegantly. 
 1 Of course to do this they have to go to school at 
 ' 7 o'clock in the morning, and do not come home 
 j until 5 P.M. It will please you to know that if 
 you go to school here, you are entitled to a 
 I different coloured gold-lace cap, for your different 
 classes as you are promoted. The boys wear them 
 I here and are very proud of their rank. It is really 
 a very pretty sight to see them trooping by, with 
 j their books in a neat knapsack on their backs. It 
 I is not to me so pretty a sight, however, to see a 
 t tall soldier dragging a boy to school, who is 
 ! dilatory or a truant, for here education is com- 
 pulsory. It is an offence not to go to school — if 
 you are well. 
 
 "I cannot send you a photograph of 'our 
 
 173 
 
THE CONSUL 
 
 Palace,' but I think I will presently have a picture 
 taken of the Consulate and the two very pretty 
 rooms that I have hired for the office. I lived 
 for some days at the ' Hotel Wildenmann,' i.e. 
 ' Wildman,' a very old and very uncomfortable 
 building. But a day or two ago one of the 
 wealthiest men in this place asked me to come and 
 stay for a few days at his house — a very beautiful 
 place with a large garden. His family are away, 
 and we live together in this great house like 
 Princes, only that German Princes have meals 
 six times a day and drink a great deal of wine. 
 Everybody in Germany of wealth lives in the open 
 air in summer as much as he can, so that we 
 breakfast in one summer-house, and have dinner in 
 another, and supper in another, served by people 
 in livery, so that it is a gorgeous picnic all the 
 time, and not like home one bit. 
 
 " We drove out the other day through a lovely 
 road bordered with fine poplar trees, and more like 
 a garden walk than a country road, to the Phine, 
 which is but two miles and a half from this place. 
 The road had been built by Napoleon the First when 
 he was victorious everywhere, and went straight 
 on through everybody's property, and even over 
 their dead bones. Suddenly to the right we saw 
 the ruins of an old castle, vine clad, and crumbling, 
 exactly like a scene on the stage. It was all very 
 wonderful. 
 
 " But papa thought, after all, that he was glad 
 
 174 
 
THE CONSUL 
 
 his boys lived in a country that was as yet quite 
 pure and siveet and good, and where every field 
 did not seem to cry out with the remembrance of 
 .bloodshed and wrong, and where so many people 
 had lived and suffered, that to-night, under this 
 clear moon, their very ghosts seemed to throng 
 the road and dispute our right of way. Be thankful, 
 my dear boy, that you are an American. Papa 
 was never so fond of his country before as in this 
 land that has been so great, so powerful, and so 
 very, very hard and wicked. America is the country 
 of glowing youth and unwritten history, and it 
 rests with such as you to make it great. 
 
 " There is a moral somewhere in this, which I 
 dare say mamma will find for you, if she and you 
 together can read this scrawl. — Your affectionate 
 papa, father of Private Secretary, 
 
 Frankie Harte." 
 
 The good people who, while professing to admire 
 the writings of Bret Harte, never tire of saying 
 that he produced nothing but stories about Cali- 
 fornia and its gold-seekers, could, if they only took 
 the trouble to do so, easily learn from his published 
 works how completely he interested himself in his 
 environment wherever it might be, and how his 
 experience as Consul, whether in Crefeld or Glasgow, 
 illumined some of his choicest work. 
 
 Though he was never particularly happy in Ger- 
 many he took careful observations of his surroundings, 
 
 175 
 
THE CONSUL ^ 
 
 and as his subsequent records, worked into fiction 
 form, are really autobiographical notes, I feel I must, 
 if only to convince the good people to whom I have 
 referred, allude to them here. 
 
 Take, for example, his whimsically conceived and 
 perfectly concluded little romance, " Unser Karl," in 
 which he said : — 
 
 " The American Consul for Schlachtstadt had just 
 turned out of the broad Konig's Allde into the little 
 square that held his consulate. Its residences also 
 seemed to him to wear that singularly uninhabited air 
 peculiar to a street scene in a theatre. The facades, 
 with their stiff, striped wooden awnings over the 
 windows, were of the regularity colour and pattern 
 only seen on the stage, and conversation carried on in 
 the street below always seemed to be invested with 
 that perfect confidence and security which surrounds 
 the actor in his painted desert of urban perspective. 
 Yet it was a peaceful change to the other byways 
 and highways of Schlachtstadt — which were always 
 filled with an equally unreal and mechanical soldiery, 
 who appeared to be daily taken out of their boxes of 
 ' caserne ' or depot and loosely scattered all over the 
 pretty linden-haunted German town. There were 
 soldiers standing on street corners, soldiers staring 
 woodenly into shop windows, soldiers halted suddenly 
 into stone, like lizards, at the approach oi ojffiziere — 
 qffiziere lounging stiffly, four abreast, sweeping the 
 pavement with their trailing sabres all at one angle. 
 
 There were cavalcades of red hussars, cavalcades of 
 
 176 
 
THE CONSUL 
 
 blue hussars, cavalcades of Uhlans, with glittering 
 lances and pennons, with or without a band, formally 
 parading ; there were straggling ' fatigues ' or ' details ' 
 coming round the corners ; there were dusty, business- 
 like columns of infantry, going nowhere and to no 
 purpose. And they one and all seemed to be ivound up, 
 for that service, and apparently always in the same 
 place. In the band of their caps — invariably of one 
 pattern — was a button, in the centre of which was a 
 square opening or keyhole. The Consul was always 
 convinced that through this keyhole opening, by 
 means of a key, the humblest caporal wound up his 
 file, the Hauptmann controlled his lieutenants and 
 non-commissioned officers, and even the General him- 
 self, wearing the same cap, was subject (through his 
 cap) to a higher moving power. In the suburbs, when 
 the supply of soldiers gave out, there were sentry- 
 boxes ; when these dropped off there were ' caissons ' 
 or commissary waggons. And lest the military idea 
 should ever fail from out the Schlachtstadt burgher's 
 mind, there were police in uniform, street-sweepers in 
 uniform, the ticket-takers, guards, and sweepers at 
 the Bahnhof were in uniform, but all wearing the 
 same kind of cap, with the probability of having been 
 wound up freshly each morning for their daily work. 
 Even the postman delivered peaceful invoices to the 
 Consul with his side-arms and the air of bringing 
 despatches from the field of battle, and the Consul 
 saluted, and felt for a few moments the whole weight 
 of his consular responsibility. 
 
 177 M 
 
THE CONSUL 
 
 " Yet, in spite of this military precedence, it did 
 not seem in the least inconsistent with the decidedly 
 peaceful character of the town, and this again sug- 
 gested its utter unreality ; wandering cows sometimes 
 got mixed up with squadrons of cavalry, and didn't 
 seem to mind it ; sheep passed singly between files of 
 infantry, or preceded them in a flock when on the 
 march ; indeed, nothing could be more delightful and 
 innocent than to see a regiment of infantry in heavy 
 marching order, laden with every conceivable thing 
 they could want for a week, returning after a cheerful 
 search for an invisible enemy in the suburbs, to 
 bivouac peacefully among the cabbages in the market- 
 place. Nobody was ever imposed upon for a moment 
 by their tremendous energy and severe display ; drums 
 might beat, trumpets blow, dragoons charge furiously 
 all over the Exercier-Platz ; or suddenly flash their 
 naked swords in the streets to the guttural command 
 of an officer — nobody seemed to mind it. People 
 glanced up to recognise Rudolph or Max ' doing their 
 service,' nodded, and went about their business. And 
 although the officers always wore their side-arms, 
 and at the most peaceful of social dinners only relin- 
 quished their swords in the hall, apparently that they 
 might be able to buckle them on again and rush out 
 to do battle for the Fatherland between the courses, 
 the other guests only looked upon these weapons in 
 the light of sticks and umbrellas, and possessed their 
 souls in peace. And when, added to this singular 
 
 incongruity, many of these warriors were spectacled, 
 
 178 
 
THE CONSUL 
 
 studious men, and, despite their lethal weapons, wore 
 a slightly professional air, and were — to a man — 
 deeply sentimental and singularly simple, their atti- 
 tude in this eternal Kriegspiel seemed to the Consul 
 more puzzling than ever. 
 
 "As he entered his consulate he was confronted 
 with another aspect of Schlachtstadt quite as wonder- 
 ful, yet already familiar to him. For in spite of these 
 'alarums without,' which, however, never seem to 
 penetrate beyond the town itself, Schlachtstadt and 
 its suburbs were known all over the world for the 
 manufactures of certain beautiful textile fabrics, and 
 many of the rank and file of these warriors had built 
 up the fame and prosperity of the district over their 
 peaceful looms in wayside cottages. There were great 
 depots and counting-houses, larger than even the 
 cavalry barracks, where no other uniform but that of 
 the postman was known. Hence it was that the 
 Consul's chief duty was to uphold the flag of his own 
 country by the examination and certification of divers 
 invoices sent to his office by the manufacturers. But, 
 oddly enough, these business messengers were chiefly 
 women — not clerks, but ordinary household servants, 
 and, on busy days, the consulate might have been 
 mistaken for a female registry office, so filled and 
 possessed it was by waiting Madchen. Here it was 
 that Gretchen, Lieschen, and Clarchen, in the cleanest 
 ^ of blue gowns, and stoutly but smartly shod, brought 
 their invoices in a piece of clean paper, or folded in 
 
 a blue handkerchief, and laid them, with fingers more 
 
 179 
 
THE CONSUL 
 
 or less worn and stubby from hard service, before the 
 Consul for his signature. Once, in the case of a very 
 young Madchen, that signature was blotted by the 
 sweep of a flaxen braid upon it as the child turned to 
 go, but generally there was a grave, serious business 
 instinct and sense of responsibility in these girls of 
 ordinary peasant origin which, equally with their 
 sisters of France, were unknown to the English or 
 American woman of any class." 
 
 The humour of his military picture will be appre- 
 ciated by all who know Germany ; its pendant is 
 no doubt lifelike, but it seems rather sad to think 
 of the author of " The Luck of Roaring Camp " and 
 " The Heathen Chinee " doomed to examine and sign 
 invoices ! 
 
 But the following letter will show that he was very 
 soon able to put things in order at Crefeld, and take 
 his much desired vacation. i 
 
 « Mrs. Bret Harte, Sea Cliff Hotel, j 
 
 Sea Cliff, Long Island. 
 
 " ' The Molt,' Salcombe, Kingsbridge, 
 "Devonshire, Aikj. 19, 1878. 
 
 " My dear Anna, — I have just received yours 
 
 of August 2nd, forwarded to me from Crefeld. I can 
 
 understand your alarm at not receiving a letter 
 
 from me for two weeks, because after writing you 
 
 on the 1 8th July I did not write again until I had 
 
 arrived at Crefeld, nearly two weeks. I think I 
 
 180 
 
THE CONSUL 
 
 have received all your letters ; I think you have 
 all mine. 
 
 " I wrote you from London a day or two ago. 
 Since then I came down here to visit Froude (the 
 historian), who has treated me with very particular 
 kindness. After I left London, a month ago, I got 
 a line from Houghton at Crefeld inviting me to 
 dinner the next day ; but since then I have not 
 heard from him. I sent my card to Froude when 
 I first arrived. He quickly responded with an invi- 
 tation, but I could not then leave Crefeld ; then he 
 sent a second letter, which I enclose, and so I came 
 down here. This damp English climate is depres- 
 sing to me, and of course this place on the south- 
 westerly coast of England is almost like being again 
 at sea ; but I don't regret coming here. 
 
 " It is, without exception, one of the most 'perfect 
 
 country houses I ever beheld. Lnagine, if you can, 
 
 something between ' Locksley Hall ' and the ' High 
 
 Hall Garden,' where Maud used to walk, and you 
 
 have some idea of this graceful English home. I 
 
 look from my windows down upon exquisite lawns 
 
 and terraces all sloping towards the sea wall and 
 
 then down upon the blue sea below. I walk out 
 
 in the long high garden, past walls hanging with 
 
 netted peaches and apricots, past terraces looking 
 
 over the ruins of an old feudal castle, and I can 
 
 scarcely believe I am not reading an English novel 
 
 or that I am not myself a wandering ghost. To 
 
 heighten the absurdity when I return to my room 
 
 i8i 
 
THE CONSUL 
 
 I am confronted by the inscription on the door, ' Lord 
 Devon ' (for this is the property of the Earl of Devon, 
 and I occupy his favourite room), and I seem to have 
 died and to be resting under a gilded mausoleum 
 that lies even more than the average tombstone 
 does. Froude is a connection of the Earl's, and has 
 hired the house for the summer. 
 
 " He is a widower, with two daughters and a 
 son. The eldest girl is not unlike a highly educated 
 Boston girl, and the conversation sometimes reminds 
 me of Boston. The youngest daughter, only ten 
 years old, told her sister in reference to some con- 
 versation Froude and I had that ' she feared ' (this 
 child) ' that Mr. Bret Harte was inclined to be 
 sceptical " / Doesn't this exceed any English story 
 of the precocity of American children ? The boy, 
 scarcely fourteen, acts like a boy of eight (an 
 American boy of eight) and talks like a man of 
 thirty, as far as pure English and facility of expres- 
 sion goes. His manners are perfect, yet he is per- 
 fectly simple and boylike. The culture and breed- 
 ing of some English children is really marvellous. 
 But somehow — and here comes one of my ' buts ' — 
 there's always a suggestion of some repression, some 
 discipline that I don't like. Everybody is carefully 
 trained to their station, and seldom bursts out beyond 
 it. The respect always shown towards me is some- 
 thing fine — and depressing. I can easily feel how 
 this deference to superiors is ingrained in all. 
 
 " But Froude — dear old noble fellow — is splendid. 
 
 182 
 
 I 
 
THE CONSUL 
 
 I love him more than I ever did in America. He 
 is great, broad, manly — democratic in the best sense 
 of the word, scorning all sycophancy and meanness, 
 accepting all that is around him, yet more proud 
 of his literary profession than of his kinship with 
 these people whom he quietly controls. There are 
 only a few literary men like him here, but they are 
 kings. I could not have had a better introduction 
 to them than through Froude, who knows them all, 
 who is Tennyson's best friend, and who is anxious 
 to make my entree among them a success, I had 
 forgotten that Canon Kingsley, whom you liked so 
 much, is Froude's brother-in-law, until Froude re- 
 minded me of it. So it is like being among friends 
 here. 
 
 " So far I've avoided seeing any company here ; 
 but Froude and I walk and walk, and talk and 
 talk. They let me do as I want, and I have not 
 been well enough yet to do aught but lounge. The 
 doctor is coming to see me to-day, and if I am no 
 better I shall return in a day or two to London 
 and then to Crefeld. 
 
 " I'll write you from London. God bless you 
 all. — Your affectionate Frank." 
 
 First and foremost among the men whom Bret 
 
 I Harte desired to see when he came to England was 
 
 i J. A. Froude. For his works he had the highest 
 
 admiration, with his views he entertained the deepest 
 
 sympathy, and his aims appealed to him in no ordi- 
 
 183 
 
THE CONSUL 
 
 nary degree. This memorable visit to Devonshire 
 came just at the right time ; it took Bret Harte 
 away from the tedium of his Crefeld invoice duties 
 and the unsuitabihty of his military surroundings. 
 Henceforth a friendship strong and great grew be- 
 tween the two men, and lasted as long as life permits 
 such precious things to exist. I have never heard 
 one man speak with more affection and appreciation 
 of another than Bret Harte when he spoke of J. A. 
 Froude. It was, too, a topic to which he always 
 loved to return. 
 
 He lingered for awhile in England, and the ac- 
 companying two letters to his wife show that while 
 he was making new and influential friends he was 
 always thinking of his American home. 
 
 '• Mrs. Bret Harte, Sea Cliflf Hotel, 
 Sea Cliff, Long Island. 
 
 " London, August 27, 1878. 
 
 " My dear Nan, — I hope Mr. Osgood will find 
 
 time to see you, but if he does not I send by him 
 
 to the boys some little things of no particular value, 
 
 other than to have them know that papa had put 
 
 these things aside for his boys. The large medal is 
 
 really fine, and was presented to me by one of the 
 
 directors of the Company. It is of bronze, and is 
 
 valuable as having a perfect likeness of the Emperor 
 
 and Empress. The sleeve buttons are something new 
 
 (I bought them in the Palais Royal) — being an exact 
 
 184 
 
THE CONSUL 
 
 photograph of a French newspaper and a German 
 bank-note. 
 
 " I dare not go with Osgood to Liverpool for fear 
 I shall get on the steamer with him and return. So 
 I try to forget that I have no home to go to, and 
 must stay here, day by day. — God bless you all. 
 
 Frank." 
 
 There is something very pathetic in the picture of 
 the man whose thoughts turned to the west, but whose 
 duties pointed to the east. But, as we shall presently 
 see, he was busy in London making hopeful arrange- 
 ments for the future. The Ethel and Jessamy referred 
 to in the next letter were his daughters. 
 
 " Mrs. Bret Harte, 45 Fifth Avenue, 
 New York City, 
 
 " London, November 6, 1878. 
 
 " My dear Nan, — I enclose a picture for Ethel 
 and have written a note to her, which of course you 
 will read and translate. The picture is a photo of 
 His Grace the Duke of St. Albans' second son — the 
 Marquis of something or other, I've forgotten the title. 
 But the Duchess gave it to me for Ethel, and wrote 
 his name on the back. 
 
 " It's a pretty picture of a little fellow ' born to 
 the purple,' but too young yet to be spoiled by the 
 knowledge of it. 
 
 " I am now on my way to Crefeld. I shall write 
 you as soon as I arrive. 
 
 185 
 
THE CONSUL 
 
 " I have just remembered something which of 
 course you have already seen. And so I write to the 
 Duchess to-day that I must have another picture for 
 Jessamy. — God bless you all. Frank." 
 
 The next letter (written from Crefeld) humorously 
 shows Bret Harte's opinion of himself as a musical 
 critic. He really loved music, but he had the sincerest 
 contempt for those amateurs who, knowing as little 
 of the art as himself (he was avowedly no musician), 
 would go into affected raptures over works that they 
 could not possibly understand. In writing to his 
 wife he knew that he was expressing his views and 
 tastes to a well-skilled connoisseur. 
 
 " Mrs. Bret Harte, care of Mrs. Knanflft, 
 45 Fifth Avenue, New York City. 
 
 " Crefeld, JaniMry 22, 1879. 
 
 " My dear Anna, — Mrs. Bayard Taylor has sent 
 
 me a book of her late husband's, and a very kind 
 
 note, and it occurs to me to enclose to you to-day the 
 
 letter I received from her in answer to one I wrote 
 
 her after hearing of her husband's death. You 
 
 remember that I did not feel very kindly towards 
 
 him, nor had he troubled himself much about me 
 
 when I came here alone and friendless, but his death 
 
 choked back my resentment, and what I wrote to 
 
 her and afterwards in the TagehlaU, I felt very 
 
 honestly. 
 
 " I have been several times to the opera at Dussel- 
 
 186 
 
THE CONSUL 
 
 dorf, and I have been hesitating whether I should 
 slowly prepare you for a great shock or tell you at 
 once that musical Germany is a humbug. It had 
 struck me during the last two months that I had 
 really heard nothing good in the way of music or even 
 as good as I have heard in America, and it was only a 
 week ago that hearing a piano played in an adjoining 
 house, and played badly at that, I was suddenly 
 struck with the fact that it was really the first piano 
 that I had heard in Germany. I have heard orches- 
 tras at concerts and military bands ; but no better 
 than in America. My first operatic experience was 
 Tannhduser. I can see your superior smile, Anna, at 
 this ; and I know how you will take my criticism of 
 Wagner, so I don't mind saying plainly, that it was 
 the most diabolically hideous and stupidly monotonous 
 performance I ever heard. I shall say nothing about 
 the orchestral harmonies, for there wasn't anything 
 going on of that kind, unless you call something that 
 seemed like a boiler factory at work in the next 
 street, and the wind whistling through the rigging 
 of a channel steamer, harmony. But I 7nust say one 
 thing ! In the third act, I think, Tannhauser and 
 two other minstrels sing before the King and Court 
 to the accompaniment of their harps — and the boiler 
 factory. Each minstrel sang or rather declaimed 
 something like the multiplication table for about 
 twenty minutes. Tannhiiuser, when his turn came, 
 declaimed longer, and more lugubriously, and pon- 
 derously and monotonously than the others, and went 
 
 187 
 
THE CONSUL 
 
 into ' nine times nine are eighty-one ' and ' ten times 
 ten are twenty,' when suddenly when he had finished 
 they all drew their swords and rushed at him. I 
 turned to General Yon Ranch and said to him that I 
 didn't wonder at it. ' Ah,' said he, ' you know the 
 story then ? ' ' No, not exactly,' I replied. ' Ja 
 wohl,' said Yon Ranch, ' the story is that these 
 minstrels are all singing in praise of Love, but they 
 are furious at Tannhiiuser who loves Hilda, the 
 German Yenus, for singing in the praise of Love so 
 ivildly, so ivarmly, so passionately ! ' Then I con- 
 cluded that I really did not understand Wagner. 
 
 " But what I wanted to say was that even my 
 poor uneducated ear detected bad instrumentation 
 and worse singing in the choruses. I confided this 
 much to a friend, and he said very frankly that I 
 was probably right, that the best musicians and 
 choruses went to America ! 
 
 " Then I was awfully disappointed in ' Faust,' or, 
 as it is known here in the playbills, ' Marguerite.' 
 You know how I love that delicious idyl of Gounod's, 
 and I was in my seat that night long before the 
 curtain went up. Before the first act was over I 
 felt like leaving, and yet I was glad I stayed. For 
 although the chorus of villagers was frightful, and 
 Faust and Mephistopheles spouted and declaimed 
 blank verse at each other — whole pages of Goethe, 
 yet the acting was good. The music was a little 
 better in the next act, and the acting was superb. 
 I have never seen such a Marguerite ! From the 
 
THE CONSUL 
 
 time she first meets Faust with that pert rebuke 
 until the final scenes she was perfect. The prayer 
 in the church — the church interior represented with 
 kneeling figures and service going on — such as they 
 dare not represent in England — was most wonderful. 
 I can see her yet, passing from one to another of 
 the kneeling groups as the women draw away from 
 her, and as she knelt in a blind groping way with 
 her fingers mechanically turning the leaves of her 
 prayer-book, and the voice of Mephistopheles mingling 
 with the music, until, with one wild shriek she threw 
 the book away. Then it was that I jumped up in 
 my seat and applauded. But think of my coming 
 to Germany to hear opera badly sung, and magni- 
 ficently acted ! 
 
 " I saw Der Freischiitz after this, but it was not 
 so well acted, and awfully sung. Yet the scenery was 
 wonderfully good and the costumes historically per- 
 fect. The audiences from Cologne to Dusseldorf are 
 all the same, stiff, formal, plainly dressed, all except 
 the officers. The opera audience at Cologne look 
 like an American prayer-meeting. 
 
 " I have written Frankie and Wodie. Unless my 
 lecture tour is postponed, I shall not write you again 
 until I get to London. And then I shall be so busy 
 I can only give you the news of success. — God bless 
 you all. Frank." 
 
 " Wodie" was his eldest son. He bore his mother's 
 
 family name, Griswold. 
 
 189 
 
THE CONSUL 
 
 The lecture tour to which he refers had been 
 arranged while he was in London, and that he had 
 been working hard in other ways is proved by the 
 introduction to a volume of his stories and verses 
 now published in England by Messrs. Chatto and 
 Windus. It ran: — "In offering this collection of 
 sketches to the English public, the author is con- 
 scious of attaching an importance to them that may ' 
 not be shared by the general reader, but which he, 
 as an American writer on English soil, cannot fail 
 to feel very sensibly. The collection is made by 
 himself, the letterpress revised, by his own hand, 
 and he feels for the first time that these fugitive 
 children of his brain are no longer friendless in a 
 strange land, entrusted to the care of a foster-mother, 
 however discreet, but are his own creations, for 
 whose presentation to the public . in this fashion he 
 is alone responsible. Three or four having been 
 born upon English soil may claim the rights of 
 citizenship, but the others he must leave to prove 
 their identity with English literature on their own 
 merits." I 
 
 Almost simultaneously with this publication came 
 his first appearance in England as a lecturer. Of 
 his reception by public and critics he had no cause 
 to complain. Whether the Crystal Palace was 
 or was not a suitable place for his experiment is 
 not for me to say, but of its result the always down- 
 right Aihenwum said : — j 
 
 " There come down upon us periodically, pre- 
 
 190 
 
THE CONSUL 
 
 dieted by ' cablegrams ' from the other side of the 
 Atlantic, depressing storms. By way of recompense 
 there comes also thence from time to time an ex- 
 hilarating humourist. Such a visitor is now among 
 us. But it is not only his fund of humour, genuine, 
 original and abundant as that is, which in the case 
 of Mr. Bret Harte justly claims admiration. All 
 who heard the lecture which he delivered at the 
 Crystal Palace on ' The Argonauts of '49,' the 
 Californian Crusaders, must have learnt then, if his 
 writings had not previously made them aware of 
 the fact, that he is a true artist, possessing rare 
 mastery over language, skilled to express ideas, 
 pathetic or grotesque. With the lecture itself we 
 will not at present deal, beyond stating that it 
 served to bring more clearly before the eyes of 
 those who were present that far Western region 
 about which Mr, Bret Harte has written so much 
 that is familiar to every reader, and especially to 
 place in clear relief the striking contrast between 
 the idyllic calm of old California and the rush and 
 whirl of its modern life. 
 
 "It is to be hoped that his consular duties at 
 Crefeld will not prove so engrossing as to prevent 
 him from continuing to write, and also from enabling 
 English audiences to become personally acquainted 
 with a speaker and writer who is one of the best 
 representatives of American humour — that humour 
 so equally delightful in its exaggerations, as when 
 
 the floor is represented as being ' strewed like the 
 
 191 
 
THE CONSUL 
 
 leaves on the strand ' with the cards which ' that 
 heathen Chinee ' had concealed in his sleeves, and 
 in its euphemistic understatements, as when the 
 fatal effect of the ' chunk of old red sandstone ' on 
 Abner Dean of Angel's is merely hinted at in the 
 information that ' the subsequent proceedings in- 
 terested him no more.' 
 
 " Mr. Harte's lecture on California, its early in- 
 habitants and its later colonizers, will doubtless 
 be repeated in localities more easy of access than 
 Sydenham, and in that case many an audience will 
 be able to enjoy the charm which attends on choice 
 language excellently spoken, describing the pictur- 
 esqueness of quite unfamiliar scenes, telling of strange 
 and unromantic forms of life, and appealing in swift 
 succession to the hearer's poetic imagination and to 
 his sense of humour. How wide is now the audience 
 to which his literary work appeals may be judged 
 by the fact that there now lies before us a Servian 
 translation of six of his tales, printed last year at 
 Temesvar, under the title of Shest Kaliforniishikh 
 Pricha Br eta Kharta, and preceded by an enthusi- 
 astic preface in German by the translator, Ivan B. 
 Popovitch." 
 
 Beaching New York this notice was received 
 with great satisfaction by Bret Harte's friends and 
 countrymen, and under the headline, 
 
 Another American Success in England, 
 was freely circulated in the newspapers throughout 
 
 the States. 
 
 192 
 
THE CONSUL 
 
 The lecture delighted every one who heard it. 
 The handsome face and dignified presence of the 
 popular author at once arrested attention, and he 
 held his audiences enthralled as in his clear, striking, 
 and beautifully modulated voice he told us the story 
 of the Argonauts of '49, of an episode of American 
 life as quaint and typical as that of the Greek ad- 
 venturers whose name gave the idea he had borrowed 
 for his title — a kind of crusade without a cross, an 
 exodus without a prophet. "It is not," he said, 
 "a pretty story. I do not know that it is even 
 instructive. It is of a life of which perhaps the best 
 that can be said is that it exists no longer." 
 
 Be that as it may, he made it a very absorbing 
 story, and he struck the right keynote by giving in 
 the masterly fashion of one who is familiar with his 
 subject, an idea of the country which the Argonauts 
 recreated, and the civilisation they displaced. For 
 more than three hundred years California was of all 
 Christian countries the least known. The glow and 
 glamour of Spanish tradition and discovery were 
 about it. There was an old English map in which 
 it was set down as an island! There was the Rio 
 de los Keyes — a kind of gorgeous Mississippi, lead- 
 ing directly to the heart of the continent which De 
 Fonte claimed to have discovered. There was the 
 Anian passage, a prophetic forecast of the Pacific 
 Railroad, through which Moldonado declared that he 
 had sailed to the North Atlantic. Another Spanish 
 discoverer brought his " mendacious personality " 
 
 193 N 
 
THE CONSUL 
 
 directly from the Pacific by way of Columbia Eiver to 
 Lake Ontario on which (Bret Harte was rejoiced to 
 say) he found a Yankee vessel from Boston, whose 
 captain informed him that he had come up from the 
 Atlantic only a few days before. Along the line of 
 iron-bound coast the old freebooters chased the timid 
 Philippine galleons, and in its largest bay, beside the 
 present gateway of the East, Sir Francis Drake lay 
 for two weeks and scraped the barnacles from his 
 adventurous keels. It was only within quite recent 
 years that a company of gold diggers, turning up the 
 ocean sands, had come across some large cakes of wax 
 imbedded in the broken and fire- scarred ribs of a 
 wreck of ancient date. The Californian heart was 
 at once fired at the discovery, and in a few weeks 
 a hundred men or more were digging, burrowing, 
 and scraping for the lost treasure of the Philippine 
 galleon. At last they found a few cutlasses with the 
 Queen's broad-arrow on their blades ! The enter- 
 prising, gallant, and slightly piratical Sir Francis 
 Drake had been there before them. 
 
 Yet they were peaceful pastoral days for Cali- 
 fornia. Through the great Central Valley the Sacra- 
 mento poured an unstained current into a majestic 
 bay, ruffled by no keels and fretted by no wharves. 
 The Angelus bell rung at San Bernardino, and taken 
 up by every Mission tower along the darkening coast, 
 rang the good people to prayer and sleep before nine 
 o'clock every night. Leagues of wild oats, pro- 
 genitors of those great wheat fields that now drug 
 
 194 
 
THE CONSUL 
 
 the markets, hung their idle heads on the hillsides — 
 vast herds of untamed cattle, whose hides and horns 
 made the scant commerce of those days, wandered 
 over the illimitable plains, knowing no human figure 
 but that of the yearly riding vaquero on his un- 
 broken mustang, which they regarded as one. 
 
 Around the white walls of the Mission build- 
 ings were clustered the huts of the Indian neo- 
 phytes who dressed neatly but not expensively in 
 mud. Presidios^ garrisoned by a dozen raw militia- 
 men kept the secular order, and in the scattered 
 pueblos ^ rustic alcades ^ dispensed, like Sancho Panza, 
 proverbial wisdom and practical equity to the bucolic 
 litigant. The proprietors of the old ranchos^ ruled 
 in a patriarchal style, and lived to a patriarchal age. 
 On a soil half-tropical in its character, in a climate 
 wholly original in its practical conditions, a soft- 
 handed Latin race slept and smoked the half-year's 
 sunshine away, and believed they had discovered a 
 new Spain. They awoke from their dream only to 
 find themselves strangers on their own soil — foreigners 
 in their own country — ignorant even of the treasure 
 they had been sent to guard. 
 
 " Do Americans ever think," he asked, " that they 
 owe their rights to California to the Catholic Church 
 and the Mormon brotherhood ? Yet Father Junipero 
 Serra, ringing his bell in the heathen-wilderness of 
 Upper California, and Brigham Young, leading his 
 
 ^ Forts. 2 Villages or townships. 
 
 2 Justices of the Peace. * Farms. 
 
THE CONSUL 
 
 half- famished legions to Salt Lake, were the two great 
 pioneers of the Argonauts of 49. All that western 
 emigration that prior to the gold discovery pene- 
 trated the Oregon and Californian valleys and half 
 Americanised the coast, would have perished by the 
 way but for the providentially created oasis of Salt 
 Lake City. The halting trains of alkali-poisoned 
 oxen, the footsore and despairing teamsters gathered 
 rest and succour from the Mormon settlement. The 
 British frigate that sailed into the port of Monterey 
 a day too late, saw the American flag that had 
 crossed the continent flying from the cross of the 
 Cathedral ! A day sooner and an Englishman might 
 have been telling you this story. 
 
 " Were our friends the Argonauts at all afiected 
 by these coincidences ? I think not. They had that 
 lordly contempt for a southern soft-tongued race 
 which belonged to their Anglo-Saxon lineage. They 
 were given to no superstitious romance, exalted by no 
 special mission, inflamed by no high ambition, and 
 sceptical of even the existence of the golden fleece 
 until they saw it. Equal to their fate they accepted 
 with a kind of heathen philosophy whatever it might 
 bring. ' If there isn't any gold, what are you going 
 to do with those sluice boxes ? ' said a newly arrived 
 emigrant to a friend. ' They will make first-class 
 cofiins,' said his companion, with the simple direct- 
 ness of a man who has calculated his chances. If 
 they did not burn their vessels behind them like 
 
 Pizarro, they at least left the good ship Argo dis- 
 
 196 
 
THE CONSUL 
 
 mantled and rotting at the Colchian wharf. Sailors 
 were shipped only for the outward voyage. Nobody 
 expected to return, even those who anticipated failure. 
 Fertile in expedient, they twisted their very failures 
 into a certain sort of success. Until recently, there 
 stood in San Francisco a house of the early days 
 --^ whose foundations were built entirely of plug tobacco 
 in boxes. Their consignee had found a glut in the 
 tobacco market, but lumber for foundations was at a 
 tremendous premium ! " 
 
 I must now set the lecture on one side and 
 proceed Avith my narrative, but it contained one 
 beautiful and thoughtful little picture that I would 
 fain reproduce. 
 
 " Before taking leave of the Spanish-American," 
 said Bret Harte, " let me recall a single figure. It 
 is that of the earliest pioneer known to Californian 
 history. He comes to us toiling over a Southern 
 plain, an old man, weak, emaciated, friendless and 
 alone. He has left his muleteers and acolytes a 
 league behind him, and has wandered on without 
 scrip or wallet, bearing only a crucifix and bell. 
 
 " It is a characteristic plain — one that your tourists 
 do not penetrate — scorched yet bleak, windswept, 
 blasted, baked to its very foundations, and cracked 
 into gaping chasms. As the pitiless sun goes down, 
 the old man staggers forward and falls utterly ex- 
 hausted. He lies there all night. Towards morning 
 he is found by some Indians — a feeble simple race — 
 
 who in uncouth kindness offer him food and drink. 
 
 197 
 
f 
 
 THE CONSUL 
 
 But before he accepts either he rises to his knees, and 
 there says matins and baptizes them in the Cathohc 
 faith. And then it occurs to him to ask them where \ 
 he is, and he finds that he has penetrated into the X- 
 unknown land. It was Padre Junipero Serra, a^ ^y 
 the sun arose that morning on Christian CaHfornia. " 
 Weighed by the usual estimate of success his mission 
 was a failure. The heathen stole his provisions and 
 5 , massacred his acolytes. It is said that the good fathers 
 *^ - themselves sometimes confounded baptism and^^bondage 
 and laid the foundation of peonage,^ but in the blood- 
 stained and tear-blotted chronicle of the early California 
 there is not a more heroic figure than this travel-worn, 
 self-centered, self-denying Franciscan friar." 
 
 For the rest, the lecture consisted mainly of a 
 brilliant series of anecdotes, mostly humorous, many 
 pathetic, and all delightful, of the type so well known 
 to the readers of his works. Quickly and in an 
 appreciative way that proved infectious to his 
 audiences, he ran through his gamut of miners, 
 gamblers, San Franciscans, Spanish Dons, fascinating 
 Senoras and Senoritas, pretty American girls, and 
 bewildering Chinamen. 
 
 His infinitely diverting dealing with the latter 
 ingenious folk brought his tale to an end, and in a 
 beautiful peroration, which will never be forgotten 
 by those who were fortunate enough to listen to the 
 stirring eloquence with which it was delivered, he 
 said : — 
 
 " And with this receding figure bringing up the 
 
 ' Peonage. Peon sigiiities a servant, a labourer, a working man. 
 
 198 
 
THE CONSUL 
 
 rear of the procession I close my review of the 
 Argonauts of '49. In the rank and file there may 
 be many perhaps personally known to some of the 
 audience. There may be gaps which the memories 
 of others may supply. There are homes all over the 
 world whose vacant places can never be filled. There 
 are graves all over California on whose nameless ^^y-v^^ 
 mounds no one shall weep. I have told you that it 
 is not a pretty story. I should like to end it with 
 a flourish of trumpets, but the band has gone on 
 before, and the dust of the highway is beginning to 
 hide them from my view. They are marching to the 
 city by the sea, the great loadstone hill that Sinbad 
 saw, which they call Lone Mountain. There waiting 
 at its base lies the Argo, and when the last Argonaut 
 shall have passed in she will spread her white wings, 
 and slip unnoticed through the Golden Gate that 
 opens in the distance." 
 
 In face of the splendid impression made by Bret 
 Harte at the Crystal Palace, and elsewhere, it is 
 rather sad to think he was somewhat disappointed 
 with the result of his first lecturing tour in England, 
 but on his return to Crefeld he wrote disparagingly, 
 if not despondently, of his venture : — 
 
 " Mrs. Bret Haute, care of Mrs. Knanfft, 
 45 Fifth Avenue, New York City. 
 
 "Crefeld, February 21, 1879. 
 
 " My dear Nan, — I have received two letters 
 
 from you in the past two days, and one from Frankie 
 
 and Wodie. Tell Wode I shall send his interesting 
 
 199 
 
THE CONSUL 
 
 account of the ' 50 schooner ' to Mrs. Webb of 
 Montreal, who has taken a great interest in him and 
 his vessel. Tell Frankie I shall write a line or two 
 to Boucicault for tickets for himself and Wodie — if it 
 be not too late. 
 
 " You see I am back again at my post. The tour 
 
 -s»was a miserable failure financially — just as I feared. 
 It has been now postponed for a month or six weeks — 
 provided Mr. Carte, my agent, can send me a list of 
 engagements (secured sums) sufficient to make it pay. 
 I was in England three weeks and lectured five times, 
 and cleared only about two hundred dollars above my 
 expenses. I was bound in honour to perform them, 
 or I should have returned when I found how I was 
 deceived. Only a fear of repeating the ' Redpath ' 
 experience kept me from doing it. 
 
 ^ " Of course I was, as far as the public and the 
 press were concerned, very handsomely received. I 
 had to decline many invitations, and it is proposed 
 now, if I return, that I shall be offered a public dinner. 
 But my return to England rests entirely on my being 
 able to make the lecture tour profitable. — God bless 
 you all. Frank." 
 
 Yes, it was in England as in America. Even in 
 the little world behind the scenes of the lecturer's 
 desk and the inevitable and forbidding-looking water- 
 bottle and tumbler, there are sometimes woes, worries, 
 and disappointments. There may be a brave display;-^ 
 
 of glitter, but it is not all gold. But Bret Harte was 
 
 200 
 
THE CONSUL 
 
 premature in talking of " miserable failure." He 
 should have remembered that though his works had 
 preceded him to England and rejoiced the hearts of 
 all who had read them, he and his oratory had yet to 
 be known. Moreover, there is something in the word 
 " lecture " that scares certain people away from what 
 (the precise name for it is lacking) is really a very 
 pleasant form of entertainment — and these would 
 have been the very people who should have filled 
 Bret Harte's benches. But to thousands "lecture" 
 spells "boredom," and such folk waited to be told of 
 the good thing that was in store for them. As a 
 matter of fact these earlier lectures were artistically 
 successful, and, though financially disappointing, 
 money had been gained rather than lost, and many 
 a luckless aspirant to lecture-hall honours would 
 envy the man who on his initial appearances could 
 boast such a result. As will soon be seen they paved 
 the way for other things. 
 
 " Mrs. Bret Harte, care of Mrs. KnanflFt, 
 45 Fifth Avenue, New York City. 
 
 "Crefeld, March 15, 1879. 
 " My dear Nan, — I have just received yours of 
 the 27th February. I was inexpressibly shocked to 
 hear of poor Brantz Mayer's death. Since I have 
 been here I have lived so much in the atmosphere of 
 old recollections that I suppose it was not strange 
 that for the last two or three days I have been 
 
 thinking of him, and of my visit to Baltimore just 
 
 201 
 
THE CONSUL 
 
 a year ago. His death, which I saw in the tele- 
 graphic news, came home to me at once. 
 
 " I was very much worried about Frankie's illness ; 
 and in fact I am dreading the horrible spring weather 
 of New York and its effect upon you and the children. 
 The only consolation I can give you is that it is as 
 inclement and sickly here. This district is full of 
 diphtheria and scarlet fever, and my Vice-Consul's 
 children have been very sick with both. I also have 
 been suffering from a succession of colds — almost a 
 repetition of my last year's experience at Sea Cliff — 
 became quite alarmed last week at the state of my 
 throat, and feared I had ' caught something,' for my 
 office is in the V.-C.'s house. But the 3l 
 was only a kind of ' epidemic sympathy.! 
 
 " Worse than that, I've been temptj^ jr 
 
 of 85 guineas (nearly 450 dollars) to leduure m about 
 ten days at a great English provincial city and 
 perhaps elsewhere, and here I am down sick before 
 the time comes. I hope to pull through it some way, 
 however, and get the money. 
 
 " I am very seriously thinking of asking the 
 
 Department to change my location, Germany is no 
 
 place for me — I feel it more and more every day. 
 
 So that if I do not hold out any hopes to you, it is 
 
 because I do not know if I will stay here. There are 
 
 so many places better for my health, . for my literary 
 
 plans, for my comfort, and for my purse than this. 
 
 I shall write quietly to one or two of r»'.^ Washington 
 
 friends to see if it can be managed.^ I shall have 
 
 202 
 
THE CONSUL 
 
 made a good head here ; by good luck I fear more 
 than by management. The consular business will 
 exceed this year any previous year, and I can hand 
 over to the Government quite a handsome sum. 
 
 " I sat down to write you a long letter, but my 
 cold leaves me so weak to-day I can hardly write, 
 and I must keep up my strength to sign and record 
 invoices. — God bless you all. Frank." 
 
 This second lecturing tour was in every way 
 successful. The late Mr. D'Oyley Carte had arranged 
 things admirably for him ; he visited some of the 
 largest English cities and townships, the terms given 
 iral, and everywhere he was received 
 sm. It was during this tour that he 
 tii^ a guest in my home, and he seemed 
 
 to be in the )est of health and spirits. His power 
 and humour as a lecturer had been made known, 
 and the people flocked to see him. 
 
 But he was soon back in Crefeld and at his weary 
 
 task of signing and recording invoices. During these 
 
 visits to England he made many new friends and 
 
 accepted many invitations and engagements — more, 
 
 perhaps, considering his naturally shy nature, than 
 
 were advisable. It is, however, very difficult when 
 
 face to face with a proposal that is not only kindly 
 
 but in every respect highly complimentary, to say 
 
 " no." It was probably with this feeling in his 
 
 mind that he as induced to say " yes " when it was 
 
 suggested that he should respond to the toast of 
 
 203 
 
THE CONSUL 
 
 Literature at the Royal Academy Banquet of 1879. 
 But when he was once more in Crefeld the thought 
 of that half promise tortured him, and the horror 
 of having to make an after-dinner speech worried 
 his days and disturbed his nights. I mention this 
 incident because it proves how he was really anxious 
 to avoid anything that savoured of self-advertisement, 
 and longed to be only known through his published 
 works. But he had got into a dilemma, and it was 
 difEcult to get out of it. He could not plead that 
 he was a bad speaker, because he had just proved 
 himself to be a very admirable one ; it was difEcult 
 for him to say that he could not possibly neglect his 
 consular duties at that precise date because he had 
 already said he should be able to attend the dinner. 
 It never seemed to occur to him that any other 
 man in his position would have been delighted at 
 the distinction offered him. And so when the invi- 
 tation took definite shape he hesitated, let things 
 drift, and caused a little turmoil in London. 
 
 On April 28, Mr. G. H. Bough ton, the celebrated 
 artist, wrote to a mutual friend : — 
 
 "April 28, 1879. 
 
 " My dear Trubner, — I saw Sir Frederick 
 
 Leighton yesterday at the Boyal Academy, and he 
 
 seemed to be in a vexed dilemma on account of not 
 
 hearing from Bret Harte whether he would really 
 
 reply to the toast of ' Literature.' Of course until 
 
 he gets his answer he cannot ask any one else. He 
 
 204 
 
THE CONSUL 
 
 so admires Bret Harte — and we all do for that matter 
 — that he wants him if possible. It will be a very 
 grand occasion. The Prince of Wales and no end 
 of bigwigs will be there, and I feel it a tremendous 
 honour to Our Side that Harte is looked up to as 
 the best man to reply. Do ' prod ' him up to it ; 
 join my humble prayer to yours ; send him this 
 even : ' I shall never, Never, Never ! ! ! forgive you, 
 Bret Harte, if you don't reply at once like a good 
 fellow and say you will speak ! ' — Ever yours sincerely, 
 
 G. H. BOUGHTON." 
 
 This note was sent on to the delinquent, and, 
 presumably with the " signing and recording in- 
 voices " on his mind, he endorsed it, " George H. 
 Boughton, the American Artist,^ and one of the 
 greatest in England." 
 
 But though he thus showed his appreciation (that 
 he really valued the letter is proved by the fact 
 that he preserved it, and that it is now before me) 
 and treated it from this business, consular-like point 
 of view, it is to be feared he did not answer it ! 
 
 In a day or two there came to the American 
 Consul at Crefeld the following appealing tele- 
 gram : — 
 
 " In despair. Cannot do without you. Please 
 
 ^ Although Mr. Boughton in alluding to " Our Side " seems to confirm 
 Bret Harte's claim to him as an American artist, he really belongs to 
 England, for he was born in Norwich. When a baby he was taken to 
 America and educated in Bret Harte's native city, Albany. Thus he 
 gladly claimed him as a countrymau. 
 
 205 
 
THE CONSUL 
 
 telegraph at once if quite impossible. Leighton, 
 Royal Academy, London." 
 
 There was no getting out of this, for the " reply " 
 was paid ; but the diffident Consul saw in it a loop- 
 hole for his escape. Becoming supremely conscien- 
 tious concerning the duties he owed to the " invoices," 
 he telegraphed back that the extreme pressure of 
 official engagements would make his presence and 
 speech an impossibility. 
 
 But the affair was not allowed to rest there. His 
 friend Froude wrote : — 
 
 " 5 Onslow Gardens, S.W., May i, 1879. 
 "My dear H arte,— Your non-appearance at the 
 Academy will be a great disappointment. We shall, 
 however, count the more surely on your presence 
 at the Literary Fund Dinner on the 7th. I was to 
 have spoken there for Literature, but I have made 
 over the office to you, and have assured the Com- 
 mittee that they may rely upon you. I meant to 
 have asked a party to meet you here on the fifth 
 or sixth, but the uncertainty and the unwillingness 
 to hold you up to reprobation as a person not to 
 be depended on forbid me to run the risk. I hope 
 you have written to Leighton as well as telegraphed 
 to him ? The President of the Royal Academy is a 
 sacred person, with the state and honours of a sove- 
 reign on these occasions. Alas that you should miss 
 
 hearing the return thanks for the ! You 
 
 could have made a sketch out of it as good as 
 
 206 
 
THE CONSUL 
 
 ' Lothaw.' ^ You would also have heard ' Lothaw ' 
 himself. I could be as eloquent on what you are 
 losing as Reineke Fuchs on the wonders of the trea- 
 sure that was forthcoming to Nobel the King. Be 
 sure to write to Leighton, as I am bail for your 
 ' good behaviour. — Yours most truly, 
 
 J. A. Froude." 
 
 " You left your cigar-case here, which I keep 
 untouched for you." 
 
 Thus admonished the now remorseful Consul did 
 I tardily write to Sir Frederick Leighton, and had 
 for reply : — 
 
 ^ " Dear Mr. Bret Harte, — It was most kind 
 I of you to write to me after your telegram. I fully 
 i understand the impossibility of your leaving your 
 post, and sincerely regret my loss. — Yours very truly, 
 J Frederick Leighton." 
 
 All these things must have touched the consular 
 
 heart, for, subsequently, Bret Harte did speak for 
 
 Literature at the Boyal Academy Dinner, and 
 
 I acquitted himself right worthily. But he put off 
 
 I the evil day as long as he could. Thus it was with 
 
 j him throughout his life, and his trouble was neither 
 
 ' " Lothaw ; or, The Adventures of a Youug Gentleman in Search of 
 a Religion," by Mr. Benjamins, was, it will be remembered, the title under 
 which Bret Harte in his Condensed Novels delightfully burlesqued the 
 
 \ style of Benjamin Disraeli (Lord Beaconsfield). 
 
 ' 207 
 
THE CONSUL 
 
 nervousness nor lack of sociability, but an innate 
 and very pleasant modesty which characterised him 
 wherever he went, and among all sorts and con- 
 ditions of people. " Hundreds of men," I have heard 
 him say, " like to speak in public and to be reported 
 in the papers. / dont like it. Why then can't 
 people let them have their fill of enjoyment and 
 leave me alone ? " 
 
 But the Crefeld invoices were not to hold him 
 long in thrall. On his behalf his American friends 
 had loyally interested themselves, and his consular 
 work was soon to be transferred to the far more 
 homelike atmosphere of Glasgow. 
 
 Before taking leave of his sojourn in Germany, 
 I must, pace those critics who persist in saying he 
 could only write on topics Californian, again refer 
 to the fact that wherever he might be he made 
 excellent use of his surroundings. Let those who 
 still doubt turn to his " Views from a German 
 Spion," wherein he focussed the maimers and cus- 
 toms of the people about him with a microscopic 
 nicety. There is one episode in this " Eastern 
 Sketch," as he called it, that almost pathetically 
 illustrates the loneliness of his life in the " Father- 
 land." In referring to the " Carnival Season," he 
 said : — 
 
 " It was at the close of a dull winter's day — 
 a day from which all out-of-door festivity seemed 
 to be naturally excluded ; there was a baleful 
 
 promise of snow in the air, and a dismal remini- 
 
 208 
 
 .^0 
 
Bret Hartc {circa 1899), from (t photcujraph hij Fall. 
 
 ITo face p 208. 
 
THE CONSUL 
 
 scence of it underfoot, when suddenly, in striking 
 contrast with the dreadful bleakness of the street, 
 a half-dozen children, masked and bedizened with 
 cheajD ribbons, spangles, and embroidery, flashed 
 across my Spion. ... I seized my hat and overcoat 
 — a dreadful incongruity to the spangles that had 
 whisked by — and followed the vanishing figures 
 round the corner. Here they were reinforced by 
 a dozen men and women, fantastically but not 
 expensively arrayed, looking not unlike the super- 
 numeraries of some provincial opera troupe. Fol- 
 lowing the crowd, which already began to pour in 
 from the side streets, in a few moments I was in 
 the broad, grove-like allee, and in the midst of the 
 masquer ciders. 
 
 " I remember to have been told that this was 
 a characteristic annual celebration of the lower 
 classes, anticipated with eagerness and achieved with 
 difficulty ; indeed, often through the alternative of 
 pawning clothing and furniture to provide the 
 means for this ephemeral transformation. I re- 
 member being warned also that the buffoonery was 
 coarse and some of the slang hardly fit for ' ears 
 polite.' But I am afraid that I was not shocked 
 at the prodigality of these poor people, who pur- 
 chased a holiday on such hard conditions ; and as 
 to the coarseness of the performance, I felt that / 
 certainly might go where these children could. 
 
 " At first the masquerading figures appeared to 
 
 be mainly composed of young girls, of ages varying 
 
 209 O 
 
THE CONSUL 
 
 from nine to eighteen. Their costumes — if what 
 was often only the addition of a broad, bright 
 coloured stripe to the hem of a short dress could 
 be called a costume — were plain, and seemed to 
 indicate no particular epoch or character. A general 
 suggestion of the peasant's holiday attire was domi- 
 nant in all the costumes. Everybody was closely 
 masked. All carried a short, gaily striped hdton 
 of split wood, called a Pritsche, which, when struck 
 sharply on the back or shoulders of some spectator 
 or sister-masker, emitted a clattering, rasping sound. 
 To wander hand-in-hand down this broad allee, 
 to strike almost mechanically and often monoto- 
 nously at each other with their batons, seemed to 
 be the extent of their wild dissipation. The crowd 
 thickened ; young men with false noses, hideous 
 masks, cheap black or red cotton dominoes, soldiers 
 in uniform, crowded past each other up and down 
 the promenade, all carrying a Pritsche, and exchang- 
 ing blows with each other, but always with the 
 same slow seriousness of demeanour, which with 
 their silence gave the performance the effect of a 
 religious rite. Occasionally some one shouted, per- 
 haps a dozen young fellows broke out in song ; but 
 the shout was provocative of nothing, the song 
 faltered as if the singers were frightened at their 
 own voices. One blithe fellow, with a bear's head 
 on his fur-capped shoulders began to dance, but on 
 the crowd stopping to observe him seriously, he 
 apparently thought better of it, and slipped away. 
 
 2IO 
 
THE CONSUL 
 
 Nevertheless, the solemn beating of PriUche over 
 each other's backs went on. I remember that I was 
 followed the whole length of the allee by a little 
 girl, scarcely twelve years old, in a bright striped 
 skirt and black mask, who from time to time 
 struck me over the shoulders with a regularity and 
 sad persistency that was peculiarly irresistible to 
 me ; the more so as I could not help thinking that 
 it was not half as amusing to herself Once only 
 did the ordinary brusque gallantry of the Carnival 
 spirit show itself A man with an enormous pair 
 of horns, like a half-civilised satyr, suddenly seized 
 a young girl and endeavoured to kiss her. A slight 
 struggle ensued, in which I fancied I detected in 
 the girl's face and manner the confusion and em- 
 barrassment of one who was obliged to overlook, 
 or seem to accept, a familiarity that was distasteful, 
 rather than be laughed at for prudishness or ignor- 
 ance ; but the incident was exceptional. Indeed, it 
 was particularly noticeable to my American eyes 
 to find such decorum where there might easily have 
 been the greatest licence. I am afraid that an 
 American mob of this class would have scarcely 
 been as orderly and civil under the circumstances. 
 They might have shown more humour, but there 
 would have probably been more effrontery ; they 
 might have been more exuberant, they would 
 certainly have been drunker. I did not notice a 
 single masquerader unduly excited by liquor — there 
 was not a word or motion from the lighter sex that 
 
 21 I 
 
THE CONSUL 
 
 could have been construed into an impropriety. 
 There was something almost pathetic to me in this 
 attempt to wrest gaiety and excitement out of these 
 dull materials — to fight against the blackness of 
 that wintry sky, and the stubborn hardness of the 
 frozen soil with these painted sticks of wood — to 
 mock the dreariness of their poverty with these 
 flaunting raiments. It did not seem like them, or, 
 rather, consistent with my idea of them. There 
 was incongruity deeper than their bizarre externals ; 
 a half-melancholy, half-crazy absurdity in their 
 action, the substitution of a grim spasmodic frenzy 
 for levity, that rightly or wrongly impressed me. 
 When the increasing gloom of the evening made 
 their figures indistinguishable, I turned into the 
 first cross-street. As I lifted my hat to my persistent 
 young friend with the Pritsche, I fancied she looked 
 as relieved as myself If, however, I was mistaken 
 — if that child's pathway through life be strewn 
 with rosy recollections of the unresisting back of the 
 stranger American — if any burden, O Gretchen, laid 
 upon thy young shoulders be lighter for the trifling 
 one thou didst lay upon mine, know then that I 
 too am content." 
 
 No doubt those were somewhat doleful days for 
 the isolated Consul of Crefeld. But, as his sketches 
 and stories show, he made good use of them, and in 
 due season established himself in Glasgow. The 
 change gladdened his heart. To say nothing of the 
 historical associations of Scotland, it was something 
 
 212 
 
THE CONSUL 
 
 for Bret Harte to be in the land of Robert Burns 
 and Sir Walter Scott. I doubt if any Scotchman 
 knew their undying works better than this visitor 
 from over the seas. 
 
 Amongst the friends he had made in London 
 were M. Arthur and Madame Van de Velde. M. 
 Van de Velde belonged to the Belgian Diplomatic 
 Service ; he was many years Councillor of Legation in 
 London, and retired with the rank of Minister Resident, 
 as he could not with his large family take an impor- 
 tant appointment offered him at Mexico. Madame 
 Van de Velde was the daughter of the Comtesse 
 de Launay, wife of the Italian Ambassador in Berlin. 
 Madame Van de Velde was a lady who had not only 
 enjoyed singular opportunities of studying life in high 
 places, but of great literary tastes and achievements, 
 as witness her " Random Recollections of Courts and 
 Society," " Cosmopolitan Recollections," " French Fic- 
 tion of To-day," and other notable works, to say 
 nothing of successful labours in different branches of 
 the world of art and letters. She and her husband 
 were enthusiastic admirers of the writings of Bret 
 Harte, and he, never prone to very close friendships, 
 found in them comrades after his own heart. In 
 their hospitable London house he found, whenever 
 he needed one, a second home, and the good influ- 
 ence of this pleasant association over his subsequent 
 literary career will presently be seen. 
 
 To Madame Van de Velde he wrote some of his 
 
 earliest experiences of Scotland. 
 
 213 
 
THE CONSUL 
 
 "Glasgow, Septeriiher lo, 1880. 
 
 " My dear Madame Van de Velde, — Why do 
 you permit yourself to live at a place with such a 
 name as ' South Sheen ? ' What is the ' sheen ' 
 anyway ? Is it the glitter from the sea, or the 
 genial eifulgency of your presence that gives a name 
 to your local habitation ? And why ' South ? ' 
 
 " The photographs taken by are too atro- 
 cious to give to anybody, much less a critical and 
 mischievous woman. So I have written to Germany 
 for some of the old ones, taken in real sunlight, and 
 I will keep my word with you when they come. 
 There was a portrait of me in a magazine. You 
 should see that remarkable picture. It is so faint, 
 so spiritual, so ghostly and apparition-like that I 
 ^am afraid to stay in the room with it in the dark. 
 
 " The weather has been preternaturally (I didn't 
 know that word was really so very long, please excuse 
 me !) fine all over Scotland, but most gracious, I 
 think, at Innellan — a charming little watering-place 
 on the west coast, where I go every night from 
 Glasgow. I am sorry you do not like the seaside ; 
 but you must remember this is not the staring, over- 
 dressed, negro-minstrel haunted, children-shovelling 
 beach of Brighton, nor the fashionable, fuU-toiletted 
 sands of Trouville or Etretat. It is a craggy shelf 
 of tangled seaweed and rocks, blown over by foam 
 and breeze ; the gentlemen bathe from small boats 
 in the ofhng, quite au naturel, and honest but awfully 
 
 plain Scotch lassies apparently are baptized in long 
 
 214 
 
THE CONSUL 
 
 grey and black gowns and then stride home without 
 stockings. But I have picked up some Httle health 
 here and some little experience, both of which I need. 
 
 " The Scotch people are very queer, but in the main 
 very kind and hospitable. I have no reason to com- 
 plain. On my birthday, which became quite acci- 
 dentally known to a few friends in the hotel, my 
 table was covered with bouquets of flowers and little 
 remembrances from cigar cases to lockets. 
 
 " As I am trying to get up a good reputation 
 here I stay at my post pretty regularly, occasionally 
 making a cheap excursion. This is a country for 
 them. The other day I went to Staffa. It was 
 really the only ' sight ' in Europe that quite filled 
 all my expectations. But alas ! that magnificent, 
 cathedral-like cave was presently filled with a 
 howling party of sandwich-eating tourists, splashing 
 in the water and climbing up the rocks. One should 
 only go there alone, or with some sympathetic spirit. 
 Permit me to suggest that we go there together ! i-^ 
 
 Write me again. I like your letters. I'll keep 
 my promise about the photograph and anything else 
 you may ask of yours always, 
 
 Bret Harte." 
 
 It was in 1880 that he made the acquaintance 
 
 of a brother author, for whose work he had much 
 
 admiration, William Black. In Sir Wemyss Reid's 
 
 biography of that fascinating writer we get many 
 
 glimpses of the Glasgow Consul. Speaking of an 
 
 215 
 
THE CONSUL 
 
 expedition to visit the ruined abbeys of Eastern 
 Yorkshire, which was arranged by Sir George Womb- 
 w^ell of Balaclava fame, he says : " Black, Bret Harte, 
 Mr. Shepard, the American Vice-Consul at Bradford, 
 and myself were Sir George's guests. We met at 
 York one Saturday morning in April, and as our 
 host was not to arrive till dinner-time we resolved 
 to spend the afternoon in a visit to the battlefield of 
 Marston Moor. Black was delighted with all that 
 he saw ; delighted too with the companionship of 
 Bret Harte and Shepard. . . . We were to dine at 
 the Yorkshire Club that evening with Sir George 
 Wombwell, and as Black, who had never met Sir 
 George, and who was always shy of strangers, 
 declared that he would not go to the dinner unless 
 I went also, I accompanied the party to the club, 
 though by rights I ought to have been in bed.^ I 
 remember few more lively evenings than that. Black 
 and Bret Harte, whose acquaintance he had just 
 made, vied with each other in the good stories they 
 told and the repartees they exchanged." 
 
 The intimacy beween the two authors grew apace. 
 On May i st Black, writing to his suffering friend from 
 the Beform Club, said, " Bret Harte went down to us 
 at Brighton, and if we didn't amuse him he certainly 
 amused us. He is coming down again next week." 
 
 And again on June 2nd. " Possess your soul in 
 
 1 Unluckily, in scrambling over a hedge on the battletield, Sir Weuiyss 
 Reid met with a serious and most i)aiuful accident, which crippled him 
 for some months. 
 
 216 
 
THE CONSUL 
 
 patience ; it will be better for you in the end. And 
 in a few weeks' time don't be surprised if Bret Harte 
 and I come to look you up — that is if he is not com- 
 pelled for mere shame's sake to go to his consular 
 duties (!!!) at once. He is the most extraordinary 
 globule of mercury-comet-aerolite-flash of lightning 
 doing Catherine wheels I ever had any experience of. \ 
 Nobody knows where he is, and the day before yester- 
 day I discovered here a pile of letters that had been 
 slowly accumulating for him since February 1879. 
 It seems he never reported himself to the all-seeing 
 Escott" (the hall porter of the Reform Club), "and 
 never asked for letters when he got his month's 
 honorary membership last year. People are now 
 sending letters to him from America addressed to 
 me at Brighton ! But he is a mystery and the cause 
 of mystifications. I heard the other day that a Society 
 paper had printed a minute account of how I had been 
 driving Bret Harte and other friends in Yorkshire in 
 a phaeton, had upset the whole concern, and half 
 murdered nearly all the party." 
 
 The sudden disappearances to which Black thus 
 laughingly refers are accounted for by the fact that, 
 while London attracted him, the Consul felt bound 
 to put in many appearances at Glasgow, and he spent 
 much of his time in travelling over the long distance 
 that divides the two great cities. 
 
 Bret Harte conceived as great a liking for William 
 Black as he had appreciation for his works. But he 
 
 did not sympathise with him in all his pursuits, as 
 
 217 
 
THE CONSUL 
 
 witness this letter, written to the author of *' A 
 Daughter of Heth," one of the favourite modern books 
 of the author of " The Luck of Roaring Camp " : — 
 
 " My dear Black, — I was in the far south, trying 
 to get rid of an obstinate cold, when your note reached 
 me ; and I haven't been in London for some time. I 
 expected you to drop in here (Glasgow) on your way 
 up to ' Balnagownie's arms ' — whoever she may be. 
 I'm afraid I don't want any ' Ardgay ' in mine, thank 
 you. Why any man in this damp climate should 
 want to make himself wetter by salmon fishing passes j 
 my comprehension. Is there no drier spot to be had 
 in all Great Britain ? I shudder at the name of a 
 river, and shiver at the sight of any fish that isn't 
 dried. I hear, too, that you are in the habit of 
 making poetry on these occasions, and that you are J 
 dropping lines all over the place. How far is that 
 place — anyway ? I shall be in Glasgow until the end 
 of March, and if you'll dry yourself thoroughly and 
 come in and dine with me at that time, I'll show you 
 how ' the labouring poor ' of Glasgow live. — Yours 
 always, Bret Harte." 
 
 In his most interesting and valuable volume, Sir 
 Wemyss Held gives another pleasant picture of the 
 two writers. Quoting Mr. Bradbury, he says : " Mr. 
 Bret Harte, when he was American Consul at Glas- 
 gow, often visited Black at Oban. On one occasion a 
 
 German band had taken up its position in front of 
 
 218 
 
THE CONSUL 
 
 the Alexandra Hotel, where the two novelists were 
 staying, and was braying out its brazen music with 
 great vigour. Presently a Highland piper took up 
 his position near the band, and with mincing step and 
 many flourishes gave full voice to his instrument. ' I 
 just bet the piper will beat the Teutons,' said Mr. 
 Harte. And he was right. The band retired dis- 
 comfited. ' But that isn't the real piping at all,' 
 observed Black. ' Is the real thing, then, more in- 
 tense ? ' asked Harte. ' Yes ; you should hear a band 
 of pipers, say at Edinburgh. Their combined music 
 was once described by an entranced listener as " Jest 
 like Paradise." Was it not Sydney Smith who said 
 that his idea of heaven was eating foie gras to the 
 sound of trumpets ? A Scotchman would have said 
 bagpipes instead of trumpets.' " 
 
 Poor Bret Harte ! Remembering his delicate ear 
 for music I can fancy him saying to himself, with one 
 thought for the brazen blasts of Anglicised Germany 
 and another for the shrilling wood-wind of our well- 
 loved Scotland, " I'm afraid I don't want any Paradise 
 in mine, thank you." 
 
 He grew very fond of Black and kept many of his 
 letters. To show the genial nature of their friendship 
 I may quote from one or two of them. 
 
 " Brighton. 
 
 " My dear Harte, — Where are you concealing 
 
 yourself now ? Are you likely to be anywhere on 
 
 Saturday the 23rd ? I am giving some of the boys a 
 
 219 
 
THE CONSUL 
 
 little sustenance on an occasion of mutual interest. I 
 should be exceeding glad if you would step into the 
 Reform Club at 7.45. — Yours always, 
 
 William Black." 
 
 " Leeds. 
 " Received from Bret Harte One Razor, in very 
 good condition — considermg. William Black." 
 
 " Reform Club. 
 " My dear Youth, — I have just heard that you 
 are In London, and send a note to your former address 
 on chance. If you are disengaged on Sunday night 
 will you run down to Brighton and contemplate the 
 vast ocean ? I have scarcely been three seconds in 
 one place for the last two months ; and it was by 
 the merest accident I have just heard of your having 
 come south. — Yours very faithfully, '^■ 
 
 William Black." 
 
 " Brighton. 
 " My dear Harte, — There's a man called John 
 Hay in London just now. They say he has written 1 
 things. It would be very odd if you were to walk 
 into the Reform Club on June ist at 7 p.m., and sit 
 down to dinner with him ; and then you might come 
 down here next day for a night or two. — Yours 
 faithfully, William Black." 
 
 " P.S. — There's another man called Lawrence 
 
 Barrett who's going to eat food on the same evening 
 
 at the same place." 
 
 220 
 
THE CONSUL 
 
 I quote these letters to show that there were 
 many inducements for the Glasgow Consul to " come 
 South." He liked Black and his coterie, and was of 
 course rejoiced at the opportunity of meeting his old 
 American friends. Sometimes, and by some people, 
 he was blamed for not " staying North," but he had 
 men with him at the Consulate upon whom he could 
 absolutely rely, and it was only natural that he 
 should escape as often as he could from his monotonous 
 official duties, take his hands to the fire of life, andi_. 
 warm them. If some who called were irate at not 
 finding him at his post they could at least see the 
 admirable portrait of him that hung over the chimney- 
 piece, and which is now in my possession. For Colonel 
 John Hay, who had " written things," he retained a 
 life-long affection, and the highest admiration. He 
 was fond of saying that the " Pike County Ballads," 
 with their immortal stories of " Little Breeches," and 
 Jim Bludso's heroic death in the wreck of the Prairie 
 Bell were finer than anything of that sort he had 
 done himself, though, according to Mr. Noah Brooks, 
 Colonel Hay "wrote those ballads to convince his 
 friends that imitations were easily made, and it was 
 long after their private publication that he consented 
 to their translation into the immortality of print." 
 
 At the period with which I am now dealing. 
 Colonel Hay was wont to send encouraging messages 
 to the still somewhat lonely Consul, and they were 
 carefully kept and cherished. Writing from the 
 Department of State at Washington, he said : — 
 
 221 
 
THE CONSUL 
 
 " I want before my sands run out to say ' How ? ' 
 to you once more, and to assure you of my eternal 
 love and esteem. ... I do not know what Heaven 
 
 meant by creating so few men like and you. 
 
 The scarcity of you is an injury not only to us, but to 
 yourselves. There are not enough of you to go round, 
 and the world pulls and hauls at you till you are 
 completely spoiled. . . . Well, good-bye, and good 
 health and good spirits and everything good be 
 yours. John Hay." 
 
 Here are other specimens of his strong tempta- 
 tions to " come South : " — 
 
 " 12 Gayton Orescent, Hampstead. 
 
 " My dear Harte, — Don't forget your promise 
 to ' fetch along ' Howells and the other American men 
 of letters now in London. Choose your own day for 
 the dinner. If you will send me the list we will 
 divide them out as guests. Howells is a member of 
 the Club, and he would not be anybody's guest. — 
 Very truly yours, Walter Besant." 
 
 " lo Lowndes Square, London, S.W. 
 
 " Dear Harte, -Will you dine with us on the 
 I oth ? You will save us from the fatal number 
 thirteen. We should, of course, have invited you 
 earlier had we known you were in town. 'Tis 
 Mrs. Lowell's first dinner-party, and would be made 
 yet more historic by your presence. — Faithfully 
 yours, J. R. Lowell." 
 
 222 
 
 1 
 
THE CONSUL 
 
 Here is another genial letter from Mr. Lowell, 
 which should be quoted : — 
 
 " Legation op the United States, 
 " London. 
 
 " Dear Harte, — Can you tell me whether adobe 
 is pronounced c^is-syllabically or ^?^^-syllabically in 
 California ? I ask on behalf of the Philological 
 Society's Dictionary. — Faithfully yours, 
 
 J. E. Lowell." 
 
 "P.>S. — Pray instruct whoever sends your tele- 
 grams that my name is not Dowell. In carpentry it 
 has a better meaning than mine, but doesn't belong 
 to me." 
 
 As the "adobe" question has troubled, and still 
 troubles, many of Bret Harte's readers it may be 
 explained here. It is pronounced as if spelt "ad-o-baj," 
 and it designates the bricks made of earth and horse- 
 hair or straw, used without mortar, and in constant 
 use for building purposes in early Californian days. 
 Or it may mean the rich, unctuous loam used for this 
 purpose, but of great fertile quality. 
 
 In addition to London allurements and distractions 
 
 he was again in request as a lecturer, and as he could 
 
 now fix his own fee, such engagements (though I am 
 
 sure he never liked them) were not to be despised. 
 
 How could he refuse such an offer as this ? 
 
 223 
 
THE CONSUL 
 
 " The Molt, 2nd October. 
 
 " My dear Harte, — The Hull people sent their 
 invitation through me, I suppose because your move- 
 ments, like those of Royalties and Cabinet Ministers, 
 are reported in the newspapers, and they saw that 
 you had been staying here. But they took action on 
 their own account unprompted by me. They are 
 anxious to see you. They are liberal, and therefore 
 you may name your own terms. I think you may 
 safely tell them, and tell every one who applies to 
 you, that you must have ^50 a lecture at least, and 
 can go nowhere for less. 
 
 " Probably in many places they will offer you 
 more, but we are taken in this world at our own 
 Aestimate of ourselves, and if we rate ourselves high 
 the more other people will give for us. I remember 
 a tobacconist at Oxford who made his fortune by 
 selling his cigars on that principle. 
 
 " Very likely you may think ^50 much too little, 
 and of course it is too little ; all I mean is that this 
 should be your lowest figure. Lecturing is hateful 
 work. I always wondered how Emerson took so 
 kindly to it. 
 
 " We are still in our summer quarters, but we 
 
 flutter in a purposeless way up and down the walks 
 
 like swallows before the emigration. We take wing 
 
 in two or three weeks. Professor Owen tells us the 
 
 birds move automatically on those occasions, and know I 
 
 nothing about it. I wish I could, 
 
 " We shall be visiting for two or three weeks in 
 
 224 
 
THE CONSUL 
 
 December. With that exception, and assuming 
 always that I do not go under in the course of it, we 
 shall be the whole season in London without moving. 
 " Then we shall expect to see you. — Yours most 
 truly, J. A. Froude." 
 
 Leeds wanted to see him as well as Hull, and in 
 that famous Yorkshire centre of industry he received 
 a welcome of which he was very proud. Among the 
 few papers he valued and kept was a copy of The 
 Leeds Mercury, in which a writer who evidently 
 understood him said — 
 
 " The recent visit of Mr. Bret Harte to Leeds 
 reawakens public interest in one of the most mem- 
 orable literary successes the world has ever known. 
 Of Mr. Bret Harte himself, and the established 
 position he has gained in the literary world, there 
 can be no need to speak. He has long since taken 
 his place among the great men of genius, by whom 
 the glory of our English literature is sustained. It 
 is quite certain that if we except Hawthorne, he is 
 the most distinctive author America has yet given 
 to the world. Other men, like Longfellow, Lowell, 
 Whittier, and Emerson, have done splendid work, 
 and have gained for themselves a great place in 
 the literary hierarchy. But brilliant as their work 
 is, it lacks the originality which marks a man like 
 Bret Harte, as being the special outcome, as it were, 
 of a new race, the pioneer of a new school of thought 
 
 and work and culture. They are like miners who 
 
 225 p 
 
THE CONSUL 
 
 have achieved great and striking successes when 
 working in old mines, the treasures of which had, 
 in part at least, been made known to the world 
 long before they appeared upon the scene. Mr. 
 Harte, on the contrary, may be said to have tapped 
 Aa new vein in literature, as rich and inexhaustible 
 as those mines of mineral wealth which the pioneers 
 in the settlement of California first discovered ; and 
 as one of the founders of the literature of the United 
 States he will hereafter, without doubt, hold a lead- 
 ing place among the classical authors of that great 
 country. No one can read his poems and tales 
 without being struck by the fact that in him, as 
 in so many of the great writers of all countries and 
 ages, humour and pathos are blended together in 
 the closest union. At one moment he provokes to 
 laughter, at another to tears. To speak of him as 
 being, like Mark Twain, for example, a mere humor- 
 ist, is utterly absurd. It is indeed the poetical gift 
 that he possesses in the highest degree, and it is 
 to the poet's insight into human nature that he 
 owes his brilliant success in literature. It has been 
 his ability to see the soul of good lying under the 
 evil exterior, his power of showing us in the simplest 
 and yet the most forcible manner how, among the 
 wild, rough, hardened, and too often degraded men 
 and women who were the founders of that new 
 America which lies on the western seaboard of the 
 mighty continent, human virtues were to be found, 
 
 as tender and sweet and noble as any that the most 
 
 226 
 
 
THE CONSUL 
 
 refined society in Europe could produce, that has 
 given for him his wonderful hold upon the reading 
 world. Like Charles Dickens, whom in many most 
 essential respects he resembles, he has employed his 
 splendid powers of humour, not to caricature, but 
 to illustrate human life and human nature ; and some 
 of the most brilliant of his humorous pieces have 
 been written with a very serious intent." 
 
 Then there were visits to country houses, where 
 he was always a welcome member of a genial house - 
 party, and when he from time to time (but not very 
 enthusiastically, I think) took part in British sport. 
 
 On one of these occasions he wrote to me from 
 Innellan — 
 
 " My dear Pemberton, — Don't be alarmed if you 
 should hear of my having nearly blown the top of 
 my head off. Last Monday I had my face badly 
 cut by the recoil of an overloaded gun. I do not 
 know yet beneath these bandages whether I shall 
 be permanently marked. At present I am invisible, 
 and have tried to keep the accident a secret. 
 
 " When the surgeon was stitching me together 
 the son of the house, a boy of twelve, came timidly 
 to the door of my room. ' Tell Mr. Bret Harte 
 it's all right,' he said ; ' he killed the hare ! ' — Yours 
 always, Bret Harte." 
 
 But consular duties (however slight they may 
 
 have been), lectures, and diversions in town and 
 
 227 
 
THE CONSUL 
 
 country, combined to make his pen an idle one, a 
 fact that his truest friends deeply regretted. In 
 the March of 1882 he was deeply distressed to hear 
 of the death of Longfellow, and then he sat down 
 to his desk to pay his tribute to a poet of whose 
 work he could never speak too highly. He seemed 
 to set little store by his article, and did not publish 
 it in his collected writings. Except by a few it is 
 to-day forgotten, but in his biography it must surely 
 have an honoured place. 
 
 " Longfellow. 
 
 "As I write the name that stands at the head 
 of this page my eyes fill with far-off memory. While 
 I know that every reader to whom that name was 
 familiar felt that it recalled to him some thought, 
 experience, or gentle daily philosophy which he had 
 made his own, I fear that I, reading the brief message 
 that flashed his death under the sea and over a 
 continent, could not recall a line of his poetry, but 
 only revived a picture of the past in which he had 
 lived and moved. But this picture seemed so much 
 a part of himself, and himself so much a part of his 
 poetry, that I cannot help transferring it here. Few 
 poets, I believe, so strongly echoed their song in 
 themselves, in their tastes, their surroundings, and 
 even in their experiences, as Henry Wadsworth 
 Longfellow. 
 
 " I am recalling a certain early spring day in New 
 
 England twelve years ago. A stranger myself to the 
 
 228 
 
THE CONSUL 
 
 climate for over seventeen years, that day seemed to 
 me most characteristic of the transcendent incon- 
 sistencies of that purely local phenomenon. There 
 had been frost in the early morning, followed by 
 thaw ; it had rained, it had hailed, there had been 
 snow. The latter had been imitated in breezy 
 moments of glittering sunshine by showers of white 
 blossoms that filled the air. At nightfall, earth, air, 
 and sky stiffened again under the rigour of a north- 
 east wind, and when at midnight with another 
 lingering guest we parted from our host under the 
 elms at his porch, we stepped out into the moonlight 
 of a winter night, ' God makes such nights,' one t--- 
 could not help thinking in the words of one of 
 America's most characteristic poets ; one was only 
 kept from uttering it aloud by the fact that the host 
 himself was that poet. /-' / .> . /. 
 
 " The other guest had playfully suggested that he 
 should be my guide home in the midnight perils that 
 might environ a stranger in Cambridge, and we 
 dismissed the carriage, to walk the two miles that 
 lay between our host's house on the river Charles and 
 his own nearer the centre of this American university 
 city. Although I had met him several times before 
 in a brief week of gaiety, until that evening I do not 
 think I had clearly known him. I like to recall him 
 at that moment, as he stood in the sharp moonlight 
 of the snow-covered road ; a dark mantle-like cloak 
 hiding his evening dress, and a slouched felt hat 
 
 covering his full silver-like locks. The conventional 
 
 229 
 
THE CONSUL 
 
 gibus or chimney-pot would have been as intolerable 
 on that wonderful brow as it would on a Greek statue, 
 and I was thankful there was nothing to interrupt 
 the artistic harmony of the most impressive vignette 
 I ever beheld. I hope that the enthusiasm of a much 
 younger man will be pardoned when I confess that 
 the dominant feeling in my mind was an echo of one 
 I had experienced a few weeks before, when I had 
 penetrated Niagara at sunrise on a Sunday morning 
 after a heavy snowfall and found that masterpiece 
 unvisited, virgin to my tread, and my own footsteps 
 the only track to the dizzy edge of Prospect Rock. 
 I was to have the man I most revered alone with me 
 for half-an-hour in the sympathetic and confidential 
 stillness of the night. The only excuse I have for 
 recording this enthusiasm is that the only man who 
 might have been embarrassed by it never knew it, 
 and was as sublimely unconscious as the waterfall. 
 
 " I think I was at first moved by his voice. It 
 was a very deep baritone without a trace of harshness, 
 but veiled and reserved as if he never parted entirely 
 from it, and with the abstraction of a soliloquy even 
 in his most earnest moments. It was not melancholy, 
 yet it suggested one of his own fancies as it fell from 
 his silver-fringed lips 
 
 ' Like the water's flow 
 Undei' Decembex-'s snow.' 
 
 It was the voice that during our homeward walk 
 
 flowed on with kindly criticism, gentle philosophy, 
 
 230 
 
THE CONSUL 
 
 picturesque illustration, and anecdote. As I was the 
 stranger, he half earnestly, half jestingly kept up the 
 role of guide, philosopher, and friend, and began an 
 amiable review of the company we had just left. 
 As it had comprised a few names, the greatest in 
 American literature, science, and philosophy, I was 
 struck with that generous contemporaneous apprecia- 
 tion which distinguished this Round Table, of whom 
 no knight was more courtly and loving than my 
 companion. It should be added that there was a 
 vein of gentle playfulness in his comment, which 
 scarcely could be called humour, an unbending of 
 attitude rather than a different phase of thought or 
 turn of sentiment ; a relaxation from his ordinary 
 philosophic earnestness and truthfulness. Readers 
 will remember it in his playful patronage of the 
 schoolmaster's sweetheart in the ' Birds of Killing- 
 worth,' 
 
 ' Who was, as in a sonnet he had said. 
 As pure as water, and as good as bread.' 
 
 Yet no one had a quieter appreciation of humour, and 
 
 his wonderful skill as a raconteur, and his opulence of 
 
 memory, justified the saying of his friends, that ' no 
 
 one ever heard him tell an old story or repeat a new 
 
 one.' 
 
 " Living always under the challenge of his own 
 
 fame, and subject to that easy superficial criticism 
 
 which consists in enforced comparison and rivalry, he 
 
 never knew envy. Those who understood him will 
 
 readily recognise his own picture in the felicitous 
 
 231 
 
THE CONSUL 
 
 praise intended for another, known as ' The Poet,' 
 in the ' Tales of a Wayside Inn,' who 
 
 ' did not find his sleep less sweet 
 For music in some neighbouring street.' 
 
 " But if I was thus, most pleasantly because unos- 
 tentatiously, reminded of the poet's personality, I was 
 equally impressed with the local colour of his poetry 
 in the surrounding landscape. We passed the bridge 
 on which we had once stood at midnight, and saw, 
 as he had seen, the moon 
 
 ' Like a golden goblet falling 
 And sinking in the sea ' ; 
 
 we saw, as Paul Revere once saw, 
 
 * the gilded weathei-cock 
 Swim in the moonlight,' 
 
 and passing a plain Puritan church, whose uncom- 
 promising severity of style even the tender graces 
 of the moon could not soften, I knew that it must 
 have been own brother to the ' meeting-house ' at 
 Lexington, where 
 
 ' windows, blank and bare, 
 Gaze at him with a spectral glare, 
 As if they already stood aghast, 
 At the bloody work they would look upon.' 
 
 " Speaking of these spiritual suggestions in material 
 things, I remember saying that I thought there must 
 
 first be some actual resemblance, which unimagina- 
 
 232 
 
THE CONSUL 
 
 tive people must see before the poet could success- 
 fully use them. I instanced the case of his own 
 description of a camel as being ' weary ' and ' baring 
 his teeth,' and added that I had seen them throw such 
 infinite weariness into that action after a day's journey 
 as to set spectators yawning. He seemed surprised, 
 so nmch so that I asked him if he had seen many — 
 fully believing he had travelled in the desert. He 
 replied simply, ' No,' that he had ' only seen one 
 once in the Jardin des Plantes' Yet in that brief 
 moment he had noticed a distinctive fact, which the 
 larger experience of others fully corroborated. 
 
 " We reached his house — fit goal for a brief journey 
 filled with historical reminiscences, for it was one of 
 the few old colonial mansions, relics of a bygone age, 
 still left intact. A foreigner of great distinction had 
 once dwelt there ; later it had been the head-quarters 
 of General Washington. Stately only in its size and 
 the liberality of its offices, it stood back from the 
 street, guarded by the gaunt arms of venerable trees. 
 We entered the spacious central hall, with no sound 
 in the silent house but the ticking of that famous 
 clock on the staircase — the clock whose 'Forever — 
 never ! Never — forever ! ' has passed into poetic im- 
 mortality. The keynote of association and individu- 
 ality here given filled the house with its monotone ; 
 scarcely a room had not furnished a theme or a sug- 
 gestion, found and recognised somewhere in the poet's 
 song ; where the room whose tiled hearth still bore the 
 marks of the grounding of the heavy muskets of soldiery 
 
THE CONSUL 
 
 in the troublous times ; the drawing-room still fur- 
 nished as Washington had left it ; the lower stairway, 
 in whose roofed recess the poet himself had found a 
 casket of love-letters which told a romance and intrigue 
 of the past ; or the poet's study, which stood at the 
 right of the front door. It was here that the ghosts 
 most gathered, and as my guide threw aside his , 
 mantle and drew an easy -chair to the fireside, he 
 looked indeed the genius of the place. He had 
 changed his evening dress for a black velvet coat, 
 against which his snowy beard and long flowing 
 locks were strikingly relieved. It was the costume 
 of one of his best photographs ; the costume of an 
 artist who without vanity would carry his taste even 
 to the details of his dress. The firelight lit up this 
 picturesque figure, gleamed on the ' various spoils of 
 various climes' gathered in the tasteful apartment, 
 revealed the shadowy depths of the bookshelves, 
 where the silent company, the living children of 
 dead and gone poets, were ranged, and lost itself in 
 the gusty curtains. 
 
 " As we sat together the wind began its old song in 
 the chimney, but with such weird compass and com- 
 bination of notes that it seemed the call of a familiar 
 spirit. 'It is a famous chimney,' said the poet, 
 leaning over the fire, ' and has long borne a local 
 reputation for its peculiar song. Ole Bull, sitting in 
 your chair one night, caught it quite with his instru- 
 ment.' 
 
 " Under the same overpowering domination of him- 
 
 234 
 
THE CONSUL 
 
 self and his own personality, here as elsewhere, I 
 could not help remembering how he himself had 
 caught and transfigured not only its melody, but its 
 message, in that most perfect of human reveries, 
 ' The Wind over the Chimney ' — 
 
 ' But the night wind cries, " Despair ! 
 Those who walk with feet of air 
 
 Leave no long enduring marks ; 
 At God's foi^ges incandescent 
 Mighty hammers beat incessant, 
 
 These are but the flying sparks. 
 
 Dust are all the hands that wrought, 
 Books are sepiilchres of thought ; 
 
 The dead laurels of the dead 
 Rustle for a moment only. 
 Like the withered leaves in lonely 
 
 Chm-chyards at some passing tread. 
 
 Suddenly the flame sinks down ; 
 Sink the rumours of renown ; 
 
 And alone the night wind drear 
 Clamours louder, wilder, vaguer, — 
 'Tis the brand of Meleager 
 
 Dying on the hearthstone here ! " 
 
 And I answer, — " Though it be. 
 Why should that discomfort me ? 
 
 No endeavour is in vain. 
 Its reward is in the doing. 
 And the rapture of pursuing 
 
 Is the prize the vanquished gain." ' 
 
 " Why should not the ghosts gather here ? Into 
 this quaint historic house he had brought the poet's 
 retentive memory filled with the spoils of foreign 
 
 235 
 
THE CONSUL 
 
 climes. He had built his nest with rare seeds, 
 grasses, and often the stray feathers of other song 
 birds gathered in his flight. Into it had come the 
 great humanities of life, the bridal procession, the 
 christening, death — death in a tragedy that wrapped 
 those walls in flames, bore away the faithful young 
 mother and left a gap in the band of ' blue-eyed j 
 banditti' who used to climb the poet's chair. The 
 keynote of that sublime resignation and tender 
 philosophy which has overflowed so many hearts 
 with pathetic endurance was struck here ; it was 
 no cold abstract sermon preached from an intellectual 
 pulpit, but the daily lessons of experience, of chastened 
 trial shaped into melodious thought. How could we 
 help but reverence the instrument whose smitten 
 chords have given forth such noble ' Psalms of 
 Life'? 
 
 " Such is the picture conjured by his name. Near 
 and more recent contact with him never dimmed its 
 tender outlines. I like now to remember that I last 
 saw him in the same quaint house, but with the 
 glorious mellow autumnal setting of the New Eng- 
 land year, and the rich, garnered fulness of his own 
 ripe age. There was no suggestion of the end in his 
 deep kind eyes, in his deep-veiled voice, or in his calm 
 presence ; characteristically it had been faintly voiced 
 in his address to his classmates of fifty years before. 
 He had borrowed the dying salutation of the gladiator 
 in the Roman arena only to show that he expected 
 
 death, but neither longed for it nor feared it." 
 
 236 
 
 I 
 
THE CONSUL 
 
 With his intimate friends Bret Harte ever de- 
 Hghted to talk enthusiastically of Longfellow, and 
 would declare that his poems had greatly influenced 
 his thoughts and life. But he doubted if he was 
 sufficiently appreciated in England. I remember once 
 arguing with him on this point, and so far convinc- 
 ing him as to make him say : " Oh yes ; no doubt 
 the shorter poems, the perfect ' Psalm of Life ' — 
 the soothing ' Resignation,' and so forth, are well 
 known — but who, for instance, really cares for ' Hia- 
 watha ' ? — and yet ' Hiawatha ' is not only a wonder- 
 ful poem, but a marvellously true descriptive narrative 
 of Indian life and lore." I think he knew it all by 
 heart. And yet, notwithstanding all his almost in- 
 dignant fervour concerning it he was soon set heartily 
 laughing when he was reminded how W. S. Gilbert 
 had cleverly travestied the " Hiawatha " methods in 
 his " Princess Toto." 
 
 Bret Harte's happily renewed industry as an 
 author was largely due to the kindly interest of his 
 good friend Madame Van de Velde. It troubled her 
 to think that a hand, capable of doing such unique 
 and invaluable work, should be turning itself to 
 things well within the reach of less gifted men. 
 Therefore she did everything within her power to 
 induce him to sit at his desk and continue his literary 
 labours. He needed such an earnest adviser, for, as 
 I have already said, he did not like authorship for 
 its own sake, and he was ever prone to undervalue 
 his own power. But, being well and discreetly urged, 
 
 237 
 
i 
 
 THE CONSUL ^ 
 
 he set to work again, and one of the first stories he 
 wrote on British soil was the eminently characteristic 
 ^ Californian romance, " Found at Blazing Star." 
 
 Directly the Glasgow Consul took pen in hand the 
 old pictures, in vivid colours, were flashed upon the 
 screen, and it was easy for him in far-off Scotland 
 to write — 
 
 " The rain had only ceased with the grey streaks 
 of morning at Blazing Star, and the settlement awoke , 
 to a moral sense of cleanliness, and the finding of 
 forgotten knives, tin cups, and smaller camp utensils, 
 where the heavy showers had washed away the 
 debris and dust heaps before the cabin doors. Indeed, 
 it was reported in Blazing Star that a fortunate 
 early riser had once picked up on the highway a solid 
 chunk of gold quartz, which the rain had freed from 
 its encumbering soil and washed into immediate and 
 glittering popularity. Possibly this may have been 
 the reason why early risers in that locality during 
 the rainy season adopted a thoughtful habit of body, 
 and seldom lifted their eyes to the rifted or india- 
 inked washed skies above them." 
 
 He sent this story, with others, to Colonel John 
 Hay, and from Paris received this interesting criticism 
 of his efforts — 
 
 " Mrs. Hay and I have been reading ' Flip ' and 
 
 * Found at Blazing Star.' ' Flip ' is beyond criticism, 
 
 but ' Blazing Star ' — I say it boldly — is too short. 
 
 You had the material of a magnificent long story, 
 
 238 
 
THE CONSUL 
 
 and you have condensed it so that it is as hard to 
 keep up with you as for a dog running after an 
 express train to enjoy the scenery. Any other man 
 hving would have padded it up to three times its 
 size — but you always did run to nuggets. Why 
 should you spare the publisher by giving him un- 
 alloyed metal when eighteen carat would suit him so 
 much better ? 
 
 " When is that play coming out ? I will come to 
 London for that if I have strength enough to lie in 
 a gutter and call for a coach. . . . What a charm- 
 ing story Besant's ' Revolt of Man ' is ! I read it 
 on Sunday with breathless interest and continued 
 delight. — Yours faithfully, my dear Harte, 
 
 John Hay." 
 
 With the craft once more under way the oarsman 
 did not fail, but rowed steadily on until he had the 
 satisfaction of knowing that his work was as highly 
 prized and as eagerly secured in England as in 
 America. Whether if he had not been well coached 
 and cheered from the bank-sides he would have fal- 
 tered, one cannot say. But he enjoyed the encourage- 
 ment of true friends, and he was grateful for it. His 
 sense of indebtedness to Madame Van de Velde, who 
 not only advised but practically helped him, is shown 
 in the following letter : — 
 
 "London, i8th May 1883. 
 
 " My dear Friend, — When I beg you to accept 
 the enclosed portfolio I do not for a moment ever 
 
 239 
 
THE CONSUL 
 
 expect it to supplant the memory of the old one 
 which is endeared to me by the recollection of the 
 hours you have spent over it in deciphering my ex- 
 asperating manuscripts and making them intelligible 
 to the printer, or in giving them another chance for 
 immortality by clothing them in the language of your 
 own native land. I am only trying to symbolise in 
 this little gift something of my gratitude to you as 
 amanuensis, translator, critic, and above all — friend. 
 
 " I am not King of France or I should quote to 
 miy Prime Minister the words of Louis to Richelieu : 
 ' Lord Cardinal, you must take up again the port- 
 folio you have laid down. In all my empire there 
 is none worthy to follow you.' — Always, dear friend, 
 yours most gratefully, Bret Harte." 
 
 Madame Van de Velde. 
 
 Once more, as many of his stories show, he took 
 his tone from his surroundings, and Scotland has a 
 prominent place in many of his writings. He was 
 interested in all he saw there, and in a wonderfully 
 short time achieved a mastery of the rather difficult 
 Scottish dialect. This is nowhere better shown than 
 in some burlesque rhymes he sent to his artist friend, 
 Mr. Alexander Stuart Boyd — 
 
 SCOTCH LINES TO A. S. B. 
 
 {From an Unintellvjent Foreigner.) 
 
 " We twa hae heard the gowans sing, 
 
 Sae soft and dour, sae fresh and grey ; 
 And paidlet in the brae, in Spring, 
 
 To scent the new mown ' Scots wha hae.' 
 240 
 
THE CONSUL 
 
 But maist we loo'ed at e'en to chase 
 
 The pibroch through each wynd and close, 
 
 Or climb the burn to greet an' face 
 The skeendhvis gangin' wi' their Joes, 
 
 How aft we said ' Eh, Sirs ! ' and ' Mon ! ' 
 
 Likewise ' Whateffei' ' — apropos 
 Of notliing. And pinned faith upon 
 
 ' Aiblins ' — though why we didna' know. 
 
 We've heard nae mon say ' gowd ' for ' gold,' 
 And yet wi' all oui' tongues upcurled, 
 
 We — like the British drum beat rolled 
 Our ' Rs ' round all the speaking worruld. 
 
 How like true Scots we didna care 
 
 A bawbee for the present tense, 
 And said ' we will be ' when we were, 
 
 'Twas bonny, but it wasna sense. 
 
 And yet ' ma frien ' and ' trusty frere,' 
 We'll take a right gude ' Willie Waught,' 
 
 Tho' what that may be is not clear, 
 Nor where it can be made or bought." 
 
 Of this little achievement, written in sheer high 
 spirits, Bret Harte was inclined to be proud ; and 
 when he told me of it, and quoted from it, I never 
 reminded him (for Dickens-lover though he was, 
 he had clearly forgotten the circumstance) that 
 David Copperfield, in describing a convivial evening 
 spent with Mr. and Mrs. Micawber, had said, " We 
 sang ' Auld Lang Syne.' When we came to 
 ' Here's a hand, my trusty frere,' we all joined 
 hands round the table, and when we declared we 
 
 241 Q 
 
THE CONSUL 
 
 would ' take a right gude Willie Waught,' and 
 hadn't the least idea what it meant, we were really 
 affected ; " or that at another memorable gathering, 
 when Mr. Micawber was proposing the health of 
 " My friend, Copperfield," he remarked that : — 
 
 " ' We twa hae run about the braes 
 And pu'd the gowans fine ' 
 
 — in a figurative point of view — on several occasions. 
 I am not exactly aware what gowans may be, but 
 I have no doubt that Copperfield and myself would 
 frequently have taken a pull at them, if it had 
 been feasible." 
 
 Mr. Boyd illustrated several of his stories, and 
 Bret Harte, always difficult to please in such 
 matters, was delighted with the way in which he 
 depicted his characters. 
 
 One of his best studies of Scotch life and character 
 is to be found in his pretty tale, "Young Robin 
 Gray," and as it gives us a peep into his consular life 
 it is well to recall a fragment of it here : — 
 
 " The good American barque Skyscraper was 
 
 swinging at her moorings in the Clyde off Bannock, 
 
 ready for sea. But that good American barque— 
 
 although owned in Baltimore — had not a plank of 
 
 American timber in her hulk, nor a native American 
 
 in her crew, and even her nautical 'goodness' had 
 
 been called into serious question by divers of that 
 
 crew during her voyage, and answered more or less 
 
 inconclusively with belaying - pins, marlin - spikes, 
 
 242 
 
THE CONSUL 
 
 and ropes' ends at the hands of an Irish-American 
 captain and a Dutch and Danish mate. So much 
 so that the mysterious powers of the American consul 
 at St. Kentigern had been evoked to punish mutiny- 
 on the one hand, and battery and starvation on 
 the other, both equally attested by manifestly false 
 witnesses and subordination on each side. In the 
 exercise of his functions, the consul had opened and 
 shut some jail doors, and otherwise effected the 
 usual sullen and deceitful compromise, and his flag 
 was now flying, on a final visit, from the stern 
 sheets of a smart boat alongside. It was with a 
 feeling of relief at the end of the interview that he 
 at last lifted his head above an atmosphere of perjury 
 and bilge water, and came on deck. The sun and 
 wind were ruffling and glinting on the broadening 
 river beyond the ' measured mile ; ' a few gulls were 
 wavering and dipping near the lee scuppers, and 
 the sound of Sabbath bells, mellowed by a dis- 
 tance that secured immunity of conscience, came 
 peacefully." 
 
 Presently he heard an altercation between pretty 
 Ailsa Callender's tough old father, and the boatman 
 who had brought them from shore to say farewell 
 to a passenger on The Skyscraper, the oarsman 
 being now inclined to demand an extra fee for return- 
 ing with them. 
 
 " The boatman alleged that he had been detained 
 beyond ' kirk time,' and that this imperilling of his 
 salvation could only be compensated by another 
 
 243 
 
THE CONSUL 
 
 shilling. To the consul's surprise, this extra- 
 ordinary argument was recognised by the father, 
 who, however, contented himself by simply contend- 
 ing that it had not been stipulated in the bargain. 
 The issue was, therefore, limited, and the discussion 
 progressed slowly and deliberately with a certain 
 calm dignity and argumentative satisfaction on both 
 sides that exalted the subject, though it irritated 
 the captain. ' If ye accept the premisses that I've 
 just laid down, that it's a contract,' began the 
 boatman. ' Dry up and haul off,' said the captain. 
 
 " ' One moment,' interposed the consul, addressing 
 the father, ' Will you allow me to offer you and 
 your daughter a seat in my boat ? . . .' 
 
 " ' It'll be costin' ye no more ? ' said the old 
 Scotchman, ' or ye'll be asking me a fair proportion.' 
 
 " Being reassured on this point, he added — ' Ay, 
 but it's a preenciple, and I'm pleased, sir, to see 
 ye recognise it.' 
 
 " And then as an exordium for the benefit of 
 the baffled boatman, still lying on his oars, he 
 concluded — 
 
 " ' Let this be a lesson to ye, ma frien', when 
 ye're ower sure ! Ye'll ne'er say a herrin' is dry 
 until it be reestit an' recket.' 
 
 " As they pulled across the Clyde (surely St. 
 Kentigern was very close to Glasgow !), the consul 
 said — for his passengers had missed the train by 
 which they had intended to return home — 
 
 " ' There's an excursion boat coming round the 
 
 244 
 
THE CONSUL 
 
 Point, and it will be returning to St. Kentigern 
 shortly. If yon like, we'll pull over and put you 
 aboard.' 
 
 " ' Eh ! but it's the Sabbath-breaker,' said the 
 old man harshly. 
 
 " The consul suddenly remembered that that was 
 the name which the righteous St. Kentigerners had 
 given to the solitary bold bad pleasure-boat that 
 defied their Sabbatical observances. 
 
 " ' Perhaps you won't find very pleasant company 
 on board,' said the consul, smiling ; ' but then you're 
 not seeking that. And as you would be only using 
 the boat to get back to your home, and not for 
 Sunday recreation, I don't think your conscience 
 should trouble you.' 
 
 " ' Ay, that's a fine argument, Mr. Consul, but 
 I'm thinking it's none the less sopheestry for a' 
 that,' said the father grimly. 
 
 " ' No ; if ye'U just land us yonder at Bannock 
 pier we'll be aye thankin' ye the same,' " 
 
 The American Consul at St. Kentigern's did 7cot 
 tell his passengers that the American Consul at Glas- 
 gow — one Mr. Bret Harte — was a constant patron of 
 the Sabbath-breaker, and thereby caused much un- 
 easiness to those who desired him to spend the seventh 
 day in their own austere way. He was a discreet 
 consul, and no doubt he wished to stand well in the 
 beautiful brown eyes of pretty Ailsa Callender, as 
 sweet and winsome a Scotch lassie as ever limned 
 
 by writer — aye even by the master hand of William 
 
 245 
 
THE CONSUL 
 
 Black, In the following passage Glasgow is un- 
 deniably revealed : — 
 
 " The December fog that overhung St, Kentigern 
 had thinned sufficiently to permit the passage of a 
 few large snowflakes, soiled in their descent, until in 
 colour and consistency they spotted the steps of the 
 Consulate and the umbrellas of the passers by like 
 sprinklings of grey mortar. Nevertheless, the consul 
 thought the streets preferable to the persistent gloom 
 of his office, and sallied out. Youthful mercantile St. 
 Kentigern strode sturdily past him in the lightest 
 covert coats ; collegiate St, Kentigern fluttered by 
 in the scantiest of red gowns, shaming the furs that 
 defended his more exotic blood ; and the bare feet of 
 a few factory girls, albeit their heads and shoulders 
 were draped and hooded in thick shawls, filled him 
 with a keen sense of his effeminacy. Everything 
 of earth, air, and sky, and even the faces of those he 
 looked upon, seemed to be set in the hard, patient en- 
 durance of the race. Everywhere on that dismal day 
 he fancied he could see this energy without restless- 
 ness, this earnestness without geniality, all grimly set 
 against the hard environment of circumstance and 
 weather," 
 
 In "A Rose of Glenbogie " there is another finely 
 
 drawn cabinet picture of Scotch character, and the 
 
 impression it made on the American mind. The 
 
 Consul of St, Kentigern is standing on the lonely 
 
 platform of Whistlecrankie station waiting for an 
 
 expected carriage, when he finds himself in the com- 
 
 246 
 
THE CONSUL 
 
 panyofa railway porter. "He was a hard-featured 
 man, with a thin fringe of yellow-grey whiskers 
 under his chin like dirty strings to tie his cap on 
 with. 
 
 *' ' Ye'll be going to " Glenbogie House," I'm think- 
 in',' he said moodily. 
 
 " The consul said he was. 
 
 " ' I kenned it. Ye'll be no gettin' any machine to 
 tak' ye there. They'll be sending a carriage for ye — 
 if ye're expected.'' He glanced half doubtfully at the 
 consul as if he was not quite so sure of it. 
 
 " The consul explained that he was expected, 
 and then the porter surveyed him gloomily and 
 remarked — 
 
 " ' Ye'll be seein' Mistress MacSpadden there ! ' 
 
 " The consul was surprised into a little over con- 
 sciousness. Mrs. MacSpadden was a vivacious ac- 
 quaintance at St. Kentigern, whom he certainly — and 
 not without some satisfaction — expected to meet at 
 Glenbogie House. He raised his eyes inquiringly to 
 the porter's. 
 
 " ' Ye'll be no remembering me. I had a machine 
 in St. Kentigern and drove ye to MacSpadden's often. 
 Far, far, too often 1 She's a strange, flagrantitious 
 creature ; her husband's but a puir fule, I'm thinkin', 
 and ye did yersel' nae guid gaunin' there.' 
 
 " It was a besetting weakness of the consul's that 
 
 his sense of the ludicrous was too often reached before 
 
 his more serious perceptions. The absurd combination 
 
 of the bleak, inhospitable desolation before him, and 
 
 247 
 
THE CONSUL 
 
 the sepulchral complacency of his self-elected monitor, 
 quite upset his gravity. 
 
 " ' Ay, ye'll be laughin' the noo,' returned the porter, 
 with gloomy significance. 
 
 " The consul wiped his eyes. ' Still,' he said 
 demurely, ' I trust you won't object to my giving 
 you sixpence to carry my box to the carriage when 
 it comes, and let the morality of this transaction 
 devolve entirely upon me. Unless,' he continued even 
 more gravely as a spic-and-span brougham, drawn by 
 two thoroughbreds, dashed out of the mist up to the 
 platform, ' unless you prefer to state the case to those 
 two gentlemen ' — pointing to the smart coachman and 
 footman on the box — ' and take their opinion as to 
 the propriety of my proceeding any further. It seems 
 to me that their consciences ought to be consulted 
 as well as yours. I'm only a stranger here, and 
 am willing to do anything to conform to the local 
 custom.' 
 
 " ' It's a saxpence ye'll be pay in' anyway,' said 
 the porter grimly, ' but I'll be no taking any other 
 mon's opinion on matters of my ain dooty and 
 conscience.' 
 
 " ' Ah,' said the consul gravely, ' then you'll per- 
 haps be allowing me the same privilege.' 
 
 " The porter's face relaxed, and a gleam of approval 
 — purely intellectual however — came into his eyes. 
 
 " ' Ye were always a smooth deevil wi' your tongue, 
 
 Mr. Consul,' he said, shouldering the box and walking 
 
 off to the carriage." 
 
 248 
 
THE CONSUL 
 
 And yet people 'exist who declare, and apparently 
 believe, that Bret Harte could only write about the 
 early Californians ! 
 
 He thus describes the drive to Glenbogie House : — 
 
 " The clattering of his horses' hoofs echoed back 
 from the rocky walls that occasionally hemmed in the 
 road was not enlivening, but it was less depressing 
 than the recurring monotony of the open. The scenery 
 did not suggest wildness to his alien eyes so much as 
 it affected him with a vague sense of scorbutic impover- 
 ishment. It was not the loneliness of unfrequented 
 Nature, for there was a well - kept carriage road 
 traversing its dreariness ; and even when the hillside 
 was clothed with scanty verdure, there were ' out- 
 crops ' of smooth, glistening, weather-worn rocks 
 showing like bare brown knees under the all too 
 imperfectly-kilted slopes." 
 
 This was a favourite simile with Bret Harte, and 
 he would laughingly declare that he was convinced 
 that the Highlander had made his surroundings the 
 pattern for the national costume — the curtailed kilt 
 and the exposed knees. 
 
 He was rather apt to depreciate the beauties of 
 
 Scotch scenery, but that was only when he thought 
 
 they were over extolled by those who had never seen 
 
 the grandeur of California. In his heart of heart he 
 
 loved Scotland well, and its historical associations 
 
 were a source of unfailing delight to him. 
 
 I fear he was not considered to be a very perfect 
 
 Consul. As we have seen, his friends often lured him 
 
 249 
 
THE CONSUL 
 
 to London, and now that he was once more busy with 
 his pen it engrossed much of his time. In one of his 
 letters to Sir Wemyss Reid, Wilham Black said : 
 " Bret Harte was to have been back from Paris last 
 night, but he is a wandering comet. The only place 
 he is sure not to be found in is at the Glasgow Con- 
 sulate." Reports of these things naturally reached 
 America, and possibly it was thought that the duties 
 of the Glasgow Consulate might be more happily ful- 
 filled by one who did not happen to be an exceedingly 
 popular author. 
 
 Mr. Noah Brooks says : — 
 
 "It is related that while he was still ' holding 
 over' into the administration of a democratic presi- 
 dent, that functionary, accompanied by his private 
 secretary, Mr. Daniel Lamont, fishing in an Adiron- 
 dack lake, took up a copy of the New York Sun, on 
 which to dry his hands, and, catching sight of Harte's 
 name at the head of a short story, fell to reading it, 
 and never left it until he had finished it.'^ Tossing 
 the paper overboard, he asked Lamont if the story- 
 writer were not a Consul of the United States some- 
 where ; and, receiving an affirmative answer, he said : 
 ' Well, be sure and remind me to have him removed 
 ^when we get back to Washington.' The tale cannot 
 be verified, but Harte was removed in 1885, and 
 thereafter, to the day of his death, he made his home 
 in London." 
 
 1 Many of his new stories were at this time printed in American news- 
 papers and periodicals. 
 
 250 
 
THE CONSUL 
 
 Concerning the life that opened to him there, and 
 his manner of using it, I cannot do better than quote 
 the following lines, written ten years later, by Madame 
 Van de Velde, for the Neiv York Sun : — 
 
 "It is difficult for an observant stranger to pass 
 even a short time in Great Britain without becoming 
 aware of a distinctively characteristic trait in the 
 inhabitants ; and it is impossible for any one who has 
 lived a number of years there not to be absolutely 
 convinced of its dominance. The Englishman, in his 
 cold, undemonstrative fashion, is intensely patriotic ; 
 in his heart of hearts he firmly believes that in the 
 scheme of creation he was formed out of special clay, 
 while the remainder of human beings have been 
 moulded from a much inferior material. He is equally 
 sure that no eifort of grace can ever raise the alien to 
 his own level ; but while he is piously grateful for 
 this dispensation of Providence, he recognises and 
 appreciates the right of the outsider to maintain an 
 exalted opinion of his own country and nationality ; 
 he respects him for it even when he endeavours to 
 prove it erroneous ; nay, more, should his arguments 
 successfully establish a recognition of his own supe- 
 riority, he immediately ceases to entertain regard and 
 toleration for the too easily persuaded stranger. This 
 thoroughly English and so far honourable peculiarity 
 is one of the reasons, apart from his merits as a lite- 
 rary celebrity, why Bret Harte is extremely popular 
 in England, and has always been so. 
 
 " Before he took up his residence in London his 
 
 251 
 
THE CONSUL 
 
 genius and originality had won him admirers, but 
 when he gave them the opportunity of becoming 
 acquainted with the man, independently, as it were, 
 of the author, they promptly ascertained that no 
 more uncompromising American had ever set foot 
 among them. Time has not dulled Bret Harte's 
 instinctive affection for the land of his birth, for its 
 institutions, its climate, its natural beauties, and, 
 above all, the character and moral attributes of its 
 inhabitants. Even his association with the most 
 aristocratic representatives of London society has 
 been impotent to modify his views or to win him 
 over to less independent professions. He is as single- 
 minded to-day as he was when he first landed on 
 British soil. A general favourite in the most diverse 
 circles, social, literary, scientific, artistic, or military, 
 his strong primitive nature and his positive indi- 
 viduality have remained intact. Always polite and 
 gentle, neither seeking nor evading controversy, he 
 is steadfastly unchangeable in his political and patriotic 
 beliefs. He has frequently been heard to express 
 himself frankly on the vexed question of Anglo- 
 American marriages, severely satirising those of his 
 fair compatriots who, dazzled by the lustre of lordly 
 alliances, have too closely assimilated with the land 
 of their adoption, and apparently forgotten their own 
 country. To such he has not hesitated to apply the 
 term of ' apostates.' 
 
 " Bret Harte has maintained in his maturity the 
 
 complete simplicity of maimer which, coupled with 
 
 252 
 
THE CONSUL 
 
 extreme refinement of thought and speech, so deeply- 
 impressed those he met on his first arrival in England. 
 Nor is it inconsistent with the distinct personality 
 revealed in his writings, however dissimilar the man 
 of the world must necessarily be to the creator of 
 stirring romances, which frequently are but the 
 records of personal experience. Yet it has been 
 several times remarked that the appearance of Bret 
 Harte does not coincide with the preconceived expec- 
 tations of his readers. They had formed a vague, 
 intangible idea of a wild, reckless Californian, impatient 
 of social trammels, whose life among the Argonauts 
 must have fashioned him after a type difiering widely 
 from the reality. These idealists were partly disap- 
 pointed, partly relieved, when their American visitor 
 turned out to be a quiet, low-voiced, easy-mannered, 
 polished gentleman, who smilingly confessed that pre- 
 cisely because he had roughed it a good deal in his 
 youth he was inclined to enjoy the comforts and avail 
 himself of the facilities of an older civilisation, when 
 placed within his reach. He also gently intimated 
 that days on the top of a stage coach, or on the back 
 of a mustang, and nights spent at poker, would not 
 materially assist in the writing of the stories which 
 are never produced fast enough to meet the demand. 
 
 " Bret Harte has persistently declined to be inter- 
 viewed, and as the name of the professional reporters 
 is legion, we dare say his refusal to receive them 
 may have made him some enemies. But when, in 
 
 a moment of good nature, he yielded to pressing 
 
 253 
 
THE CONSUL 
 
 solicitations and allowed himself to be questioned, 
 the consequences were, on the whole, to his disad- 
 vantage. From that moment the door has been 
 opened to a flood of apocryphal statements of vari- 
 ous length and importance : sometimes entirely false, 
 sometimes tinged with a dangerous verisimilitude ; 
 often grotesque, occasionally malicious, but one and 
 all purporting to be derived from unquestionable 
 sources. Thus the American humorist has been re- 
 presented as sinking into the slough of sybaritic 
 idleness ; as working five hours before breakfast and 
 recruiting by violent pedestrian exercise ; he changed 
 his clothes six times a day ; he neglected his personal 
 appearance ; he had taken a big mansion in Norfolk 
 and entertained on a large scale ; he had hidden 
 himself in a small cottage in the suburbs ; he filled 
 waste-paper baskets with torn notes of invitation ; 
 he wrote sheets and sheets of ' copy ; ' society women 
 booked him months ahead to secure his presence at 
 their receptions ; he made thousands of pounds a 
 year ; he had ceased to write at all ; he had become 
 ' quite English, you know,' and had formally abjured 
 America. 
 
 " Singularly enough, many of Bret Harte's country- 
 men in London did not take the trouble to verify 
 these statements ; they accepted them blindly, and 
 thus they may have been reproduced in some Ameri- 
 can newspapers together with the account of the last 
 debut of a brilliant New York belle in London, or 
 
 the detailed description of some millionaire's festival. 
 
 254 
 
THE CONSUL 
 
 " When this mass of silly gossip is sifted the bare 
 and simple truth remains that Bret Harte leads a 
 quiet, simple, dignified, and useful existence ; that 
 he goes into society less than any other conspicuous 
 American living in London ; that he never threw 
 over the humblest of his acquaintances for the highest 
 or richest ; that he is ever ready to oblige or assist a 
 compatriot; that he faithfully and perse veringly devotes 
 a portion of each day to his profession ; and that 
 he often has not known how his health and strength 
 would enable him to meet the many engagements 
 thrust upon him by publishers and editors. 
 
 " It has been said that Bret Harte's stories fetch 
 bigger prices in the market than any similar form 
 of literature of the present day. This is perhaps 
 correct, but he does not consider himself justified 
 on that account in relaxing his labours. He has 
 obligations in America, and this claim upon him forms 
 at once the motive and the reason of his prolonged 
 stay in England, in spite of the inclination and desire 
 so strong in his heart to revisit his native land. 
 
 " Bret Harte has more than once been asked to 
 lecture in England on English customs and English 
 society, but he has always demurred. He is too 
 grateful for the welcome tendered to him to risk 
 repaying it with the apparent discourtesy of censure ; 
 he is too honest and frank to give indiscriminate 
 praise or to lay himself open to the reproach of 
 flattery. Some day he may be persuaded to give 
 the world the result of close, keen, and impartial 
 
 ^55 
 
THE CONSUL 
 
 observation ; and we dare say he will do so in the 
 spirit of conscientiousness and sincerity so charac- 
 teristic of all his writings. 
 
 " When the day comes at last on which Bret 
 Harte,' after a long period of fruitful labours, realises 
 his ardent wish of revisiting America ; when New 
 York and San Francisco hail his return, and the 
 whole nation opens its arms to its long absent and 
 distinguished son, the friends he has made in the 
 old country will not forget him ; and we are sure 
 he will remember how they have cheered the time 
 of his self-imposed exile, and how honestly patriotic 
 Englishmen can care for a truly patriotic American." 
 
 How true all this is Bret Harte's English friends 
 know. He was truly an " American worthy of the 
 Flag ; " he never failed to uphold it, and it is intensely 
 sad to think that his premature death crushed his 
 cherished wish to revisit his native land. 
 
 256 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 IN AND ABOUT STAGELAND 
 
 Bret Harte truly loved the theatre, and but for 
 
 I the fact that the demand for his stories fully occupied 
 
 his time, he would have done much more work as a 
 
 ; playwright than that associated with his name. He 
 
 deplored it, but no writer worked harder than he, 
 
 and it could not be helped. His one great personal 
 
 effort as a dramatist was the four-act play entitled 
 
 J^ " Two Men of Sandy Bar," in which Mr. Stuart 
 
 Bobson, the admirable comedian for whom it was 
 
 written, appeared as Colonel Starbottle, one of the 
 
 best as well as one of the most popular of the author's 
 
 creations. John Oakhurst, the gambler ; Hop Sing, a 
 
 Chinese laundryman ; a Spanish Don, and a charming 
 
 Dona, with other of his best known characters were 
 
 also pressed into the service ; the various scenes and the 
 
 costumes gave every opportunity for picturesque stage 
 
 treatment, and when the drama was ready for curtain 
 
 rise all promised well. As this is the only produced 
 
 play that bore the name of Bret Harte as its sole 
 
 author, it is interesting to show a copy of the now 
 
 almost forgotten playbill that heralded it. 
 
 257 , R 
 
IN AND ABOUT STAGELAND 
 
 PROGRAMME. 
 
 UNION SQUARE THEATRE, 
 New York, September ist, 1876. 
 
 Proprietor .... Mr. Sheridan Shook. 
 Manager .... Mr. A. M. Palmer. 
 
 This and Every Evening and at the Saturday Matinees, until 
 
 further notice, an Original American Comedy Drama, in 
 
 4 acts, written by Mr. Bret Harte, and entitled — 
 
 TWO MEN OF SANDY BAR. 
 
 Col. Culpepper Starhottle (legal adviser ^ 
 
 of Mr. Morton Sr. ; " Responsible, VMr. Stuart Robson 
 personally responsible ") . . ) 
 
 Mr. Theodore Hamilton 
 Mr. H. S. Murdoch 
 Mr. H. F. Daly 
 
 Mr. T. E. Morris 
 
 Mr. H. W. Montgomery 
 Mr. C. T. Parsloe 
 Mr. Lysander Thompson 
 I Mr, Quigley 
 
 John Oahhurst .... 
 Sandy Morton .... 
 Don Jose Castro .... 
 Alexander Morton Sr. (in search of the 
 
 "Prodigal") .... 
 Concho (Major Domo) . 
 Hop Sing (Chinese Laundryman) . 
 Pritchard (an Australian Convict) 
 
 -^^^^^^"^ I (his Pals) . . . .s ^ ^^.„ 
 
 Silhy i ^ ' I Mr. Wilkes 
 
 Jackson (Confidential Clerk of Morton ) •,«- , 
 
 o, 1 ^M <. 1 , J. -r> -J. 1 j\ ( Mr. John Mathews 
 
 Sr. and Confederate of Pritchard) j 
 
 Capper (a Policeman) .... Mr. W. H. Wilder 
 
 Servant Mr. H. Ay ling 
 
 Miss Mary Morris (School-mistress of \ 
 
 Sandy Bar, in love with Sandy, and ^ Miss Mary Carey 
 
 cousin of Alexander Morton Sr.) . ' 
 
 (By courtesy of Manager, R. M. Field of Boston Museum.) 
 
 The Duchess (wife of Pritchard, illegally j 
 
 married to Sandy, and former >Miss Ida Vernon 
 " flame " of John Oakhurst) . . / 
 
 258 
 
m AND ABOUT STAGELAND 
 
 Donna Jovita Castro (in love with John ) 
 
 Oakhurst) I Miss Laura Don 
 
 Mannela (Servant of Don Jos6, and 
 maid of Donna Jovita) . 
 
 Vaqueros, Male and Female Attendants, &c 
 
 > Miss Maud Harrison 
 
 The Scenery which is all new has been painted by Mr. George 
 Heister, from designs furnished by Mr. Richard Marston. 
 It comprises the following : — 
 
 Act I. — The Rancho of the Blessed Innocents, and House of 
 
 Don Jose Castro. 
 Act //.—The Gulch of Sandy Bar. 
 Act III. — Banking House of Alexander Morton Sr. 
 Act IV. — The Villa of Alexander Morton Sr. near San Francisco, 
 
 with distant view of the city by moonlight. 
 
 The Music is entirely original, and is by Mr. H. Tissington. 
 
 Unfortunately the New York critics dealt very 
 severely with the piece, and, much to Bret Harte's 
 annoyance, unkind stories got afloat to the effect 
 that Mr. Robson was sore with regard to the high 
 price he had paid for it. How unfair this was is 
 proved by the following letter from actor to author. 
 
 " The Arlington, Washington, 
 " Octoher 6, 1876. 
 
 " My dear Bret, — You will be glad to hear 
 
 that we are doing an excellent business, and that 
 
 John T. Ford predicts even greater success in 
 
 Baltimore. The papers are enthusiastic in praise of 
 
 the play, and altogether I am well satisfied. Will 
 
 259 
 
IN AND ABOUT STAGELAND 
 
 you credit me with the fact that I have never lost 
 faith in my venture ? . . . The Washington papers 
 have certainly treated us well, which, after the many 
 misrepresentations made of the play, is most 
 gratifying. — Believe me, your friend truly, 
 
 Stuart Robson." 
 
 This generous letter consoled the vexed dramatist, 
 but he never quite forgot the sting of the adverse criti- 
 cisms, and the false innuendoes, and I think that is 
 why he preferred story-telling to play-writing. 
 
 A number of familiar episodes in his early works 
 found place in " Two Men of Sandy Bar," but the 
 backbone of the play was an elaboration of Mr. 
 Thompson's " Prodigal," which, as readers know, is 
 full of strong situations. In its dramatic form 
 humour and pathos alternated, and it makes delight- 
 ful reading, but for acting purposes it had its faults. 
 It was too full of good things, and Dion Boucicault 
 told the author that it contained material for half-a- 
 dozen plays. This was true, and another fault was 
 that the admirably written dialogue was too much 
 drawn out for the theatre. Writers of narrative 
 often forget that the stage requires action rather 
 than description, and that playgoers are apt to resent 
 long speeches which in a book would be acceptable. 
 
 " Two Men of Sandy Bar " was by no means a 
 
 failure, but it did not gain permanent popularity. 
 
 That Bret Harte rightly thought well of it is proved 
 
 by the fact that he had it published in his collected 
 
 260 
 
The Itrd JIiiH.tf, ('(iiiihtrli'i/. Surrfi/. The liniist' in irh'uh ISrrt Hurtf died. 
 
 [To face p. 200. 
 
IN AND ABOUT STAGELAND 
 
 works. He was far too sensitive to print anything 
 that did not find favour in his own eyes. 
 
 It will be noticed in the playbill that the part of 
 Hop Sing, the Chinese laundryman, was played by 
 Mr. C. T. Parsloe. This impersonation was so warmly 
 welcomed that, in conjunction with Mark Twain, 
 Bret Harte wrote a play entitled " Ah Sin," in which 
 a Chinaman formed the central figure. With Mr. 
 Parsloe in the name part it was produced in New 
 York, but it did not attract lasting attention. 
 
 This, according to the disappointed playwright's 
 way of looking at things, was another rebuff; but 
 he must have tried his hand again, for among his 
 papers was found a letter from Dion Boucicault (on 
 whose opinion concerning dramatic work he placed 
 absolute reliance), to whom he had evidently sub- 
 mitted some new play. 
 
 This unswerving faith in the judgment of the 
 author of " London Assurance " and " The Colleen 
 Bawn " was, I think, somewhat against him. He forgot 
 that such plays were written for a bygone generation, 
 and that the playgoers of to-day not only demand other 
 fare, but desire that it shall be served up to them 
 in far different fashion. But to the last he always 
 quoted Boucicault as his great stage authority, though 
 he sincerely admired the more subtle art of Pinero. 
 
 Here is the letter : — 
 
 " My dear Harte, — I have been held by a suit, 
 
 which stood for trial yesterday ; and by sticking to 
 
 261 
 
IN AND ABOUT STAGELAND 
 
 my counsel for three days, I so arranged that the 
 ' other side ' consented to a verdict in my favour. 
 
 " This has been a great reUef to my mind. It 
 is over. But this is the cause of my delay in attend- 
 ing to your play, which I have read this morning. 
 
 " First : I like it very much, especially the Second 
 Act. You will find some pencil notes which I have 
 ventured to make. At least they will j)rove the 
 interest I took in my pleasant task. 
 
 " May I venture to say the melodramatic incidents 
 in Act 3 might be arranged to accord better in tone 
 with the first two acts ? 
 
 " I don't care for Lady Washington. 
 
 " I fancy Paulding could be erected into a typical 
 * continental ' of the period, and might pervade the 
 piece. 
 
 " Van Zanot might be made a Virginian who 
 had been, previous to the war, in the regular English 
 service. 
 
 " I fear the patriotic apostrophes are somewhat 
 out of date, though quite appropriate at that 
 time. 
 
 " The enthusiasm for France might jar on an 
 English audience, and is not absolutely necessary. 
 
 " The national harangue might be given to Pauld- 
 ing, whose eagle spread would be characteristic, and 
 might be made sincere and grotesque at the same 
 time. 
 
 " Perhaps you will say I am so, therefore I will 
 
 shut up. — Ever yours, Dion Boucicault." 
 
 262 
 
IN AND ABOUT STAGELAND 
 
 Then there comes a second note, and it concerned 
 that second act of which approval had previously 
 been expressed : — 
 
 " My dear Harte, — Will you read this second 
 act — see my notes. Tell me what you think. They 
 entail considerable work, but it seems to me necessary. 
 
 " My work now is very incessant, and I have 
 family cares that occupy me, so have been unable 
 to get time to visit you. — Yours sincerely, 
 
 Dion Boucicault." 
 
 I suppose that troublesome second act disheartened 
 
 the author. Be that as it may, the piece was never 
 
 seen, and though when we were writing plays together 
 
 he talked to me very fully of his theatrical experiences 
 
 he never mentioned it. As a dramatist on his own 
 
 account he seemed to lack confidence, and was prone 
 
 to take the opinion of men whose judgment was not 
 
 really as keen as his own. Of course, as a popular 
 
 author, he was pestered by pirated stage versions 
 
 of his stories, and he was maddened when he heard 
 
 that his beautiful " Mliss " had, in his own country, 
 
 been converted into a commonplace " song and dance " 
 
 play, a form of entertainment that he loathed. The 
 
 worst of it was that, not only was his name inevitably 
 
 associated with the production, but that, owing to 
 
 the popularity of the sprightly lady. Miss Annie 
 
 Pixley, who was the Mliss of the stage (such a 
 
 different Mliss from that of the story), it became a 
 
 263 
 
IN AND ABOUT STAGELAND 
 
 great success. It was performed, to Bret Harte's 
 infinite distress, hundreds and hundreds of times. In 
 America he seemed unable to put a stop to the piracy, 
 but when its production in England was threatened 
 he took legal advice, and was happily able to nip it 
 in the bud. 
 
 But the episode evidently set him thinking that 
 " Mliss " contained the material for a play of the right 
 kind, and, in conjunction with his friend, Mr. Joseph 
 Hatton, he made an adaptation of it. Of this work 
 the latter well-known novelist, dramatist, and jour- 
 nalist has said : — 
 
 " I knew Bret Harte intimately, admired his work, 
 and cherished a real affection for him. I have treas- 
 ured memories of many a pleasant Sunday afternoon, 
 in which he was a visitor at my house, and of some 
 work done in collaboration with him, out of which 
 we extracted a great deal of pleasure, though the 
 play still lies on my shelves unacted. One day, as 
 he seemed to be watching the smoke of his cigar 
 over a cup of coftee after luncheon, he said : ' I should 
 like to have time to write a long poem.' I forget 
 whether he said a great poem, but I think he only 
 said ' a long poem.' He meant that he would like 
 to have time to do his very best in an important 
 and sustained effort. Later, as we chatted in the 
 same direction — the things one would like to do if 
 one were not obliged to keep on doing something 
 else — he added, ' I should prefer of all my attempts 
 
 at play writing to have this drama of ours produced.' 
 
 264 
 
IN AND ABOUT STAGELAND 
 
 It was ' Mliss/ in the dramatisation of which he 
 carried on his story into the later lives of those 
 two fascinating people, Mliss and the Schoolmaster. 
 The play was written for a very young actress, and 
 was to have been produced under an enterprising 
 London manager, who, however, insisted upon first 
 presenting ' The Prince and the Pauper,' and so our 
 opportunity fell to the ground." 
 
 The " very young actress " was Miss Bessie 
 Hatton, and she would have played Mliss charm- 
 ingly. The part of the Schoolmaster was designed 
 for Mr. E. S. Willard. It should have suited him 
 well. I never could understand why that lost oppor- 
 tunity was not regained. It is sad to think that 
 a play over which two experts spent time and pains 
 should lie forgotten on the shelf. 
 
 Mliss was no doubt one of Bret Harte's favourite 
 " brain " children, but he never thought she was 
 rightly understood by English readers. Edwin Long, 
 R.A., painted a picture of the winsome maiden. 
 " Yes," said " her parent " when he saw it, "a beau- 
 tiful picture, but not my Mliss ; it is the child of 
 an English village, not the wild daughter of old 
 Bummer Smith." 
 
 Speaking of this incident Mr. Hatton says : — 
 " I expect the painter should have seen the en- 
 vironment of something like Smith's Pocket before 
 he could quite understand Mliss, though Bret Harte 
 drew her picture in his graphic way : a young girl, 
 
 dirtily and shabbily clad, great black eyes, coarse, 
 
 265 
 
IN AND ABOUT STAGELAND 
 
 uncombed, lustreless hair falling over her sunburned 
 
 face, red arms and feet, streaked with the red soil ; 
 
 such was Melissa Smith — Smith's ' motherless child.' 
 
 The soul of the figure, the life and spirit, the courage, ^ 
 
 the nobility of the untutored nature he revealed to 
 
 you with rare simplicity of diction and quaint illus- 1 
 
 tration. It was necessary that Bret Harte should j| 
 
 confide to me all he knew and imagined about the l^ 
 
 characters in his story, otherwise it was as difficult 
 
 to get him to unburden himself concerning his work, t 
 
 his inspiration, and his methods as it would be to .i 
 
 ' draw ' Swinburne upon his. . . . You can under- ij 
 
 stand what a delight it was to me to hear from Bret J 
 
 Harte's own lips all about Mliss and her father ^j 
 
 Bummer Smith ; the schoolmaster and his financial li 
 
 troubles ; the San Francisco banker ; M'Snagley, over . 
 
 whose grotesquely humorous hypocrisy we had many t\ 
 
 a laugh ; and the Bonebreaker, whom Bret Harte \ 
 
 loved, I think, as dearly as he loved Mliss herself. 
 
 I remember how he impressed upon me that the 
 
 dress of Bonebreaker and his comrades had nothing 
 
 in common with the American cowboy's attire, nor 
 
 was in the least like the typical miner in slouch hat 
 
 and red shirt. I have somewhere an approved sketch i 
 
 in colour of the miner of the Sierra Nevada and the 
 
 region of Smith's Pocket — it was that of a picturesque 
 
 Mexican vaquero. To listen to Bret Harte as he 
 
 expanded the story of Mliss, her father's ultimate 
 
 discovery of the gold, Cly tie's intrigues against her 
 
 rival, and what happened to Mliss and her lover, 
 
 266 
 
IN AND ABOUT STAGELAND 
 
 was to experience something of the aesthetic and selfish 
 pleasure of the king who had a theatre to himself — 
 he the only auditor, with Wagner as his author and 
 manager. He was voted mad, but there was a 
 splendid method in his madness. To know all about 
 Mliss and what might have been the result of her 
 educational training, and her future as the heiress 
 of Bummer Smith on the accidental and wonderful 
 realisation of his dearest hopes, is to me a romantic, 
 though pathetic possession." 
 
 When it became my great good fortune to col- 
 laborate with Bret Harte in stage-work, I felt just 
 as Mr. Hatton did. It was more than a privilege 
 to hear him talk his heart out and to note the 
 expressions on his face as the new ideas flashed into 
 his mind. But he was very apt to grow despondent 
 about our projects. Scenes and situations about 
 which he had been enthusiastic in the evening often 
 struck him in the morning as spiritless and dull. If 
 he had been left to himself he would have put away 
 the work half finished. 
 
 The stealing of his plots for stage purposes in 
 America continued to annoy him, and that his friends 
 there did their best to look after his interests is shown 
 by this letter : — 
 
 " New York Hotel, New York, 
 ^^ January 22, 1884. 
 
 " My dear Harte, — Here is a short paragraph 
 
 from the Tribune of this morning, and a stronger 
 
 and longer one from a cent paper here. 
 
 267 
 
IN AND ABOUT STAGELAND 
 
 " But I'm still so certain that you are being 
 imposed upon in your absence from the country in 
 this matter that I am impelled to again write to 
 you, and I send you these clippings so that you 
 may know what is going on. If the play is done 
 with your permission let me know and it shall have 
 better mention, as anything with your eminent name 
 should have ; and if not with your permission, but 
 is stolen, let me know also, and I shall so inform 
 our fellow-scribes. — Yours, 
 
 Joaquin Miller." 
 
 But it was of no avail. Nothing could be done 
 to stop the filchers of ideas, and the creator of them 
 could only writhe under his wrongs. A particularly 
 exasperating incident was a very badly done stage 
 version of " Gabriel Conroy." The bandit adapter 
 never said a word to the author about it, never 
 offered him a cent of the profits of the production. 
 
 Fancy his anger when he read this criticism of 
 his most ambitious and, I think, his favourite 
 story : — 
 
 " Gabriel Conroy. 
 
 " Mr, and Mrs. Kee Bankin produced their {sic !) 
 
 new play ' Gabriel Conroy,' at the Third Avenue 
 
 Theatre last night. As is generally known this 
 
 play is an adaptation of Bret Harte's story of the 
 
 same title, and the thread of narrative is the same 
 
 in both. The adaptation, we believe, is the work 
 
 268 
 
IN AND ABOUT STAGELAND 
 
 of Mr. W. S. Andrews, although the author is 
 not indicated by the programmes, and there is a 
 strong probabiHty that Mr. Rankin himself did a 
 great deal of the work. The play is in a Prologue 
 and four Acts, the former being entirely superfluous 
 and highly ridiculous. The chief fault to be found 
 with the work is that it lacks dramatic purpose and 
 dramatic action. It is a pretty little story, but 
 the climaxes are few and the incidents are amusing 
 rather than stirring. There is little motive for 
 the action, and the opportunities for strong acting 
 are few." 
 
 This was pretty reading for an author who 
 knew that his book was full of strong dramatic 
 situations, firmly drawn, well-knit characters, and 
 everything needed for stage effect. He had in- 
 tended to adapt it for the theatre himself, and now 
 that dream had to be banished. His title had been 
 used, and his plot described as amusing rather than 
 stirring — " a pretty little story," lacking dramatic pur- 
 pose and dramatic action. No wonder he was angry, 
 and, what was far worse, deeply mortified. But 
 there was nothing to do but to bear it, and pray 
 for the days when authors' rights will be properly 
 protected. 
 
 In the early days of 1895 I read, in the pages 
 
 of the Pall Mall Magazine, his story, " The Judgment 
 
 of Bolinas Plain." Seeing in it great dramatic 
 
 possibilities, I asked him if he would permit me to 
 
 adapt it to the stage. He readily assented, but, 
 
 269 
 
IN AND ABOUT STAGELAND 
 
 at the same time, said that he thought I was 
 mistaken in my view of his work and that my hours 
 would be wasted. When I sent him my scenario, 
 however, he at once saw how his slender story, by 
 the introduction of other characters, and the putting 
 into action of things only hinted at or suggested in 
 the narrative, might be made into a three-act play. 
 Indeed he was so delighted that he expressed a 
 wish to write it with me. To this, of course, I more 
 than readily agreed, and many happy days were 
 ^spent over the composition and completion of 
 " Sue." 
 
 It was accepted by Mr. Charles Frohman, and 
 presented by him in New York on September 15, 
 1896. Neither of us could be there, and on the 
 eve of the production of the play Bret Harte grew 
 very anxious as to its fate. On the following day 
 I was able to reassure him with a comforting cable- 
 gram from the management which ran as follows : 
 " Well received. Fine acting. Press praises." Hav- 
 ing exhausted her time in New York, " Sue " was 
 taken on a prolonged tour throughout the States ; 
 and everywhere Miss Annie Russell made a triumph 
 as Bret Harte's tenderly drawn little heroine of 
 Bolinas Plain. 
 
 On June 10, 1898, Mr. Frohman produced the 
 play at the Garrick Theatre, London. On that occa- 
 sion Bret Harte and I were present, and it was 
 pleasant to witness his delight in the perfect way 
 
 in which, by one and all concerned in it, the piece 
 
 270 
 
IN AND ABOUT STAGELAND 
 
 was acted, and how every line seemed to go home 
 to the hearts of a crowded and distinguished audience. 
 Its artistic success in its EngUsh home was im- 
 mediately secured, and Miss Annie Russell by the 
 force, humour, and pathos of her acting moved the 
 house in no ordinary way. The subsequent judgment 
 of the critics was as gratifying to her as it was 
 to the writers of the play. How much they owed 
 to her charming personality, and her deft handling 
 of a difficult part they freely and gratefully ac- 
 knowledged. 
 
 During the many pleasant hours of our collabora- 
 tion I had ample opportunity for studying his 
 working methods. Infinite painstaking, I soon 
 learned, was the essence of his system. Of altering 
 and realtering he was never tired, and though, as 
 I have hinted, it was sometimes a little disappointing 
 to find that what we had considered as finished 
 over - night had, at his desire, to be reconsidered 
 in the morning, the humorous way in which he 
 would point out how serious situations might, by a 
 twist of the pen, or by incompetent acting, create 
 derisive laughter, compensated for double or even 
 treble work. That was my difficulty. He liked, 
 as he had reason to like, his own pathetic story. He 
 was anxious to see it on the stage ; but as the scenes 
 and acts grew he would insist on pointing out to 
 me how the most striking incidents in them might 
 be burlesqued. No one realised more keenly than 
 
 he did that to most things there is a comic as well 
 
 271 
 
IN AND ABOUT STAGELAND 
 
 as a serious side, and it seemed to make him vastly 
 happy to put his finger on his own vulnerable 
 spots. 
 
 Here is a case in point. There was the usual 
 difficulty in finding a title for the play that would * 
 be both new and descriptive. In it poor Sue, a } 
 girlish wife, is seen to be so misunderstood and ' 
 neglected by her unkempt and selfish husband, Ira, I 
 that she is tempted to leave him for the sake of ] 
 a dazzling, light o' love acrobat. When the un- ,^ 
 happy Ira recovers from his first fit of wild jealousy 
 and anger, and realises what he has lost, he is j; 
 willing to take her to his reawakened heart, and, pure i 
 as when she left him, his stray dove flutters home. Ji 
 It is a tender little story, and I was most anxious t 
 to find the right name for it in its elaborated stage f 
 form. A hundred suggestions were made and dis- 
 carded, and I was growing quite worried about it. 
 I suppose he noticed this, and wishing to make me 
 laugh, he wrote : — j 
 
 " My dear Pemberton, — Eureka ! The right \ 
 title for the play is " Dies Irae ; or, Susan's Sunday j 
 Out." It's appropriate, and, as far as I know, has I 
 not been used before. But I trust to you to search 
 the records. — Ever yours, Bret Harte." 
 
 This was facetious, but unsatisfactory ; and then 
 
 we boiled down our titles to the simple word, 
 
 " Sue." 
 
 272 
 
IN AND ABOUT STAGELAND 
 
 The morning after the production of " Sue " at 
 the Garrick Theatre I went early to his rooms at 
 74 Lancaster Gate, and there found him at his soli- 
 tary breakfast. But there was a pleased look upon 
 his face. He was surrounded by the morning papers, 
 and handing me The Daily Telegraph he said : "Kead 
 what Clement Scott has written." They were cer- 
 tainly words to rejoice his heart. 
 
 " At last," said the critic, " we have dragged Bret 
 Harte on to the stage, and to judge by the enthusiasm, 
 the breathless interest and the copious tears shed 
 over dear, delightful, womanly ' Sue,' the English 
 public does not intend to part with the brilliant talent 
 of this essentially dramatic writer. He must write 
 more plays — he could not write a better one than 
 ' Sue ' — and, if we mistake not, Mr. Edgar Pemberton 
 will be at his elbow to-day urging him to turn the 
 wealth of his dramatic material to account, and to 
 make stage fortunes out of some of the best short 
 stories ever written, in recent years. We have always 
 maintained that Bret Harte is a born dramatist. He 
 possesses every gift for the art which he so strangely 
 and unaccountably neglected. . . . No man ever lived 
 during the last half century who has a keener scent 
 for all that is dramatic and all that is beautiful in 
 life ; no prose writer has better understood the rough, 
 imperial justice of the miner and explorer ; no novelist 
 has better expressed the beauty of woman's nature ; 
 no artist has so impressed us with the dash of the 
 
 brush, with a sketch, with an inspiration. We say 
 
 273 s 
 
IN AND ABOUT STAGELAND 
 
 to ourselves : ' Why was not Thackeray a dramatist ? ' 
 There were reasons. He was analytical and philo- 
 sophical. ' Why was not Charles Dickens a drama- 
 tist ? ' Because he was too rich in dramatic suggestion 
 and comic material. But there was no reason on 
 earth why Bret Harte should not be a dramatist, 
 or why this writer of short stories, direct, human, 
 poetic, and fanciful, should not have been the most 
 successful playwright in his time. The dramatic gift, 
 the poetic gift, the realistic gift are seldom combined. 
 But Bret Harte possesses them all. If any one wants 
 a proof of this let him see ' Sue ' as acted yesterday. 
 Alter the cast and the dramatic poet may suffer. 
 But play it as it was played yesterday, and all 
 London will flock to see it, because it is new, be- 
 cause it is original, and because every line and beat 
 of this simple romance rings true to nature. . . . For 
 years past the stage has not seen so realistic a 
 play as ' Sue ' — in its first act, its second act, and its 
 Judge Lynch trial scene — and yet the audience de- 
 part happy, contented, delighted, better for what 
 they have seen." 
 
 Thus encouraged we set to work again. He gave 
 me as much time as he could spare from the incessant 
 commissions for his stories, and in happy comradeship 
 we wrote several other plays. These have yet to face 
 the footlights. For one of them, a comedy in the j| 
 possession of Mr. Arthur Bourchier, poor Bret Harte, ij 
 only a short time before his death, approved of I 
 the scene sketches and models that had been pre- '. 
 
 274 ! 
 
 i 
 
IN AND ABOUT STAGELAND 
 
 pared under his supervision, and which await its 
 production, 
 
 Madame Yan de Velde also adapted his stories 
 to the stage — notably a very pretty version of " A 
 Blue Grass Penelope," which she entitled "A Frontier 
 Penelope." This was wise, as few English people 
 know that "Blue Grass" signifies the region of Blue 
 Grass Meadow in Kentucky, famous for its grazing. 
 
 A good many years ago, my friend, J. L, Toole, 
 told me with manifest delight, that Bret Harte was 
 writing a comedy for him, and said how proud he 
 should be of association with his name. All promised 
 well, and the piece (it was called " Furnished by 
 Bunter") was written. It had an admirable lead- 
 ing idea, and contained an excellent part for the 
 popular comedian, but as a whole it did not satisfy 
 its fastidious author, and it was put on one side. 
 Bret Harte and Toole were great friends. The fol- 
 lowing anecdote has been told before, but without it 
 this chapter would not be complete. 
 
 Thus the actor, who dearly loves an innocent 
 practical joke, relates it : — 
 
 " I had a curious experience in connection with 
 
 St. Albans. I went there with a friend to spend an 
 
 hour or two. Going into a tobacconist's to treat my 
 
 friend to a cigar — I don't smoke myself — I asked for 
 
 the cigars the Duke of St. Albans smoked. We 
 
 went into other shops, and all the time asked for the 
 
 same kind of goods they supplied to the Duke. 
 
 " ' Lor' bless you,' they all said, ' the Duke doesn't 
 
 275 
 
IN AND ABOUT STAGELAND 
 
 deal here ; we never see the Duke.' Then we urged 
 
 our expectation, our notion that the Duke lived here j 
 
 and made a point of dealing with the local tradesmen. ; 
 
 We got a good deal of harmless fun out of this, and 
 
 next day I went to lunch with Bret Harte. After 
 
 a greeting from my host, he said ' Let me introduce '! 
 
 you to the Duke of St. Albans.' ' Oh yes,' I said, j! 
 
 with a smile, and shook hands with the gentleman I 
 
 who was assuming that character, as I thought. Of : 
 
 course, I imagined my friend had told Bret Harte ^| 
 
 about our trip to St. Albans, and the American [| 
 
 humorist was having his little joke now at my *i 
 
 expense. Then he introduced me to Sir George r 
 
 Trevelyan ; and I had hardly shaken hands with [ 
 
 that gentleman when my host said, ' I would like to i 
 
 introduce you to Count Bismarck.' ' Oh yes,' I said, Ij 
 
 bowing to the newcomer, ' how many more of you ' 
 
 are there ? Where is Von Moltke, for instance ? ' 
 
 Bret Harte laughed, so did Trevelyan ; a comedian 
 
 is allowed certain privileges, and my remark was i 
 
 considered, I daresay, more or less complimentary ; 
 
 but I had no idea what a fool I was making of 
 
 myself. At luncheon I said to the man who sat 
 
 next me, ' Who is the gentleman Harte introduced 
 
 me to as St. Albans ? ' ' The Duke of St. Albans,' 
 
 he replied. ' And the man opposite ? ' ' Herbert 
 
 Bismarck — the Prince's son.' ' No ! ' I said, ' really ? ' 
 
 ' Oh yes,' he said. ' And the man talking to him ? ' 
 
 ' That is Sir George Trevelyan.' I never was more 
 
 sold in my life. Bret Harte had heard nothing 
 
 276 
 
IN AND ABOUT STAGELAND 
 
 of my trip to St. Albans. The explanation of my 
 reception of the names of his distinguished guests, 
 however, was a success, for I felt bound to tell his 
 Grace and the rest why I had treated them with 
 levity, not to say contumely." 
 
 Poor Toole ! The memory of his fiasco evidently 
 more or less haunted him, for later he wrote : — 
 
 "Toole's Theatre, July 2, '84. 
 
 " My dear Bret Harte, — With much pleasure 
 I enclose box and four stalls for our mutual friends. — 
 With kind regards, your friend, J. L. Toole. 
 
 " P.S. — Come round at the end of ' The Pretty 
 Horsebreaker ' and refresh. I dreamt about Bismarck 
 the other night ! ! ! " 
 
 Of course the essence of this note lies in the con- 
 cluding words of its postscript. 
 
 Bret Harte was a great admirer of the Gilbert- 
 Sullivan operas, and as long ago as the first produc- 
 tion of " H.M.S. Pma/bre," he told me that he should 
 communicate with the composer with a view to pro- 
 viding him with ar^ibretto. The matter drifted until 
 the January of 1883 when a plot was submitted. 
 
 " I have just returned from Paris," wrote Sir 
 Arthur Sullivan. " Thanks for sending me your 
 story, which I shall read to-night over the fire with 
 a good cigar — complete enjoyment." 
 
 But as will be seen this was another of the 
 
 theatrical projects destined to fall to the ground. 
 
 277 
 
IN AND ABOUT STAGELAND 
 
 ''Feb. 2, i884. 
 " I Queen's Mansions, Victoria Street, S.W. 
 
 " Dear Mr. Bret Harte, — You will, I am sure, 
 believe that the delay in writing to you has not 
 been intentional on my part. Since my illness I 
 have had enough to do in picking up the dropped 
 threads of work and correspondence, so that I could 
 give little or no time to pleasant things. The 
 scenario I return now, as I am going away for a 
 little rest and change, and I should like to tell you 
 that I am struck with the ingenuity you have dis- 
 played in making so much that is interesting out 
 of such slight material. In the hands of a good 
 musician much might be done with it, although I 
 doubt whether there is enough in it for three Acts. 
 I think (this is of course only my own personal 
 opinion) that it might with advantage be compressed 
 into two with a change of scene in one of them if 
 necessary, since once the idea is taken hold of the 
 interest is difficult to sustain. 
 
 " With regard to myself, I have come to the 
 decision of not writing any more comic operas for 
 some time to come, for I have resolved to devote 
 myself now, if not entirely, at least in a great 
 measure, to more earnest work. 
 
 " I have rather come to the end of my tether 
 
 in that line, and do not feel the same interest in 
 
 writing that class of work that I did. There are 
 
 younger men rising to whom I would gladly give the 
 
 chance of gaining success in that field, and if I did 
 
 278 
 
IN AND ABOUT STAGELAND 
 
 yield to persuasion and write another, I should feel 
 bound not to sever myself from my collaborateur, 
 Gilbert. 
 
 " You will therefore see the reason why / cannot 
 set it to music. Did you know, by the way, that a 
 piece called ' Dr. Ox ' on the same subject was produced 
 at the Folly Theatre (now Toole's) some three or 
 four years ago ? Violet Cameron played in it. I 
 did not see it, but I to-day recollected the fact, and 
 thought I would mention it to you. I like your 
 niece. Miss Griswold, very much. She is a bright, 
 clever girl, and will, I hope, take a high position 
 in England. — Yours very sincerely, 
 
 Arthur Sullivan." 
 
 At that time Bret Harte was very interested in 
 the musical career of his talented niece, and did 
 everything in his power to promote its success. 
 
 Gilbert and Sullivan must have been running very 
 strongly in his mind when he wrote the following 
 letter to one of his most intimate friends — Colonel 
 Collins. 
 
 " To Colonel Collins. 
 
 " 74 Lancaster Gate, W., Tuesday. 
 
 " Dear Arthur, — I may have to go out of town 
 on Friday, but I'll let you know to-morrow. You 
 really ought to see your doctor about those ' func- 
 tional ' derangements ! 
 
 " Meantime, thanks for the address of Smith, 
 
 279 
 
IN AND ABOUT STAGELAND 
 
 the author of a ' Wine full of Vinosity.' I think it 
 
 awfully pretty, though I don't understand it, and 
 
 it may not be good for a ' shady drink.' I am 
 
 continually asking myself, in a kind of Gilbertian 
 
 patter ! — 
 
 ' Is wine wWiout " vinosity " 
 Like speed without velocity ? 
 Or talk without verbosity ? 
 Or rage without ferocity ? 
 Or corns without callosity ? 
 Or, — simply some atrocity 
 Producing obeosity — 
 This wine full of " vinosity " ? 
 
 Chorus : — 
 
 ' Then, with some curiosity 
 But no impetuosity. 
 We'll sing with great jocosity. 
 This wine full of vinosity ! ' 
 
 Yours always. Beet Harte." 
 
 He was ever an appreciative theatre goer, and 
 on such occasions he loved to have Colonel Collins 
 for his comrade. He always wanted sympathy, and 
 in him he had a friend who understood him. Here 
 is the sort of letter he would dash off when he 
 found himself in possession of a free evening : — 
 
 " To Colonel Collins. 
 
 "74 Lancaster Gate, W. 
 " i^th December 1898. 
 
 " Dear Arthur, — Yes. Saturday ' suits ' and 
 
 looks auspicious. I have had the cook examine the 
 
 280 
 
The irriliiig dcfk. at Cinnhcrh'H on irliicli he often worked, and 
 trliere lie penned ///.s last line>-\ 
 
 ii/.s- Ubrdrij iind irritinii tnhle at 74, L(ine(i:<tey date, I.e>ndo)i. 
 
 [To ftice p. 280. 
 
IN AND ABOUT STAGELAND 
 
 entrails of a fowl, and find the omens propitious ! 
 Let it be Saturday, then. 
 
 " You will give me ' bread and pulse ' at Brookes', 
 and I will lead you to Arcadian stalls at the Al- 
 hambra or Empire. For heaven's sake let us go 
 somewhere where we can laugh in the right place ! 
 
 " I have not yet dared to face my Christmas 
 shopping, but I'll pick up your offering at the Club 
 and send you mine. It is so difficult to find some- 
 thing sufficiently idiotic and useless, to keep up 
 our fond, foolish custom with. — Yours always, 
 
 Bret Harte." 
 
 Another letter that Colonel Collins has most 
 kindly placed at my disposal was dated from my 
 home, when he was staying there and we were writing 
 " Sue." The fact that he would not leave his work to 
 take part in a gathering he would have enjoyed, 
 shows how truly anxious he was to see his works 
 properly placed on the stage. 
 
 " To Colonel Collins. 
 
 "Pye Corner, Broadway, Worcestershire, 
 "June 25, '95. 
 
 " My dear Arthur, — What do you mean by 
 
 having a Jubilee at a time when I can't attend ? For 
 
 I am afraid it will not be possible for me to get away 
 
 from here (where I am visiting with a friend) before 
 
 Monday next, much as I should enjoy meeting you 
 
 with your friends, and gladly as I would throw over 
 
 281 
 
IN AND ABOUT STAGELAND 
 
 any social engagement for that purpose. But I am 
 here on business, of which sometime I will tell you 
 further. 
 
 " And what do you mean by flaunting your trifling 
 ' coming of age ' in the face of an old moustache of 
 . fifty-six like me ? You and I are mere infants before 
 this modern generation — who are born tired, are bat- 
 tered cynics at twenty, and doddering decadents at 
 thirty ; who don't understand the youthful exuber- 
 ance of Dickens, any more than they do the mellowed 
 wine of Thackeray, but get drunk on green unfer- 
 mented literature and fancy they are inspired. Don't 
 talk of growing old in this age of infant decrepitude, 
 
 "Why haven't I seen you? I sent over from the 
 Club the other day to try and capture you at 24 St. 
 James' Street, that you might lunch with me, but the 
 manager brought back word that you would not re- 
 turn before the afternoon. Do let me hear from you. 
 I was so sorry I could not come to Hare's dinner, but 
 I had accepted an invitation from the Chappells for 
 the following Sunday to meet him. In great haste, 
 yours always, Bret Harte." 
 
 But, though the Sullivan scheme was abandoned, 
 
 the unwearying writer never lost his desire to become 
 
 the author of the libretto of an operetta. At one 
 
 time he took up his pretty romance, " At the Mission 
 
 of San Carmel," and for it composed these hitherto 
 
 unpublished lyrics. But he did not persevere with his 
 
 scheme, and let the verses lie in his desk. 
 
 282 
 
IN AND ABOUT STAGELAND 
 
 FATHER PEDRO. 
 
 From strand to sea and from sea to strand, 
 
 From sand to sedge and from reef to shingle, 
 Wherever the Angelus, tolled inland. 
 
 With the war of the surges meet and mingle, 
 Wherever these blessed bells are borne, 
 
 Far as the seagull lifts his pinion : 
 On dancing sea, or on sands forlorn — 
 
 That is the Holy Church dominion. 
 
 Wanderer, waif, or castaway. 
 
 Within the spell of that mystic blessing, 
 Whether on sea-shore, bight or bay. 
 
 Becomes a part of Her own possessing ; 
 Thus we see in the most profound 
 
 Ecclesiastical opinion, 
 " Flotsam and jetsam " like this when found 
 
 Are all in the Holy Church dominion. 
 
 SONG.— LULLABY TO A CHILD. 
 
 When the Mission garden is sunk in shade, 
 
 And the pear-tree leaves hang still. 
 And the radiant sun, like our mystic Host 
 
 Is lowered beneath the hill ; 
 When the stealthy fog through the sea-ward dell 
 
 Creeps in with the breath of the sea, 
 In my lonely cell — to the Angelus bell — 
 
 I have dreamed a dream of thee. 
 
 I have dreamed of a child that should lift my soul 
 
 With a spiritual father's care, 
 A child to train for the heavenly goal 
 
 With precept and maxim rare ; 
 A child of my race — though none of kin 
 
 To this mortal flesh that I bear, — 
 That a parent's love — without mortal sin — 
 
 Might dwell with me everywhere. 
 283 
 
IN AND ABOUT STAGELAND 
 
 As late as 1901 he completed "The Lord of 
 Fontenelle " for the Hungarian composer M. Emmanuel 
 Moor. This has yet to be heard, but I am, thanks 
 to M. Moor's courtesy, permitted to publish these 
 verses, which are set in a most ingenious and well- 
 told story : — 
 
 DICK'S SONG. 
 
 Whether on the lone prairie where buffaloes roam, 
 
 In London, or Paris, or Berlin, I stray. 
 In the shade of St. Paul's or St. Peter's big dome, 
 
 I gallop and gallop and gallop away ! 
 In the Roman arena my hoofprints are plain, 
 
 I have lassoed my horse on the banks of the Spree, 
 I have scalped the Sioux by the flow of the Seine, 
 
 As I gallop and buckjump and canter away ! 
 
 In London my running was thought to be " stunning," 
 
 In Paris the click of my spurs was " tres chic," 
 Though the skill girls admire, their lovers call " cunning," 
 
 And term a mere " trick " the true courage of Dick ; 
 So I've cut their palaver, and to take ship from Havre 
 
 I've galloped and galloped and galloped all day, 
 Till my horse on a boulder has just slipped his shoulder 
 
 And I — a pathfinder — have quite lost my way ! 
 
 Dick had evidently been intimately associated with 
 the displays of " Buffalo Bill." 
 
 THE LEGEND. 
 
 Long, long ago, throughout the park and wild wood, 
 Long, long ago ! — ere you and I were born — 
 
 Here in the shade, our fathers in their childhood 
 Trembled to here Count Armand's fateful horn 
 284 
 
IN AND ABOUT STAGELAND 
 
 Rising and falling 
 
 Through the woods and calling 
 Prayers for his soul in youthful folly lost, 
 Doomed here to range, in solitude recalling 
 That day of sacrilege his soul and body cost. 
 
 For on that day when good St. Hubert granted 
 Freedom from chase to every antlered beast. 
 Dead they had found him beside a stag that panted. 
 Still from that chase the Count has never ceased ; 
 And for the breaking 
 Of that Saint's day-making 
 Chase of the beast the Church would that day spare 
 He is condemned to wander ever, waking 
 
 Woodland and dingle with their wild fanfare. 
 
 CHORUS.— THE ANGELUS CHANT. 
 
 Holy Angels in this hour, 
 
 When light fades and shadows lower 
 And the foul fiend holds his power, 
 Guard us with thy mystic spell ! 
 Let thy soft far-reaching bell 
 With its charm surround our towers. 
 Banish sprites and blights of flowers ! 
 And all ills that come to dwell ; 
 Guard the House of Fontenelle. 
 
 SONG. 
 
 Oh thou, condemned by Fate 
 To wander desolate 
 
 Ever alone ! 
 Know ! thou art not forgot. 
 One heart that knows thee not 
 Would, for thy cruel lot 
 
 Thy sins atone. 
 285 
 
IN AND ABOUT STAGELAND 
 
 Eyes that ne'er dwelt on thee 
 When thou wast bold and free, 
 Weep for thy misery, 
 
 Thy youth undone. 
 Knight of my fantasy ! 
 In dreams I walk wdth thee, 
 In dreams I talk with thee, 
 
 My lonely one ! 
 
 SONG. 
 
 When a maiden would not marry, 
 And the single fain would tai-ry 
 Though new suitors come and go, 
 'Tis not friends their plans miscarry, 
 'Tis not always the old Harry 
 Keeps her single ! Ah ! No ! No ! 
 
 When she's tearful, dull, or tragic, 
 
 Trace it not to sinful magic 
 
 That the Church can overthrow ! 
 
 Mediaeval necromancy 
 
 Never swayed a maiden's fancy 
 
 Like some young man ! No ! No ! No ! 
 
 SONG. 
 
 When a man knows his horse, 
 
 And is bold on the course 
 With a speed that you cannot come nigh to 
 
 When he swings at your side 
 
 In a galloping stride, 
 Be sure he's the fellow to tie to. 
 You may gallop away all Life's sunny day 
 With just such a fellow to tie to. 
 286 
 
IN AND ABOUT STAGELAND 
 
 With his seat like a rock 
 
 That no onset can shock, 
 He's the man when in trouble to fly to, 
 
 For when fate takes the bit 
 
 Still beside you he'll sit, 
 Where he'll ride, and he'll bide, and he'll die, too. 
 
 SONG.— TO LORD FONTENELLE'S PORTRAIT. 
 
 ! scion of an ancient race. 
 However high thy deeds and place 
 Thy gallant mien and knightly grace, 
 
 I envy not thy state. 
 
 1 only grudge — more dear to me — 
 Her love that has ennobled thee 
 Above the stateliest degree 
 
 Of Prince or Potentate. 
 
 soul accursed — whate'er thy doom — 
 Thy penance dark beyond the tomb, 
 
 1 would with joy thy fate assume 
 
 For tears from her sweet eyes, 
 And trust that pure and holy rain 
 Would wash my dust of mortal stain, 
 And through her Paradise regain 
 
 And bless the sacrifice ! 
 
 Man like myself — and lover bold, 
 If that dull canvas still doth hold 
 One drop of thy fierce blood of old, 
 
 That flowed in list and chase. 
 Step from thy frame in warlike grace 
 Do battle — as for Honour dear — 
 For her sweet sake — or take thou here 
 
 My gauntlet in thy face ! 
 287 
 
IN AND ABOUT STAGELAND 
 
 He liked to have his verses well set to music, 
 but was particular with regard to the composer. 
 He was especially delighted when Charles Gounod 
 took a fancy to " The Mission Bells of Monterey," 
 and wrote him from the continent, " Our bells are 
 already ringing," . His niece, Miss Griswold, under- 
 took the exquisite poem, " What the Chimney Sang," 
 the poem in which he unconsciously summed up 
 his own character. In it he tells us how the half- 
 sorrowful woman hated the wind in the chimney ; 
 how the trembling children feared the wind in the 
 chimney ; how the practical husband and father 
 resolved to mend the hole in the chimney ; and 
 then comes the beautiful concluding verse : — 
 
 " Over the chimney the night-wind sang 
 And chanted a melody no one knew, 
 But the Poet listened and smiled for he 
 Was Man, and Woman, and Child, all three ; 
 And said — ' It is God's own hai-mony. 
 This wind we hear in the chimney.' " 
 
 Yes, in that Poet — the Man and Woman and 
 Child, all three — Bret Harte was personified, and •; 
 that is why those who really knew and understood J 
 him loved him. I 
 
 Another composition that pleased him well was I 
 Mrs. T. Edgar Pemberton's accompaniment (which •'' 
 was undertaken at his wish) to his pretty " Hasta * 
 Manana." I 
 
 In a mirthful mood he dashed off for Mr. Leo {! 
 
 Stern a capital semi-burlesque " nigger song." This j 
 
 is how it runs : — 
 
 288 
 
IN AND ABOUT STAGELAND 
 
 UNCLE JUBA. 
 
 " Dar was a man in Florida, dey called him ' Uncle Ju,' 
 De doctoi- found him proof agin all fevers dat dey knew ; 
 De cholera bacillus he would brush away like flies, 
 And yaller fever microbes he would simply jess despise. 
 For he was such a bery seasoned nigger 
 
 Froo and froo — all froo. 
 Just de acclimated, vaccinated figger 
 
 To do — to do. 
 When de sojer boys came marching, dey would shout, 
 ' Lordy ! Her's de man for Cuba — trot him out. 
 For even if he cannot pull a trigger 
 
 Just like you — like you, 
 He's a seasoned and an acclimated figure, 
 Dat will do — will do.' 
 
 De proudest man in Florida dat day was ' Uncle Ju,' 
 When dey marched him off to Cuba wid de odder boj's in blue ; 
 He had a brand new unifoim, a red cross on his arm, 
 He said, ' Don't mind me, darkies, I can't come to any harm, 
 For de surgeon dat inspected of my figger 
 
 When on view — on view, 
 Sez I'm just de kind of acclimated nigger 
 
 Dat 'ud do — wov^ld do. 
 I can tackle yaller fever all de day, 
 I'm de only man for Cuba what can stay, 
 For agin de bery worst kind of malaria 
 
 Dat dey knew — dey knew, 
 I'm an iron-plated, sheathed and belted ai"ea 
 Froo and froo — all froo.' 
 
 Alas ! for Ju. poor Uncle Ju, aldo dar was no doubt 
 Dey passed him froo as fever proof, one ting dey had left out ; 
 For while he took his rations straight, and odders died like flies, 
 Along o' dat 'er Yaller Jack and deadly Cuban skies, 
 
 289 T 
 
IN AND ABOUT STAGELAND 
 
 And though such a bery highly seasoned nigger 
 
 Froo and froo — all froo, 
 And an acclimated, vaccinated figure 
 
 Just like new — like new, 
 One day a Spanish gunner sent a shell 
 Which skooted dat poor darkie off to dwell 
 Where de fever would send any odder nigger 
 
 Like you — like you, 
 For it flattened out dat acclimated figger 
 
 Ob old Ju — poor Ju." 
 
 Good dramatic art of every class appealed to 
 Bret Harte, but I think his favourite actor on the 
 English stage was John Hare. His methods naturally 
 appealed to him. The admirably finished Meissonier- 
 like stage portraits of the comedian were not unlike 
 the finely yet minutely etched-in pen-pictures of the 
 author. They worked together in different branches 
 of the same school. When some seven or eight years 
 ago John Hare first visited America it fell to my 
 lot to write a book concerning his career in England. 
 Bret Harte was most anxious that his favourite should 
 be appreciated by his countrymen, and to my pages 
 voluntarily contributed this letter : — 
 
 "My dear Pemberton, — If anything is to be 
 written of John Hare introductory to his visit to 
 America, I am delighted that it should fall to hands 
 as appreciative and conscientious as yours, although 
 it seems to me scarcely possible that so accomplished 
 an artist as he should require any other introduction 
 to my countrymen than the 'bill of the play' and 
 
 290 
 
IN AND ABOUT STAGELAND 
 
 the lifting of the curtain. For to see him act is to 
 love him, and ' to love him is a liberal, theatrical 
 education.' I know that America will be quick to 
 recognise that, while he is in tradition and experience 
 thoroughly an English actor, he expresses that finest 
 quality of restraint so beloved of the Comedie Fran- 
 9aise, but which we don't always recognise in the 
 highly emotional roles it sends across the Channel 
 to us. What I think is still more remarkable in 
 Hare's acting is his complete abnegation of self in 
 his characters, a quality so strong that it seems to 
 heighten the efforts of those who support him ; he 
 is the character, and the others are capital act07^s 
 who exist to draw him out. I don't believe that 
 applause ever startles him from this singular and 
 delightful concentration. I have seen him come before 
 the curtain to receive his well-earned tribute with 
 a slightly pained and deprecatory air, as one who 
 should say, ' You really mustn't praise me for acting, 
 you know ; it's the other fellows. I am really Mr. 
 So-and-so ! ' It is for this reason, because he has 
 made the whole scene so delightful, and put every- 
 body at their best, that one is apt to forget him in 
 the perfection of his art, and one does not always 
 yield him his full meed of applause. 
 
 " I am told that he takes with him to America 
 a limited repertoire, and that it is likely to affect his 
 popularity with the masses. I should not predicate 
 that of a people who have made Jefferson immortal 
 
 in one or two plays, and he is quite as fortunate in 
 
 291 
 
IN AND ABOUT STAGELAND j 
 
 his ' Pair of Spectacles ' as Jefferson was in his ' Rip ; 
 Van Winkle.' What a wholesome breath is wafted i 
 over the footlights in Grundy's charming adaptation 
 of that pretty French trifle ! I do not believe that 
 we, in America, are so familiar with the miasma of 
 cynical doubt, or the firedamp of explosive senti- '' 
 mentalism, as to draw back in our stalls from so j 
 honest and revivifying an atmosphere. And how {' 
 delightfully Hare, even with look and gesture, traces i 
 the unfailing optimism of the hero, through its momen- 
 tary refraction and aberration into cynicism under i 
 the disturbing lens of the borrowed spectacles, to the 
 perfectly natural and convincing climax ! One such ' 
 play, and one such character, should carry him far ' 
 across the continent and far into the hearts of the 
 American people, and I shall be much mistaken if 
 they do not. 
 
 " I am not a critic — Heaven forfend ! so I cannot 
 approach his art properly equipped and consciously 
 superior. But I should like to dwell on what seems 
 to me to be his singularly crisp delivery, every word | 
 ringing out clearly, so that even in his wonderful i 
 rendering of an old man's utterance his mumble is j 
 never unintelligible, or his loquacity slurred or in- ] 
 distinct. His enunciation of emphasis is nearly perfect. 
 I have a very vivid recollection of his delivery of the 
 apology forced from Spencer Jermyn by his wife in 
 the last act of Pinero's comedy, ' The Hobby Horse.' 
 The language is very simple, as Pinero always is 
 
 when he is most subtle — so simple I should hesitate 
 
 292 
 
IN AND ABOUT STAGELAND 
 
 to transcribe it, but Pinero knew that Hare could 
 inform it with the very spirit of the irony he intended. 
 So that it stands now with Hare's deUvery as one 
 of the most dehghtful and sarcastic resumes of the 
 moral and sentimental situations of a play I ever 
 witnessed. 
 
 " It seems to me also that so much could be said 
 of his wonderfully minute study of the half senile 
 character, where the habits and impulses of youth 
 remain to override the actual performance. There is 
 a notable instance of this in his wonderful portrayal 
 of the Duke of St. Olpherts in ' The Notorious Mrs. 
 Ebbsmith.' He is gallantly attempting to relieve 
 Mrs. Thorpe of the tray she is carrying, but of course 
 lacks the quickness, the alertness, and even the actual 
 energy to do it, and so follows her with delightful 
 simulation of assistance all over the stage, while she 
 carries it herself, he pursuing the form and ignoring 
 the performance. It is a wonderful study. And who 
 does not remember Beau Farintosh in ' School,' and 
 all that splendid forge tfulness of the, alas ! all too 
 necessary eyeglass ? 
 
 " Do with this what you like, only don't make 
 my arms seem to ache with reaching up to pat such 
 a tall fellow as Hare on the head. — Yours always, 
 
 Bret Harte." 
 
 In this careful and pleasant fashion he would, 
 in conversation, analyse the methods of all the actors 
 and actresses he admired. He always declared that 
 
 293 
 
IN AND ABOUT STAGELAND 
 
 he was no critic, but he was in truth a very keen | 
 
 one, though a little prone to be severe on plays and i 
 
 players unsuited to his taste. i 
 
 Even in things theatrical he was patriotic, and he ! 
 held that, in his day, no English actor could be com- 
 pared with his friend and countryman Edwin Booth. 
 
 No doubt he was a very great as well as a very j; 
 
 graceful actor, and concerning him Bret Harte could 1 
 
 be enthusiastic. I 
 
 When, in 1882, Booth acted in Glasgow the \ 
 friends frequently met, and would have done so 
 
 oftener but for the actor's gradually failing health. j 
 
 This little letter speaks for itself 
 
 " Grand Hotel, Tuesday. 
 
 " My dear Harte, — I will drop in to see you as 
 soon as I can. I am prevented from doing so to-day J 
 as I intended. Before ten a.m. I am never up, and 
 after four p.m. I am usually doiV7i for my nap, which 
 I always require before acting. ' Darling, I am 
 growing old ! ' I will try to see you sure to-morrow 
 at the Consulate. I am afraid that I will not be able 
 to accept your kind invitation to luncheon, but will 
 have a pipe and a chat with you. 
 
 " I am in a hurry, as my girls (my daughter and 
 her friend) are waiting for me to drive with them. 
 Adieu. — Ever yours, Edwin Booth." 
 
 Apart from his Shakespearean representations he 
 
 especially loved to see Booth as Bichelieu in Bulwer s 
 
 294 
 
IN AND ABOUT STAGELAND 
 
 play of that name. With Winiam Winter he beheved 
 this impersonation alone would have made him emi- 
 nent and famous, and he too perceived in him the 
 image of an actor of great elemental power and of 
 astonishing versatility. 
 
 295 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 LATER DAYS, LATER FRIENDS, AND LATER WORK 
 
 I HAVE already said something of the manner of Bret 
 Harte's Ufe in England. It was very simple, and, 
 though he took a certain amount of relaxation, he 
 was always working. But his work had to be done 
 in his own minutely careful way, and he took more 
 time and pains over it than most writers would do 
 or most readers could imagine. The manuscripts that 
 he preserved show the extreme care with which they 
 were produced. When he had finished one story he 
 at once began to think about the next. It might 
 happen that for several days he would not write a 
 line, but think constantly over a plot or an incident 
 that might work up into a plot. He would even sit 
 at his desk with his blank paper before him, and after 
 the lapse of several hours get up and pace the room, 
 or leave it, saying that he had an idea but had not 
 so far been able to work it out. To such a literary 
 friend as Madame Van de Velde he would often talk 
 about that idea, asking, " Do you like that ? " " Do 
 you think it is good ? " Once satisfied with his con- 
 ception he began to write. The initial lines, consisting 
 only of a few words, would often be repeated with 
 
 slight alterations on many sheets of paper, and this 
 
 296 
 
LATER DAYS, LATER FRIENDS 
 
 apparently with rapidity, but in reality with consi- 
 derable mental effort. Having satisfied himself with 
 a beginning, the pages would be filled in with that 
 close, neat handwriting which characterised both his 
 manuscripts and his private correspondence. At the 
 onset he did not always see the end of his story, and 
 would say, " I don't know what the winding-up will 
 be, but I do know what my characters are, and they 
 will work their own conclusion." 
 
 He never wrote very much at a time — a thousand 
 words a day was probably the limit — but no day 
 passed without his adding something to the story 
 when once it was well in hand. Hard to please, he 
 did not write unless he felt his lines were good, and 
 there were few corrections in his manuscripts, although 
 he sometimes added or suppressed something in the 
 proofs — most frequently when he felt his character- 
 istic endings to be too abrupt. Completely absorbed 
 though he was in composition, he never allowed him- 
 self to appear vexed by interruption, and would lay 
 down his pen to answer any questions or to respond 
 to any call. 
 
 During long mornings he would sit at his desk, 
 pen in hand, and his eyes fixed on the story he was 
 conjuring up. His extraordinary gift of observation 
 — almost unconscious observation — and his wonder- 
 fully retentive and accurate memory served him well, 
 and enabled him to see vividly the things he por- 
 trayed in his word pictures. 
 
 He thought much of the names of his characters, 
 
 297 
 
LATER DAYS, LATER FRIENDS 
 
 and promptly altered any Christian or surname that 
 did not seem exactly right. And the titles of his 
 stories were ever matters of considerable deliberation. 
 With the longer novels, such as " Gabriel Conroy," 
 " Maruja," "Susy," "Clarence," and "Cressy" it was 
 plain sailing, but when it came to the volumes of 
 collected stories much trouble was taken. Thus 
 " Shore and Sedge," " Tales of the Pine and Cypress," 
 " Buckeye and Chapparel," " Tales of Trail and Town," 
 "Stories in Light and Shadow," "From Sand-Hill to 
 Pine," and "On the Old Trail" (the last volume 
 published during his lifetime), required an infinite 
 amount of thinking out, and seemed to the author 
 like a second baptism of his dream children. 
 
 It is well that those who are interested in the 
 life of Bret Harte should know these things, because 
 some censors would have us believe that his later 
 stories were written in a hurry, and, as it were, " to 
 order." Nothing could be more untrue. He took 
 as much pains with his last tale as he did with " The 
 Luck of Boaring Camp," and one and all are worth 
 more careful reading than is given to literature in 
 these davs of frantic rush. 
 
 That the novelty of the thing should wear off was 
 inevitable. He was the pioneer of the short story, 
 and he had opened the way for countless and many 
 reputable followers. 
 
 In his own article on " The Bise of the Short 
 Story," he has said : — 
 
 " But while the American literary imagination 
 
 298 
 
AND LATER WORK 
 
 was still under the influence of English tradition, 
 an unexpected factor was developing to diminish its 
 power. It was humour, of a quality as distinct and 
 original as the country and civilisation in which it 
 was developed. It was at first noticeable in the 
 anecdote or ' story,' and, after the fashion of such 
 beginnings, was orally transmitted. It was common 
 in the bar-rooms, the gatherings in the ' country 
 store,' and finally at public meetings in the mouths 
 of ' stump orators.' Arguments were clinched and 
 political principles illustrated by ' a funny story.' It 
 invaded even the camp meeting and pulpit. It at last 
 received the currency of the public press. But wher- 
 ever met it was so distinctly original and novel, so 
 individual and characteristic, that it was at once 
 known and appreciated abroad as ' an American 
 story.' Crude at first, it received a literary polish 
 in the press, but its dominant quality remained. It 
 was concise and condense, yet suggestive. It was 
 delightfully extravagant, or a miracle of understate- 
 ment. It voiced not only the dialect, but the habits 
 of thought of a people or locality. It gave a new 
 interest to slang. From a paragraph of a dozen 
 lines it grew into half a column, but always retain- 
 ing its conciseness and felicity of statement. It was 
 a foe to prolixity of any kind ; it admitted no fine 
 writing nor affectation of style. It went directly 
 to the point. It was burdened by no conscientious- 
 ness ; it was often irreverent ; it was devoid of all 
 
 moral responsibility, but it was original ! By degrees 
 
 299 
 
LATER DAYS, LATER FRIENDS 
 
 it developed character with its incident, often, in a 
 few lines, gave a striking photograph of a community 
 or a section, but always reached its conclusion with- 
 out an unnecessary word. It became — and still exists ; 
 as — an essential feature of newspaper literature. It 
 was the parent of the American ' short story.' " ! 
 
 Accept these facts and it will be seen that in i 
 
 his mature years Bret Harte worked at a disadvan- ; 
 tage. Even if the California of his early days had 
 
 existed and he had lived among his old surround- l 
 ings, he would not have frequented the bar-rooms, 
 
 country stores, and camp meetings that had excited 1 
 
 his youthful curiosity, and provided the material for | 
 
 his earlier work. He had either to invent the germ i 
 
 of his stories or to draw upon the store of his recol- j 
 
 lections. It was wonderful that the mine proved i 
 
 inexhaustible. Add to this the fact that he never ! 
 
 " pushed himself." Having taught others how to j 
 
 play his own game, he encouraged rather than de- j 
 
 precated rivalry. Rightly it has been said of him i 
 
 that of all the writers of his time he was the most J 
 
 modest, the most unobtrusive, the most anxious to I 
 
 give honour where he believed honour to be due. j 
 
 And yet on English soil he was able to create j 
 
 a character worthy to live with the immortal Colonel | 
 
 Starbottle and the ever fascinating Jack Hamlin, j 
 
 I allude to Enriquez, the loquacious young Cali- \ 
 
 fornian of varied accomplishments, whose conversa- i 
 
 tion is famous for a marvellous combination of Spanish i 
 
 precision and California slang. Let those who doubt tj 
 
 300 
 
AND LATER WORK 
 
 this statement read " Chu Chu," " The Devotion of 
 Enriquez," and that touching conception, " The Pass- 
 ing of Enriquez," Then let them ask themselves 
 if Bret Harte's genius failed him in his later years. 
 
 If, during this long and laborious period, he, in 
 common with many of us, had his deep personal dis- 
 appointments and sorrows, he bore them with the 
 chivalry of a Bayard and a silence as dignified as 
 it was pathetic. To a man of his sensitive nature 
 the barbed shafts of " envy and calumny, and hate 
 and pain," lacerated with a cruelty that at times 
 must have seemed unendurable. Under such tor- 
 ments he often writhed, but he suffered all things 
 with a quiet patience that afforded a glorious example 
 to those friends who, knowing of his wounds, had 
 to be silent concerning them, and could offer him no 
 balm. While he was in Scotland he came across, 
 and was much impressed with, the motto of the Earls 
 Mareschal of Aberdeen, " They say ! What say they f 
 Let them say ! " When, as he was fond of doing, 
 he quoted these words with a quiet scorn that seemed 
 to give colour to them, it was easy to see how and 
 why they moved him. 
 
 His recreations consisted chiefly in visits to the 
 country and the homes of his friends. His know- 
 ledge of England was marvellous. He was familiar 
 with and knew the history of every cathedral, abbey 
 church, and historic ruin in the land. In Scotland 
 he made a pilgrimage to all the spots associated with 
 
 Macbeth ; in Yorkshire he sought out Charlotte 
 
 301 
 
LATER DAYS, LATER FRIENDS 
 
 Bronte's home, for though he did satirise her in his 
 condensed novel " Miss Mix," he had true admiration 
 for her genius. In such things as these he took the 
 deepest interest, and I need hardly say he was often 
 in Stratford-on-Avon, and had explored all the beau- 
 tiful Warwickshire Shakespeare-land. 
 
 One of his greatest pleasures in this way was 
 his visit to Mr. and Mrs. Webb at Newstead Abbey, 
 Nottingham. There he fairly revelled in memories 
 of his beloved Byroii. He was not a collector of 
 things, but of this holiday he brought back and 
 cherished several souvenirs. They are before me 
 now : dried leaves picked by him from the oak-tree 
 kthat Byron planted ; a sprig of olive-green box from 
 the hedge near "Boatswain's" tomb, with a memo- 
 randum in his neat handwriting : " There is a picture 
 of ' Boatswain ' — a good-humoured but not a very large 
 ' Newfoundland ' — in the West Gallery ; " and many 
 photographs all duly labelled. On the back of one 
 of them he records an excursion to a country he 
 always longed to see, for, from his boyhood, he was 
 fascinated with the legends of Robin Hood, Friar 
 Tuck, and the Merry Men who were their happy-go- 
 lucky comrades. " ' The Major Oak.' Ninety feet 
 in diameter at roots. A famous tree in Sherwood 
 Forest. I kept it as a memento of a luncheon party 
 in the ' merry greenwood,' and not for its beauty or 
 majesty, for there were smaller trees finer, and the 
 forest as a whole was superb." 
 
 Another historic house in which he was often the 
 
 302 
 
AND LATER WORK 
 
 welcome guest of his friend Lord Compton (now the 
 Marquis of Northampton) was Compton Wynyates in 
 Warwickshire, a place that has been in the family of 
 the' Comptons since the time of King John. Apart 
 from the keen pleasure he always felt in the com- 
 panionship of Lord Compton, he loved to gaze upon 
 the fine old house with its famous chimneys all 
 worked in spires and zigzags, and to muse over the 
 far away lore in which the whole place is enveloped. 
 Then when he visited Castle Ashby, Northampton- 
 shire, the principal residence of the family, he would 
 ponder over the portraits of the Northamptons and 
 Comptons of the "brave days of old," and conjure up 
 pictures of that fierce fight at Edge Hill, hard by 
 Compton Wynyates, between Royalists and Round- 
 heads. Such things as these had continual charm for 
 him, and as he was everywhere a welcome guest he 
 studied the " Stately Homes of England " to the best 
 advantage. As usual his surroundings had their 
 influence on his work. In more than one of his 
 stories we get glimpses of these experiences, and in 
 " The Desborough Connections " his description of 
 Scrooby Manor shows clearly the impression they 
 made upon him. " It was a historic house, and had 
 always struck him" (the American Consul) "as being, 
 even in that country of historic seats, a singular 
 example of the vicissitudes of English manorial 
 estates and the mutations of its lords. His host in 
 his prime had been recalled from foreign service to 
 unexpectedly succeed to an uncle's title and estate. 
 
 303 
 
LATER DAYS, LATER FRIENDS 
 
 That estate, however, had come into possession of the 
 uncle only through his marriage with the daughter 
 of an old family whose portraits still look down from 
 the walls upon the youngest and alien branch. There 
 were likenesses, effigies, memorials, and reminiscences 
 of still older families who had occupied it through 
 forfeiture by war or the favouritism of kings, and in 
 its stately cloisters and ruined chapel was still felt 
 the dead hand of its evicted religious founders, which 
 could not be shaken off." 
 
 At Crewe Hall he was the guest of the Earl of 
 Crewe, and he particularly valued a copy of Jane 
 Austen's " Emma," in which, before giving it to him, 
 his host had written these lines : — 
 
 ** Beneath our grey unlovely skies 
 She wielded once her dainty pen, 
 With tolerant smile and wistful eyes, 
 Calm critic of the mind of men. 
 
 Brave wizard of the breezier west, 
 Though life be short, yet art endures, 
 
 Shadow or sun, we love the best 
 
 That art can give us, hers or ' yours.' " — Crewe. 
 
 He was rather fond of poking fun at the use made 
 by the English of coats-of-arms and crests. " I can't 
 see what good they are to you," he would say as he 
 glanced at a book-plate, or handled table silver on 
 which a crest was displayed. Once he said to me, 
 " I suppose that pony of yours would be deeply hurt 
 if you removed that meaningless emblem from his 
 
 304 
 
 
AND LATER WORK 
 
 harness, and after all you do quite right to make the 
 pony happy." And yet he took the greatest interest 
 in such matters, and was far better versed in heraldry 
 than most Englishmen. 
 
 To the distinguished host of one of the country 
 mansions in which he had been a guest, he wrote the 
 following postscript to a letter : — 
 
 '' P.S. — The double crest on your notepaper has 
 always troubled me. I have, after a sleepless night, 
 finally come to the following pleasing and instructive 
 solution of it. I copyright this idea for your benefit. 
 
 HERALDIC FABLES. 
 Edited by Sir Bernard Burke. 
 
 The Sejant Lion and the Proper Stork. 
 
 " A Sejant Lion once called upon a Proper Stork. 
 'Pray be seated,' said the Stork, politely, offering 
 him one of the fashionable low chairs now so much 
 
 in vogue. 
 
 
 But the Sejant Lion, instead of accepting, rushed to 
 
 a music stool, and began to rapidly screw it up to a 
 
 proper height for his use. 
 
 " ' Why,' said the Stork, regardant, ' are you like 
 
 a newly elected member ? ' 
 
 305 u 
 
LATER DAYS, LATER FRIENDS 
 
 " ' I am not an Irish Secretary,' responded the 
 Lion with dignity, ' to answer ill-timed questions — 
 but why am I ? ' 
 
 " ' Because,' said the Stork, ' you expect to be 
 elevated by your seat.' 
 
 " The Lion remained for an instant ' at gaze,' then 
 
 became ' salient,' and finally ' rampant.' Countering 
 
 with his ' dexter ' paw, he caught the Stork heavily 
 
 with a slogging blow on the ' crest ' and ' inflamed ' 
 
 his eye. However, the appearance of a ' party per 
 
 pale ' ' helmetted ' with a ' chevron ' (Seinant of 
 
 Irish Constabulary) on the scene, put an end to the 
 
 encounter. 
 
 " Moral. 
 
 " This Fable teaches us that a Sejant Lion can 
 Git Along with Less Stork than any other Dumb 
 Animal. Bret Harte." 
 
 But while he mixed in the highest circles of 
 English society, and took deep and sympathetic 
 interest in all he saw and heard, he never forgot 
 America or his American principles. If with com- 
 parative strangers he was reticent, he quickly let his 
 intimate friends know which, according to his views, 
 was the better organised country of the two. How 
 often I have heard him laugh heartily at our patient 
 tolerance of things which he called monstrous ! Nor 
 did he forget his American friends. One of these 
 was William Francis Bartlett, scholar, soldier, and a 
 
 gentleman : a man who had a fascination for Bret 
 
 306 
 
AND LATER WORK 
 
 Harte, as he realised so closely his rather exacting 
 ideal of a hero. Maimed and shattered in health 
 his friend returned from his terrible experiences and 
 gallant deeds in the fierce fight between the North 
 and South, yet, according to Bret Harte, he was 
 " still the gentle scholar ; still the modest gentle- 
 man." When this loved comrade died he took in- 
 finite pains over these verses concerning him. They 
 appeared in Scrihners Magazine, but strangely enough 
 were not included in his collected works : — 
 
 " poor Romancer — thou whose printed page, 
 
 Filled with rude speech and ruder forms of strife, 
 Was given to heroes in whose vulgar rage 
 
 No trace appears of gentler ways and life ! — 
 
 Thou, who wast wont of commoner clay to build 
 
 Some rough Achilles or some Ajax tall ; 
 Thou, whose free brush too oft was wont to gild 
 
 Some single virtue till it dazzled all ; — 
 
 What right hast thou beside this laurelled bier 
 Whereon all manhood lies — whereon the wreath 
 
 Of Harvard rests, the civic crown, and here 
 
 The starry flag, and sword and jewelled sheath ? 
 
 Seest thou these hatchments? Knowest thou this blood 
 
 Nourished the heroes of Colonial days ; — 
 Sent to the dim and savage-haunted wood 
 
 Those sad-eyed Puritans with hymns of praise ? 
 
 Look round thee ! Everywhere is classic ground. 
 
 There Greylock rears. Beside yon silver ' Bowl ' 
 Great Hawthorne dwelt, and in its mirror found 
 
 Those quaint, strange shapes that filled his poet's soul. 
 
LATER DAYS, LATER FRIENDS 
 
 Still silent, Stranger ? Thou, who now and then 
 
 Touched the too credulous ear with pathos, canst not speak ? 
 
 Hast lost thy ready skill of tongue and pen ? 
 What, Jester ! Tears upon that painted cheek ? 
 
 Pardon, good friends ! I am not here to mar 
 
 His laurelled wreaths with this poor tinselled crown, — 
 
 This man who taught me how 'twas better far 
 To be a poem than to write it down. 
 
 I bring no lesson. Well have others preached 
 This sword that dealt full many a gallant blow ; 
 
 I come once more to touch the hand that reached 
 Its knightly gauntlet to the vanquished foe. 
 
 O pale Aristocrat, that liest there. 
 
 So cold, so silent ! Couldst thou not in grace 
 
 Have borne with us still longer, and so spare 
 The scorn we see in that proud, placid face ? 
 
 ' Hail and farewell ! ' So the proud Roman cried 
 O'er his dead hero. ' Hail,' but not ' farewell.' 
 
 With each high thought thou walkest side by side ; 
 
 We feel thee, touch thee, know who wrought the spell ! " 
 
 Another valued American friend was Clarence 
 King, the eminent geologist. In sending him one 
 of his publications, Bret Harte inscribed it : — 
 
 " To Clarence King, author of ' Geology of the Fortieth 
 Parallel,' and other works of fiction." 
 
 Here is another old and long-forgotten stanza of 
 
 his that must be reproduced : — 
 
 308 : 
 
AND LATER WORK 
 
 LINES IN AN ALBUM 
 
 (From the " Californian") 
 
 " Sweet Mary, maid of San Andreas, 
 Upon her natal day, 
 Procured an album, double gilt, 
 Entitled ' The Bouquet.' 
 
 But what its purpose was, beyond 
 
 Its name, she could not guess ; 
 And so between its gilded leaves 
 
 The flower he gave she'd press. 
 
 Yet blame her not, poetic youth. 
 Nor deem too great the wrong ; 
 
 She knew not Hawthorne's bloom, nor loved 
 Macaulay's flowers of song. 
 
 Her hymn book was the total sum 
 
 Of her poetic lore ; 
 And having read through Dr. Watts, 
 
 She did not ask for Moore. 
 
 But when she ope'd her book again. 
 
 How great was her surprise 
 To find the leaves on either side, 
 
 Stained deep with crimson dyes. 
 
 And that fair rose, his latest gift, 
 
 A shapeless form she views ; 
 Its fragrance sped, its beauty fled, 
 
 And vanished all its dews. 
 
 Oh, Mary, maid of San Andreas, 
 
 Too sad was your mistake ; 
 Yet one, methinks, that wiser folks 
 
 Are very apt to make. 
 
LATER DAYS, LATER FRIENDS 
 
 Who 'twixt these leaves would fix the shapes 
 
 That Love and Truth assume, 
 Will find they keep, like Mary's rose. 
 
 The stain and not the bloom." 
 
 Busy as he always was with his literary work, it 
 is wonderful how he found time for his voluminous 
 correspondence. But it was always his custom to 
 reply promptly to each letter he received, and it is 
 certain he took as much pains with every note he 
 signed as if it had been an important magazine article. 
 I think he found more time for this after he had put 
 all his business arrangements into the good hands of 
 Mr. A. P. Watt. This was an immense source of 
 comfort to him, and he never ceased to speak grate- 
 fully of the care and tact with which his affairs were 
 managed. Here is proof of it : — 
 
 ^^ December 24, 1888. 
 
 " Dear Mr. Watt, — Would you mind attaching 
 to your watch-chain the accompanying ' edition ' of 
 one of my earlier works, lately republished at Vienna ? 
 It would be a pleasant recognition of ray Christmas 
 wishes for your welfare, and of the gratitude of an 
 author you have served so faithfully. — Yours always, 
 
 Bret Harte." 
 
 This reminds me to say that his stories were ever 
 
 in request on the continent. A great number of them 
 
 were translated into French (and souiv. into German) 
 
 by Madame Van de Velde — and at least one of them, 
 
 " A Drift of Red Wood Camp," was written for pub- 
 
 310 
 
AND LATER WORK 
 
 lication in a notable Parisian periodical Les Lettres et 
 les Arts. There, under Madame Van de Velde's title, 
 Une Epave de Bois Rouge, it appeared some time be- 
 fore it appealed to sympathetic English and American 
 readers. 
 
 I am happily enabled to introduce more evidence 
 of his strong appreciation of Mr. Watt's ever-ready 
 and efficient help : — 
 
 ''Christmas Day, 1892. 
 
 " Dear Mr. Watt, — Many thanks for your 
 pretty match - box of tortoiseshell — which is ' real 
 turtle ' in its quality ! It is another of the pleasant 
 mementoes of you that throng my desk as I write 
 and keep in mind the friend as well as the business 
 adviser. With best wishes and greetings of the 
 season, — Yours always, Bret Harte." 
 
 In this interesting letter he refers to the life- 
 like portrait by John Pettie, R.A., for which he 
 
 sat in 1885 : — 
 
 "March 6, 1893. 
 
 " My dear Watt, — I thoroughly sympathise with 
 your loving appreciation of John Pettie. I was 
 very thankful to sit to him, and stiU more thankful 
 that during that pleasant process he .sat to me 
 much more unconsciously — as a delightful study of 
 a strong, simple, wholesome, artistic nature. I 
 am afraid I bothered him a good deal with unac- 
 commodating features and evasive expression ; I 
 
 311 
 
LATER DAYS, LATER FRIENDS 
 
 felt a little criminal at times ; though I thoroughly 
 enjoyed — as a brother artist in another line — his 
 frank impatience and half-humorous rages when he 
 had any difficulty in realising his high ideals in 
 the subject before him. But he was always good- 
 humoured and infinitely painstaking. And I count 
 the hours I spent in the studio in Fitz - John's 
 Avenue among my pleasantest memories. 
 
 Even then I should have had more than my 
 due if his kindness had ended with the sittings, 
 the placing of the portrait in the E-oyal Academy 
 and its later exhibition in Berlin. But I was greatly 
 astonished, and I think very honestly touched, when 
 the picture, handsomely framed, came to me on the 
 following Christmas, as a free gift, with a few lines 
 from his generous hand. It was a characteristic 
 extravagance — the unthinking largesse of a true 
 artist — but I cannot look up at its masterful work- 
 manship now without feeling the presence of its 
 talented and generous creator quite as often as my 
 own. — Yours always, Bret Harte." 
 
 " BUCKENHAM HaLL, MuNDFORD, NoKFOLK, 
 
 '■^September 12, 1897. 
 
 "My dear Mr. Watt, — How can I thank 
 
 you sufficiently for your charming present of the 
 
 stick ! It came to me just as I had finished my 
 
 summer work on the Christmas story which I owe 
 
 to your contract, and I accept it in its most pleasant 
 
 significance. I cannot hope that it will ' prop up ' 
 
 312 
 
Frimleij Church. 
 
 ITo face p. 312. 
 
AND LATER WORK 
 
 any weak passages in my work, but it will always 
 remind me of your invaluable assistance as a practical 
 staiF to — Yours always, Bret Harte." 
 
 "74 Lancaster Gate, W., 
 '■^ Decemher 23, 1897. 
 
 "My dear Mr. Watt, — I am going to Caver- 
 sham, to my son's, for Christmas, and this must 
 excuse my somewhat premature greetings for the 
 season. 
 
 " I hope you will try to make a place on your 
 desk for my two little — (and too little) — silver gifts. 
 My countrymen have discovered a way of transmuting 
 silver to gold, I understand ; and I expect that 
 in the course of time these trifles will greatly ap- 
 preciate in value ! (I have great hopes of that 
 handsome silver cigar-case you once gave me !) But 
 whether they do or not, I have greater faith in 
 the touchstone of an old friendship transmuting 
 these little Christmas exchanges of ours into some- 
 thing that every year we hold of higher value. 
 
 " With sincere wishes for your Christmas cheer, 
 and prosperity in the New Year, — Believe me, 
 dear Mr. Watt, always yours, 
 
 Bret Harte." 
 
 Bret Harte thought much of the Christmas 
 season, and to the last kept up the " fond and 
 foolish" custom of sending generous presents to 
 his friends, and these were always accompanied 
 
 Z^2 
 
LATER DAYS, LATER FRIENDS 
 
 by humorous letters. In despatching to me a piece 
 of furniture for my rather overcrowded hbrary, he 
 wrote : — 
 
 " My dear Pemberton, — This must go into 
 that room of yours — even if you go out ! Yours 
 
 affectionately, Bret Harte." j 
 
 " 74 Lancaster Gate, W., ; 
 
 " July I, 1898. I 
 
 " Dear Mr. Watt, — It was very kind of you 1 
 
 to send me your congratulations respecting ' Sue,' | 
 
 as I had no idea you took any interest in such I 
 
 things — or I might have been tempted to send you '; 
 
 tickets for the matinee performance two weeks i 
 
 ago, at the risk of boring you ! However, I trust i 
 
 that the flattering reception which has been given j 
 
 to it will ensure its financial success — which perhaps i 
 
 is my only excuse for diverging from my beaten j 
 
 path of pure romance-writing, in which you have \ 
 
 always been as a welcome staff to my hand. Let j 
 
 us hope that ' Sue ' may offer a little rest and re- • 
 
 creation for us both, at the wayside. Yours always, 1 
 
 Bret Harte." 
 
 The next letter is characteristic of him and his I 
 
 kindly ways. On one of his visits to me he took an * 
 
 amused interest in certain collections of things — .j 
 
 animal, vegetable, and mineral — which my young \\ 
 
 folk had accumulated and called their " museum." \i 
 
 314 
 
AND LATER WORK 
 
 On his return to London he took the trouble to buy 
 from toy shops some weird-looking artificial concoc- 
 tions, and sent them to be added to the " curiosity 
 department " : — 
 
 " 74 Lancaster Gate, W., 
 "July s, 1895. 
 
 " My deab Mrs. Pemberton, — I am sending you 
 a particularly hideous Japanese ' hat-rack,' against 
 that halcyon day when I might again ' hang up my 
 hat' in your Worcestershire halls on some future 
 visit. It is, however, a real novelty, though I don't 
 know whether it isn't better fitted for the ' museum ' 
 than the hall. But it can go in a ' dark corner,' and 
 frighten ' Phenyl ' when that small dog is naughty. 
 
 " The other things are for the girls' ' museum,' 
 in which I took such a scientific interest. The 
 skeleton is of ' George Washington when a child,' 
 recovered at great expense from the ancestral vaults 
 of that little church in Worcestershire, whose name 
 I have forgotten, and you will kindly see that it is 
 labelled as such. Attention may be called to the 
 singular disproportion of the skull and the rest of 
 the bony structure, showing the extraordinary cere- 
 bral development of the great American, even at 
 that early age. The skeleton was undoubtedly taken 
 at the great ' cherry tree ' epoch of his history, and 
 a glance at the frontal angles of the head will show 
 the impossibility of his ' telling a lie,' or, indeed, any- 
 thing else, at that time. So the skeleton thus conveys 
 that moral which should underlie all scientific facts, 
 
 315 
 
LATER DAYS, LATER FRIENDS 
 
 and is especially suited for ' Museums ' for the Young 
 Person. 
 
 " The entomological specimens consist of ' Spotty- 
 bugiana,' a singular Japanese variety, and the Sky 
 Terrier Spider, which is supposed to have been the 
 one which ' frightened Miss Muffet away.' Examina- 
 tion of its abdominal structure shows it to have lived 
 exclusively upon ' curds and whey/ collected entirely 
 from children. These specimens are singularly rare 
 and unique, and are forwarded with the writer's 
 compliments to Madge. 
 
 " I am trying to get you ' By Killarney's Rocks 
 and Rills' (or words to that effect), and will duly 
 send it. I know there was something else I promised, 
 and I am sounding the dim, perilous depths of my j 
 memory for it. Perhaps, like Browning's Evelyn i 
 Hope, ' I shall wake, and remember, and understand,' , 
 some time. With kindest remembrances to all your 
 household, — Yours always sincerely, 
 
 Bret Harte." 
 
 In 1895 he went to Switzerland. He thoroughly | 
 
 enjoyed his holiday, and often talked of repeating j 
 
 it, but, as will be seen from this note, he would not 1 
 
 have the land of the Alps compared to his glorious i 
 
 California : — ; 
 
 "Hotel Byrne, Villeneuve, Switzerland. 
 
 " My dear Pemberton, — Just a line to say that | 
 
 the scenario of the second act arrived safely. I have 1 
 
 only glanced over it, and it seems quite right, but 
 
 316 
 
AND LATER WORK 
 
 I shall go over it more carefully in a day or two and 
 write you then. 
 
 " The weather here is lovely — almost too lovely 
 and luxurious to be bracing ; the views beautiful — 
 almost too beautiful, for the terraced lake from Yille- 
 neuve on to Territet, Montreux, and Vevey, with the 
 river and mountain background, are so unconsciously 
 like a picture, and nothing else, that you doubt it 
 all. So to ' brace ' myself and realise I went up to 
 Geneva by the ' lift ' railway, and thence to Caux, 
 and thence to the E-ochet, about 6000 feet, and came 
 back to dinner, but not ' braced,' and not entirely 
 convinced either. — Yours always, 
 
 Bret Harte. 
 
 '' P.S. — I wouldn't give a mile of the dear old 
 honest virgin Sierras for 10,000 kilometres of all 
 Switzerland ! " 
 
 He used to say afterwards that much as he revelled 
 in the Swiss air and sunshine the scenery always 
 reminded him of theatrical act-drops, and that it was 
 all so artistically composed that he could not believe 
 in it. All the ballet backgrounds, he declared, you 
 have ever seen in the theatre, exist there in reality ; 
 the views are pictures hanging on a wall, not views 
 at all. 
 
 To his valued friend Miss Chappell he wrote many 
 diverting letters, and some of them she very kindly 
 permits me to reproduce : — 
 
 317 
 
LATER DAYS, LATER FRIENDS 
 
 " 74 Lancaster Gate, W., 
 
 " Jirne 8, 1896. i 
 
 " Dear Miss Chappell, — I find, on referring to ; 
 
 your note, I promised that the momentous question j 
 
 you asked me was ' the difference between a motor | 
 
 carriage and a man who beats his wife ? ' I don't ! 
 
 know the answer, and I don't think I ever did. I 
 
 Koughly speaking, however, I should say that it i 
 
 was that the motor carriage has got rid of its brute, \ 
 
 but the poor woman hasn't got rid of hers ! But that j 
 
 is too obvious to be the real answer. I give it up. j 
 
 Ask me another. | 
 
 " I haven't read Fitzgerald's poem yet, but I will i 
 
 presently, and will then restore it, in its pretty cover, \ 
 to its fair owner. — Yours always, Bret Harte. 
 
 " P.S. — I used to know some cheerful, light-hearted i 
 Californian conundrums, but as they were quickly ; 
 solved, and the answers added greatly to the mortality j 
 of the district, I am afraid they are not suited to this i 
 effete civilisation. B. H." 
 
 I 
 "To Miss Chappell. i 
 
 " Arford House, Headley, Hants, 
 " 15?'/^ June 1896. 
 
 " Dear Miss Chappell, — I want to get a copy of 1 
 Schubert's Songs (piano and vocal score), containing j 
 Shakespeare's song from Cymbeline, ' Hark, hark, the , 
 Lark,' &c., ' Der Wanderer,' and " Wasserflake ' (?) I 
 have a vague recollection that these songs are all in 
 one collection in paper covers ; but I daren't expose 
 
 318 
 
AND LATER WORK 
 
 my ignorance to your uncle by writing to Bond Street 
 directly. I also want a copy of ' I don't want to play 
 in your yard ; ' and here again my pen shrinks from 
 ordering that unhallowed combination of Schubert 
 and the Music Halls. And I don't know that I've got 
 the title right ! 
 
 " But will you, please, make a memorandum of 
 what you think I mean, and what I ought to have ! 
 and give it to your uncle to hand to his clerks to 
 procure for me, and send to me at this address in the 
 regular way of business? It will be 60 good of 
 you. 
 
 " I merely passed through London coming here 
 yesterday, but I returned your Fitzgerald by post, I 
 hope safely, though in haste. It's a wonderful book. 
 I should like to know what you have thought of it, 
 and I thank you heartily for lending it to me. Yours 
 always, Bret Harte. 
 
 " P.S. — If Schubert has made the mistake of not 
 writing any of those German songs you can let me 
 know ! ! " 
 
 " To Miss Chappell. 
 
 " Arford House, Headley, Hants, 
 " 2jth June, 1896. 
 
 "Dear Miss Chappell, — Thank you, over and 
 over again, for your kind and intelligent despatch of 
 my little commissions. The Schubert collection is 
 exactly the one I wanted, and I have sent it off, with 
 
 3^9 
 
LATER DAYS, LATER FRIENDS 
 
 the other song (which, however, I really think you 
 would like). It's very naive and childlike, and 
 ' cunning,' as we say in America when we mean 
 ' artless,' and the air emphasises the words very 
 takingly. 
 
 " Now, my dear Frdulein Directorin of the Metzler 
 Gesellschaft, I would not only ' entertain ' your idea 
 of my writing some words for children's songs, but I 
 will give the idea ' lodging ' in my mind permanently. 
 It's a good idea. But I don't know yet that I am 
 the person to achieve it. But, oddly enough, I've 
 written some verses (not yet published, I think) 
 called ' What Miss Edith saw from her Window,' 
 which might suit, or at least which you might read, 
 and I have sent for a proof of them to forward to 
 you. At least you will see that my idea is to 
 portray a child's feelings, superstitions, and fancies 
 in its own simple language. And the real question 
 will be how this sort of thing can be metrically con- 
 veyed in musical rhythm. The verses I allude to 
 now are of the same sentiment and motive as the 
 other verses of ' Miss Edith,' which you may remem- 
 ber in the ' Poems,' but a much better metre, of four 
 alternate long and short lines to each verse, with the 
 regular refrain of, ' And that's what I see from my 
 window.' 
 
 " I have also an idea of a poem called ' I'm the 
 Girl at the Top of the Class,' with that refrain. But 
 all this w^e can talk of some other time, I only men- 
 tion it that you may understand that the idea has 
 
 320 
 
AND LATER WORK 
 
 already ' lodgment ' in my mind. But what that 
 mind is capable of nourishing and achieving is 
 another question ! — Yours always, 
 
 Bret Harte." 
 
 Those who are fortunate enough to possess Bret 
 Harte's volume entitled " Some Later Verses," will 
 know that " What Miss Edith saw from her Window " 
 is one of his daintiest conceits. 
 
 " To Miss Chappell. 
 
 "The Red House, Camberley, Surrey, 
 " June 24, 1 90 1. 
 
 " Dear Miss Chappell,— I am afraid it wouldn't 
 be possible for me to come down to ' Iver Lodge, Iver ' 
 (what a sweetly pretty name, the prettiest that iver 
 was !), for I am going to Warwickshire after leaving 
 here on the 27th. I might achieve Goring, though, 
 later, if I ' was good ' and worked hard ; and I shall 
 try to earn that pleasure. 
 
 " But, dear me ! how excessively ambulant you 
 are since you let your house ! What wild dissipation 
 of outings ! First, Iver Lodge, then Goring, and then 
 the Sea ! 
 
 " Your answer to the incomplete half- riddle was 
 
 very, very good ! It reminds me that the other day 
 
 in Lancaster Gate I met the Sultan of Morocco, who 
 
 begged me to ask you if you knew what was the 
 
 reason why the man who found Poker Flat, and 
 
 321 X 
 
LATER DAYS, LATER FRIENDS 
 
 therefore taught London Bridge and Water-Loo, why- 
 he nevertheless failed to make them successful players f 
 When I told him I would ask you, he then implored 
 me to inform you that the reason why was that none 
 of them had the ' Luck of Roaring Camp ' ! This 
 beautiful Oriental compliment to both of us touched 
 me deeply ! ! ! — Yours always sincerely, 
 
 Bret Harte." 
 
 In the late years of his life he made a hobby of 
 photography, and in his initial efforts he was often 
 helped by one of my daughters. The usual startling 
 amateur results constantly ensued, and the following 
 jocular letter suggests that, on at least one occasion, 
 I must have been sadly though unconsciously in the 
 way of the experimentalists, as they worked in the 
 hot sunshine of my old-world garden. 
 
 '* Arfoed House, Hbadley, Hants, 
 
 ^^ November 23, 1896. 
 
 " Dear Miss May, — Thank you so much for the 
 small indefinite pictures of me and the huge dis- 
 tinctive one of your father's foot. It may be a 
 foolish, human weakness, but I should have liked 
 (as the photos are small) to have had one plate 
 all to myself! But I am very thankful all the 
 same ! 
 
 " Do you keep a lot of small plates with his foot 
 
 in the corner — a sort of perpetual reminder, a kind 
 
 322 
 
AND LATER WORK 
 
 of ex pede Herculem, you know ? / don't mind, but 
 it must be very discomposing and ominous to the 
 average young man whom you may take ! 
 
 " Give my love to your mother and father, and 
 beUeve me — Yours always, Bret Harte." 
 
 Encouraging her to persevere, he wrote : — 
 
 "74 Lancaster Gate, W., Thursday. 
 
 " Dear Miss May, — I send you the two photo- 
 graphs I spoke of that you may see Boyd's Rembrandt 
 effect with the little Kodak ; also, in a separate parcel, 
 a magnesium light for photographing at night or on 
 a dark day. You must hold the magnesium light, 
 with its reflector, in your hand so as to throw the 
 light on any object (including your father's foot, of 
 course) or any part of the room you wish to show. 
 . . . You light the end of the little magnesium 
 ribbon that projects from the holder and ' play it 
 out' by the crank as you want it. A very little 
 will do for an instantaneous picture. 
 
 " I am told that some people light the ivhole of 
 the ribbon at once to get a stronger and more pro- 
 tracted light. But as this is always accompanied 
 by the sudden disappearance of the house and the 
 spectators and the operator, and the calling out of 
 the village fire-engine, perhaps you had better not 
 try it. Your parents might object. And, for a 
 young lady, it might seem somewhat ostentatious ! ! 
 . . . — Yours very sincerely, Bret Harte." 
 
 323 
 
LATER DAYS, LATER FRIENDS 
 
 "The Red House, Camberley, Surrey, 
 ^^ December 8, 1899. 
 
 " Dear Miss May, — The dovecot is finished and 
 ready for your pigeons, and if you will kindly send me 
 the pair you spoke of, ' The Red House ' will be de- 
 lighted. Don't give yourself any trouble, for I shall be 
 very glad to remit to you any disbursements you may 
 have to make to others to enable the birds to travel 
 comfortably, and as becomes their degree and con- 
 dition as former tenants of Pye Corner. If there 
 are any first-class pigeon tickets, take 'em ! I should 
 not like them to mix with any ' tumblers ' or vulgar 
 acrobatic foivls travelling ' on tour.' 
 
 " Let me know when they leave and when they 
 may be expected, and they shall be looked after at 
 Camberley station. 
 
 " I am here trying to get rid of a nasty cold 
 which I set up in London after leaving Broadway. 
 But the fog and gloom have followed me even to 
 this Surrey hillside ! But I shall see that the 
 pigeons are safely housed, unless — horrible thought ! 
 — they should turn out to be carrier pigeons and 
 calmly return to you. In which case I shall send 
 all sorts of abusive messages stuck all over their 
 wings ! 
 
 " With love to all at Pye Corner. — Yours very 
 sincerely, Bret Harte." 
 
 324 
 
AND LATER WORK 
 
 " 74 Lancaster Gate, W., March 17, 1899. 
 
 " Dear Miss May, — Many thanks for the hand- 
 some typewritten copy of ' Sue ' which your father 
 had promised you should do for me. 
 
 " Were you not alarmed at the ' prompt ' direc- 
 tions, especially those cabalistic fractions about the 
 ' h, \ ' lights ? The ' blue in bunches ' and the ' whites 
 slowly out ' are dreadfully creepy ! 
 
 " By the way, have you photographed with your 
 magnesium light ? I have bought one just like yours, 
 but have not tried it yet. You might give me a hint 
 if you have used yours. 
 
 " I hope you have good news of your wandering 
 parents in the North. Are they still ' on tour ' ? I 
 am expecting to hear from your father in a day or 
 two. I would have written to him, but I have 
 been quite laid up with neuralgia. — Yours always 
 sincerely, Bret Harte." 
 
 "74 Lancaster Gate, W., December 28, 1899. 
 
 " Dear Miss May, — I have just heard from ' The 
 Bed House,' Camberley, that one of the male pigeons 
 managed to squeeze himself through the wires while in 
 temporary confinement and escaped, leaving his mate 
 disconsolate. He is said to have lingered for some 
 fifteen minutes over the place, in jeering or regretful 
 contemplation of the others, and then apparently 
 
LATER DAYS, LATER FRIENDS 
 
 steered his course to Worcestershire, and finally, Pye 
 Corner. 
 
 " Will you kindly keep a lookout at your own 
 dovecot for the deserter ? You may be able to bring 
 comfort to his abandoned mate and joy to the sor- 
 rowing household at the Red House ; but I have 
 my doubts ! It had the look of a premeditated de- 
 sertion ! — Yours always sincerely, 
 
 Bret Harte. 
 
 " P.S. — If he should be so unprincipled a bird 
 as to make his appearance at Pye Corner with 
 another' mate, hoping you would not detect the dif- 
 ference, don't be deceived ! The real victim is here. 
 
 B. H." 
 
 To a lady who greatly admired his works and 
 who frequently wrote to him about them, he always 
 replied at length. Indeed, as will be seen, he con- 
 sulted her about books that he wanted to read. It 
 was a curious episode in his experiences, for he and 
 his gentle correspondent never met. 
 
 " To Miss Jackson. 
 
 " AvBRLEY Tower, Farnham, Surrey, 
 ^^ September 6, 1898. 
 
 " Dear Miss Jackson, — Your wonderful sym- 
 pathy with rare books, and, perhaps more than all, 
 your tireless good-nature to me, prompts me to ask 
 
 you a real favour. 
 
 326 
 
AND LATER WORK 
 
 " I want to get a copy of Cobbett's ' Rural Rides.' 
 I don't think Quaritch could help me as the book 
 would seem to him vulgarly new, having been pub- 
 lished in the earlier part of this century, and I should 
 shrink from shocking the noble spirit of B. Q., and 
 incurring a rebuff like that administered to Lord 
 Ashburnham, I know Cobbett only vaguely, as a 
 Reference of some kind, but he has written some 
 descriptions of this locality — a locality which I have 
 now known for three years as the most rural part 
 of England — and I am told he has recorded his 
 knowledge in the ' Rural Rides.' I have been de- 
 pendent upon my ' White's Selborne ' for my infor- 
 mation hitherto, but even that charming book does 
 not entirely satisfy my cravings. 
 
 " Perhaps it may be in that wonderful library of 
 yours from which you dip out such prizes between 
 your fingers. Perhaps you may know to whom I 
 may apply for it. I have no knowledge of its size or 
 value. I should like to purchase it, or, if necessary, 
 borrow it ; while I might shrink, at first, from lar- 
 cenous abstraction of it, or the necessary effacement 
 of its owner, I can conceive of circumstances in which 
 either of these suicide acts, or indeed hoth of them, 
 might be consistent and justifiable. Far be it from 
 me, however, to recommend such a course to any 
 young lady who might not bring to the process 
 that swiftness of locomotion or dexterity of arm 
 necessary to its fullest execution — but I should ask 
 no questions ! 
 
 327 
 
LATER DAYS, LATER FRIENDS 
 
 " If you had driven — as I did yesterday — over 
 thirty-six miles of deUciously rural solitude, under 
 a sun that has at last warmed up all England so 
 that the balm of heather and pine absolutely quivered 
 in the dazzling light of the moor ; or dived into the 
 shadows of ' Alice Holt ' wood, which I think Shake- 
 speare had in his mind when he drew the ' Forest of 
 Arden,' then you would understand how I long for 
 some information of what I saw. However, you 
 have only your own good-nature to thank for my 
 troubling you in this way so soon again. — Yours 
 always sincerely, Bket Harte." 
 
 " To Miss Jackson. 
 
 " AvERLEY Tower, Farnham, Surrey, 
 ''Oct. 6, 1893. 
 
 " Dear Miss Jackson, — I have just sent you, 
 by parcel post, your big book on Surrey, with many, 
 many thanks for the loan of it. I was loth to part 
 with it, but it was rather large for my desk table 
 here, and I did not dare to trust it out of my 
 sight. 
 
 " I have kept the ' Rural Rides,' as you probably 
 
 hnoiv, but I will confess to you that I loathe it — 
 
 which you dont know ! I got it solely as a protection 
 
 from an acquaintance, who, whenever I asked for 
 
 information regarding localities in this district always 
 
 looked at me compassionately, and said, ' Ah, you 
 
 should read Cobbett's " Rural Rides," — wonderful 
 
 man ! — has ridden all over this district.' That is 
 
 328 
 
lo £ ^- 
 
AND LATER WORK 
 
 how I got landed among ' Swedes ' and political 
 meetings in low ' pot-houses,' and dissertations upon 
 ' paper money,' and the number of bushels of corn 
 per case — and, worst of all, abuse of my pet tree — 
 the pine ! under the title of ' beggarly firs ' ! But 
 I have ' crammed ' myself out of it with things I 
 don't want to know, just to revenge myself on my 
 acquaintance (who I shrewdly suspect never read the 
 book), and be able to meet him with uninteresting 
 facts. 
 
 " I should have told you this before, but I have 
 been laid by the heels here with a horrible complaint 
 called ' lumbago,' which prevents my standing upright 
 before the meanest of my species, and makes me 
 go doddering round from room to room like the old 
 stage peasant who is visiting the scenes of his child- 
 hood, and twinges me as I bend over my desk. But 
 if I don't enjoy the ' Bural Bides ' for itself, I enjoy 
 the revenge it gives me, and I thank you heartily 
 for helping me to it. — Yours very sincerely, 
 
 Bret Harte." 
 "To Miss Jackson. 
 
 " The Red House, Camberley, Surrey, 
 '^ April 6, 1899. 
 
 " Dear Miss Jackson, — I was kept in town, 
 and so spent the usual empty London Easter Holiday, 
 while it might have been greatly relieved by your 
 pleasant Easter offerings, which, however, I did not 
 find until I arrived here yesterday. So I had them 
 awaiting me with the daffodils and the sunshine. 
 
 329 
 
LATER DAYS, LATER FRIENDS 
 
 " I must confess to you that while I shall read 
 and value the ' Holy War,' I never, as a boy, was 
 able to take John Bunyan seriously. The ' Pilgrim's 
 Progress ' affected me very much in the same way 
 as the converted Africans or Indians who were intro- 
 duced to me at Sunday School by their missionary 
 showmen, and who talked ' baboon ' or ' pigeon ' 
 English. I don't think that I, or any other bad 
 boy, was ever convinced by personified Vices or 
 Virtues, or even regarded them as anything but 
 amusing wax figures. I know I used to roar with 
 laughter over ' Mr. Facing-both-ways ' and ' Mr. By- 
 Ends,' to the great detriment of my spiritual educa- 
 tion. It seemed to me an insult to my intelligence 
 — you know how sensitive a boy's intelligence is — and 
 how so many good, moral people persistently overlook 
 it, and make their young friends regard them as 
 unbounded liars ! — and I would have none of it. 
 When will people learn that Allegory is a dissipation 
 ,3 for the mature intellect, and not to be given to babes 
 and sucklings ? 
 
 " I am afraid that John Bunyan became to me a 
 kind of antiquated ' Stiggins.' 
 
 " But this is not pretty Easter talk, and I don't 
 know how I dropped into it, with all this sunshine 
 about me on the Surrey hills. I only intended to 
 thank you most sincerely for your charming gifts. 
 — Yours always sincerely, Bret Harte." 
 
 In the next letter he refers to a visit to my 
 
 330 
 
AND LATER WORK 
 
 home. How well I remember walking with him 
 and interrupting his conversation to beg him to look 
 at that red-berried and frost-bedizened holly bush. 
 Little did I think then how minutely and beauti- 
 fully he meant to describe it. Indeed at the 
 time he seemed to take little or no notice of it, 
 and asked me laughingly if that was one of the 
 " great sights " of a Cotswold village. In this way 
 he (unknown to others) observed things, and from 
 them limned delicate cabinet pictures. 
 
 " To Miss Jackson. 
 
 " 74 Lancaster Gate, W., 
 "Nov. 25, 1899. 
 
 "Dear Miss Jackson, — I know you are long- 
 suffering and forgiving, and I suppose that is the 
 reason why I impose on your kindness, and haven't 
 answered your last letter before. To simply say I 
 have been very busy, and twice very far from London, 
 since I received it, is some sort of explanation, but no 
 excuse, so I throw myself on your mercy. 
 
 " I may not talk about the beautiful flowers you 
 sent me, but I enjoyed them all the same. And I may 
 tell you that in connection with them, and other things 
 ' that pretty bin,' I thought how you would have 
 enjoyed a charming Christmas card I saw the other 
 morning — painted freshly by Nature. It was a 
 frosty morning in Worcestershire (a sudden drop of 
 the thermometer in the night to eight degrees of 
 frost) — a bush of broad-leaved holly which stood by 
 
 331 
 
LATER DAYS, LATER FRIENDS 
 
 the wall of an old house, and was already brilliant 
 with its berries, had each leaf exquisitely frosted at 
 its outer edge, as if trimmed with delicate white lace. 
 The shining green of the leaf itself was undisturbed — 
 only the spiny edges were touched with the rime, and 
 each leaf was in itself a marvel of symmetrical out- 
 lining. The stone-wall background was of that 
 neutral tint which old stone takes on through age 
 and weather in that district, and which is a little 
 apt to make all colour glaring by too great relief, 
 but it was wonderful how the red berries were brought 
 into perfect harmony with the wall and the leaf by 
 this one graceful touch of frost. I was wrong to say 
 it was like lace, nor would silver describe it, for it had 
 the faintest sparkle of crystal in its dead white colour. 
 It made a picture where it stood, while it made the 
 whole foggy, india-ink-washed landscape gracious. 
 
 " I ought to say that it kept me from writing to 
 you ; but it didn't, and I scorn the excuse. But I 
 know you would have forgiven me if you could have 
 seen it ; it was impossible to be anything but good in 
 its presence, and perhaps my telling you about it may 
 do something to condone the negligence of, yours very 
 sincerely, Bret Harte." 
 
 "To Miss Jackson. 
 
 " 74 Lancaster Gate, W., 
 " April 2, 1900. 
 
 "Dear Miss Jackson, — I will not say that I 
 sacredly promised my mother that I would never, never 
 
AND LATER WORK 
 
 send a post-card to a lady, for post-cards weren't 
 invented in her day, and perhaps she knew the folly 
 of asking me to promise anything, and I don't think 
 you'd believe in me anyway, but I ivill say that I 
 have never sent one, and should as soon think of 
 shouting to you in the street as of taking the General 
 Post-office into my confidence with you. Wherefore 
 have I placed your very pretty blue card with its 
 complemental pink stamp on my shelf with your books, 
 where it shall remain pure and undefiled, while I take 
 my usual white sheet of note-paper to convey to you 
 that my address will be here until Thursday, and 
 afterwards at the Ked House, Camberley, for a few 
 weeks. 
 
 " Now you will please forgive me for again break- 
 ing your rules and express commands in my usual 
 selfish way, and let me thank you in advance for the 
 violets, though I don't deserve 'em, I know. — Yours 
 always sincerely, Bret Harte." 
 
 He was very fond of his comparison between the 
 man who sent him a post-card, and the man who would 
 offend him by shouting at him across a street, though 
 I think the shouting existed only in his fertile imagina- 
 tion. But he made me give up sending him that 
 convenient form of message. Everything that left 
 his desk had to be finished in a way that satisfied 
 him, and he expected others to take the same pains 
 with their correspondence. 
 
 It was so with everything he undertook. When 
 
LATER DAYS, LATER FRIENDS 
 
 the proprietors of Munsey's Magazine asked him to 
 write an article on his favourite novehst and his best 
 book, he explained in the most elaborate way why- 
 Alexandre Dumas's famous romance of " Monte Cristo " 
 — \was the novel he placed first, and showed very clearly 
 the reasons for its hold upon the readers of three 
 generations. When the editor of The Idler requested 
 a confession concerning his first book, he responded in 
 no perfunctory or egotistical way but wrote a really 
 amusing article explaining his "first book" was not 
 his own but a volume of Californian Verse that under 
 the most extraordinary and troubled conditions he col- 
 lected and edited for others. A perfect epitome of 
 the wise, witty, and tender sayings he scattered broad- 
 cast through his works is to be found in the "Bret 
 Harte Birthday Book," carefully and very tastefully 
 compiled by Madame Van de Velde. 
 
 During the later years of his life he manifestly 
 sought retirement. Society saw little of him ; and to 
 clubland he was almost lost. The Beefsteak, the 
 Babelais, the Kinsmen, and other unique coteries 
 missed his welcome presence and clever talk. Indeed 
 the Boyal Thames Yacht Club, of which he was a 
 member, became his favourite resort when he wanted 
 any distraction from his own home. This selection 
 seemed to me so odd — for he had no love of yachting — 
 that I questioned him concerning it. " Why, my 
 dear fellow," he said, " don't you see ? I never use 
 a club until I am tired of my work and want relief 
 from it. If I go to a literary club I am asked 
 
 334 
 
AND LATER WORK 
 
 all sorts of questions as to what I am doing, and 
 my views on somebody's last book, and to these 
 I am expected to reply at length. Now my good 
 friends in Albemarle Street talk of their yachts, 
 don't want my advice about them, are good enough 
 to let me listen, and I come away refreshed by their 
 conversation." 
 
 But to his old and close friends he was ever the 
 same fascinating, affectionate, and lovable comrade. 
 It is good now to think of the pleasant peaceful days 
 he enjoyed in his favourite English counties. At 
 the pretty village of Headley in Hampshire, and at 
 Camberley in Surrey, he spent happy summers delight- 
 ing in his surroundings, and declaring that the spice- 
 scents of the pine trees that crested the hills carried 
 him back to early Californian days. 
 
 To be with him in the country was no ordinary 
 treat. In all its aspects he loved nature, and, though 
 he held quaint theories about them, he had a winsome 
 love for dumb animals. 
 
 " Just look at that," he said to me as in a country 
 lane we saw a donkey absolutely and hopelessly 
 declining to drag a small load up a slight hill ; " they 
 say a donkey is the prototype of a fool, but I tell you 
 he has more common-sense than any animal I know. 
 That donkey really knows what he wants, and he is 
 going to have his own wayT And he did ! " Now," 
 he said, continuing the talk, " the horse is always de- 
 scribed as a noble animal. Compare him with his 
 humble friend the donkey, and he is an idiot. He 
 
LATER DAYS, LATER FRIENDS 
 
 has ten times his strength, and more than ten times 
 the strength of a man, and yet he allows himself to 
 be saddled and harnessed, bitted and spurred, ridden 
 and driven, lashed and exhausted, until he becomes 
 a mere bundle of trembling sweating nerves. I take 
 off my hat to the self- insisting and determined 
 donkey." I regret to say that, continuing the argu- 
 ment, he said laughingly, " If you come to think of it 
 my appreciation of the donkey race is not misplaced. 
 Are they not like the enduring yet self-willed women 
 of our creation, while we poor harassed men are like 
 those imbecile neurotic horses? I wonder whether 
 you and I are ' noble animals ' ? I wonder if the 
 horse likes to think he's called that way ? I wonder 
 if the donkey plumes itself on the complete success of 
 its alleged folly ? " 
 
 He was very fond of dogs, and used to say 
 they appealed to him because of " their pathetic 
 and evident consciousness of their own uselessness." 
 Bird-life had a great charm for him, and he was 
 always happy when he chatted with Mr. J. E. 
 Harting, whose "Ornithology of Shakespeare" was 
 one of his pet handbooks. 
 
 But he incessantly worked, and I think he en- 
 joyed writing that second series of " Condensed 
 Novels" which, in their collected form, were 
 published after his death, and received with a 
 chorus of praise. At the time he was conscious of 
 failing health, but he wrote these delightful parodies 
 in hearty spirits, and in his truest vein of fun. It 
 
 33^ 
 
AND LATER WORKS 
 
 is curious that he should have brought his hterary 
 career to a close by triumphantly repeating one 
 of his earliest successes. And yet as we laugh over 
 these clever pages we understand what poor Tom 
 Robertson, the dramatist, felt when he , wrote of 
 his dead friend Artemus Ward, one of the first 
 American humorists to make a name on these 
 shores : — " It seems so strange that the hand that 
 traced the jokes should be cold, that the tongue 
 that trolled out the good things should be silent ; 
 that the jokes and the good things should remain, 
 and the man who made them should be gone for 
 ever." 
 
 337 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 "CROSSING THE BAR" 
 
 Although we all knew that he was more or less 
 ailing, it was not until the early months of 1902 
 that the condition of Bret Harte's health caused 
 serious anxiety to his friends. Hoping to benefit 
 by fresh air and sunshine he went to stay with 
 his ever sympathetic friend, Madame Van de Velde, 
 ^3 at Camberley. But it was a cold, sunless, and dis- 
 appointing spring, and the ordinary charms of his 
 well-loved Surrey were denied to him. Work became 
 more and more difficult to him, but he could still 
 be jocular even about his health torments. He and 
 I were once more engaged on a play, and no one 
 would think from the letters he constantly wrote 
 me that he was either in pain or in doubt about 
 himself 
 
 In March he submitted to an operation for the 
 throat trouble that was at the root of his ever 
 increasing illness, but even after the pain and the 
 misery of it he wrote to me (inter alia) — " Tell 
 your medical student son that the operation and 
 the instrument were so fascinating that they de- 
 lighted even the victim ! " 
 
 But the operation only served to stave off an 
 
 33^ 
 
"CROSSING THE BAR " 
 
 inevitable end, and in spite of his affected high 
 spirits, I think he knew it. 
 
 And yet, notwithstanding the depression that 
 must now have ahnost crushed him, and the pain 
 from which he undoubtedly suffered, he still tried 
 to write. He had been greatly pleased by the 
 reception given to one of his most recent stories, 
 in which his old friend Colonel Starbottle figures 
 at his very best, and in response to an earnest 
 and gratifying request he resolved to show that 
 redoubtable creature in a new light. 
 
 On April 17th, saying he felt better, he sat 
 down to his desk to write his new tale. Com- 
 mencing in his usual painstaking way, and re- 
 jecting one beginning for another, he composed the 
 lines that I now reproduce in facsimile on the next 
 page. It was the last, and, alas ! the shortest 
 of his " short stories." He never did any more. 
 Nothing more — except to write occasional letters 
 to his friends. I have a note from him bearing 
 later date in which, after touching on other matters, 
 he spoke with infinite good-humour and yet rather 
 plaintively of his health troubles. 
 
 To the last he was kindly — and that is only 
 to say, like himself One of the horrors of his 
 existence was the omnipresent autograph hunter. 
 For a young lady of my household, to whom he could 
 not well say no, he signed his name in her trouble- 
 some friend's still more troublesome birthday book, 
 saying, " Tell that young woman I hate, loathe, 
 
 339 
 
"CROSSING THE BAR" 
 
 and despise her." It was in his failing hours that 
 a letter came making a somewhat similar request 
 
 ^J^from a member of President Koosevelt's family. 
 At the moment he condemned it, with the scores 
 of such applications he received, to the wastepaper 
 basket, and then he said — " No ! that may be from 
 a child. I'll send my signature." 
 
 On May 5 th, with terrible and unexpected 
 rapidity, the sad end came. By the expert doctors 
 who attended him it had not been wholly unfore- 
 seen ; but for those who were with him at the time 
 it was beyond all description distressing. He had 
 risen at his usual hour, and there was nothing in 
 his appearance or manner to indicate that the end 
 was so near. He was sitting at his writing-table 
 when an alarming attack of hemorrhage gave the 
 sad warning note. He went to his bedroom, and 
 medical aid was quickly at hand. Although much 
 weakened he rallied, and it was not until late in 
 the afternoon that a second attack rendered him 
 partially unconscious, and he passed peacefully 
 away in the presence of his dear friend Madame 
 
 — ^Van de Yelde and her attendants. 
 
 In accordance with his well-known views on such 
 subjects the funeral was a very simple one. Among 
 the few who followed him to his ivy-lined grave were 
 Mrs. Bret Harte, his son and daughter-in-law, Mr. and \ 
 f Mrs. Francis King Harte, his daughter, Miss Ethel i 
 ) Harte, Madame Van de Velde, Colonel Collins, Mr. A. S.( 
 
 V 
 
 Boyd, and a small cluster of grief-stricken friends. 
 
 340 
 
"CROSSING THE BAR" 
 
 And so he lies in quiet Frimley churchyard, 
 within sound of the rustHng pine-trees, and in the 
 heart of a country he knew and loved well. His 
 quiet graveside has already drawn many pilgrims, 
 and it may confidently be predicted that as the years 
 roll by their number will increase. 
 
 Of the universal sorrow with which the news of 
 his death was received I need not speak, though from 
 one or two letters it seems only right that I should 
 quote. 
 
 Miss Mary C Froude said : — 
 
 " His friends all loved him. I loved him very 
 much, and greatly because he was such a true friend 
 of my father's. He was also more than kind to me, 
 and I always reverenced his high-minded generous 
 self, and his utter aloofness from aught mean or nasty, 
 for all that he was a man of the world, and knew life 
 under all aspects." 
 
 The Marquis of Northampton wrote : — 
 
 " I cannot in words say how sad I am and how 
 terribly I feel the loss of my good friend. I not 
 only loved him, but I respected him and long to let 
 the world know what he really was — very human but 
 with such noble intentions and feelings. He always 
 did me good, and I shall miss him much." 
 
 Among the obituary notices that deeply touched 
 his English friends were those signed by Mr. Theodore 
 Watts-Dunton, Mr. Richard Le Gallienne, Mr. G. B. 
 Burgin, Mr. G. K. Chesterton, and, from over the 
 seas, by Mr. Noah Brooks and Mr. Joaquin Miller. 
 
 341 
 
'CROSSING THE BAR" 
 
 When it was known that I had undertaken this 
 work I had many kindly letters from his distinguished 
 friends in America. 
 
 Colonel John Hay wrote : — 
 
 " I shall look forward with much pleasurable 
 anticipation to reading your life of our dear friend, 
 who will always be one of the most attractive and 
 charming figures of the nineteenth century. . . . 
 Bret Harte was one of my dear and honoured friends. 
 His gentle and amiable personality endeared him to 
 all who were admitted to the privilege of his intimacy ; 
 his great achievements in literature made his fame a 
 substantial national possession. My attachment to 
 him as a friend, my pride in him as a great American, 
 alike make it impossible for me to write about him in 
 the hurry which is my fate." 
 
 " I am glad," said my kind friend Mr. William 
 Winter, " that you will write the Life of Bret Harte. 
 I knew how you would feel about his death. We 
 have lost the Prince of our profession, the representa- 
 tive man of letters. His genius was no less original 
 than fine ; he was a master at once of pathos and 
 humour ; and his sense of character was extraordinary. 
 He drew from life, but he was an artist, not a copyist. 
 Within his peculiar field he was as distinctive as 
 Edgar Poe, and within that field he had no 
 rival." 
 
 And Mr. Charles Warren Stoddard, to whom I 
 owe much, said : — 
 
 " I shall be glad to have my name associated with 
 
 342 
 
\ 
 

\t 
 
 M* 
 
 
 
CKOSSING THE BAR'' 
 
 his in your book, for he made me what I am, and I 
 owe all to him." 
 
 A French appreciation of him from the gifted pen 
 ot Madame Marie Anne de Bovet (the Marquise de 
 Boishebert) is soon to appear. The lady knew him 
 well, and has the highest admiration for his genius. 
 
 It is easier to begin than to finish a book in which 
 each line is written under the consciousness of a deep 
 personal sorrow. As he approaches the conclusion of 
 his task, the anxious writer must ask himself if he has 
 done even scant justice to a subject very near his 
 heart. As far as in me lies I have endeavoured, 
 through his stories, and all that in happy hours he 
 told me about them and his experiences, to let Bret 
 Harte tell the history of his life, and in his own 
 eloquent words, rather than my halting ones, I will 
 end. 
 
 He left on record the motives that inspired his 
 work, and he was never more earnest than when 
 defending himself he wrote : — 
 
 " He has been repeatedly cautioned, kindly and 
 unkindly, intelligently and unintelligently, against 
 his alleged tendency to confuse recognised standards 
 of morality by extenuating lives of recklessness, and 
 often criminality, with a single solitary virtue. He 
 might easily show that he has never written a sermon, 
 that he has never moralised or commented upon the 
 actions of his heroes, that he has never voiced a creed 
 or obtrusively demonstrated an ethical opinion. He 
 might easily allege that this merciful effect of his art 
 
 343 
 
"CROSSING THE BAR " 
 
 arose from the reader's weak human sympathies, and 
 holds himself irresponsible. But he would be conscious 
 of a more miserable weakness in thus divorcing himself 
 from his fellowmen who in the domain of art must ever 
 walk hand-in-hand with him. So he prefers to say that 
 of all the various forms in which Cant presents itself 
 to suffering humanity, he knows of none so outrageous, 
 so illogical, so undemonstrable, so marvellously absurd 
 as the Cant of ' Too Much Mercy.' When it shall be 
 proven to him that communities are degraded and 
 brought to guilt and crime, suffering or destitution, 
 from a predominance of this quality ; when he shall 
 see pardoned ticket- of-leave men elbowing men of 
 austere lives out of situation and position, and the 
 repentant Magdalen supplanting the blameless virgin 
 in society, then he will lay aside his pen and extend 
 his hand to the new Draconian discipline in fiction. 
 But until then he will, without claiming to be a 
 religious man or a moralist, but simply as an artist, 
 reverently and humbly conform to the rules laid down 
 by a Great Poet, who created the parable of the 
 ' Prodigal Son ' and the ' Good Samaritan ' — whose 
 works have lasted eighteen hundred years, and will 
 remain when the present writer and his generation 
 are forgotten. And he is conscious of uttering no 
 original doctrine in this, but of only voicing the 
 beliefs of a few of his literary brethren happily living, 
 and one gloriously dead, who never made proclamation 
 of this ' from the housetops.' " 
 
 The last time Bret Harte stayed in my house he 
 
 344 
 
"CROSSING THE BAR" 
 
 left one of his penholders on my desk, " to use when 
 he came again." With a sad heart I take it up now to 
 copy his beautiful verses " On a Pen of Thomas Starr 
 King." When he wrote them, nearly forty years 
 ago, he little thought how wonderfully they would 
 apply to himself when he, too, had "crossed the bar." 
 
 " This is the reed the dead musician dropped, 
 
 With tuneful magic in its sheath still hidden ; 
 The prompt allegro of its music stopped, 
 Its melodies unbidden. 
 
 But who shall finish the unfinished strain, 
 Or wake the instrument to awe or wonder, 
 
 And bid the slender barrel breathe again, 
 An organ-pipe of thunder ! 
 
 His pen ! what humbler memories cling about 
 
 Its golden curves ! What shapes and laughing graces 
 
 Slipped from its point, when his full heart went out 
 In smiles and courtly phrases ? 
 
 The truth, half jesting, half in earnest flung ; 
 
 The word of cheer with recognition in it ; 
 The note of alms, whose golden speech outrung 
 
 The golden gift within it. 
 
 But all in vain the enchanter's wand we wave : 
 No stroke of ours recalls his magic vision : 
 
 The incantation that its power gave 
 Sleeps with the dead magician." 
 
 345 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHY 
 
 Setting far less value on his works than that accorded to them 
 by his readers, Bret Harte kept no record of them, and I have 
 therefore found it impossible to add dates to the great majority of 
 those here enumerated. Probably there are some items that he had 
 forgotten, but when, at his wish, I (a few years ago) wrote out the 
 greater part of the list, he told me he believed it to be exhaustive. 
 There are several other plays that he wrote in collaboration with me, 
 but as these have so far been neither produced nor published, I have 
 not included them. 
 
 I regret that I am unable to give the names of his American 
 publishers, or, with a few exceptions, the dates when his poems and 
 stories first appeared in his own country. 
 
 T. Edgar Pemberton. 
 
 POEMS AND DRAMA 
 
 NATIONAL POEMS 
 
 John Burns of Gettysburg. 
 
 " How are you, Sanitary? " 
 
 Battle Bunny (Malvern Hill, 
 1864). 
 
 The Reveille. 
 
 Our Privilege. 
 
 Relieving Guard (T. S. K., obit. 
 4th March 1864). 
 
 The Goddess. 
 
 On a Pen of Thomas Starr King. 
 
 A Second Review of the Grand 
 Army. 
 
 The Copperhead (1864). 
 
 A Sanitary Message. 
 
 The Old Major Explains (Re- 
 union, Army of the Potomac, 
 12th May 187 1 ). 
 
 California's Greeting to Seward 
 (1869). 
 
 The Aged Stranger. 
 
 The Idyl of Battle Hollow (War 
 of the Rebellion, 1864). 
 
 Caldwell of Springfield (New 
 Jersey, 1780). 
 
 Poem (Delivered on the Fourteenth 
 Anniversary of California's Ad- 
 mission into the Union, 9th 
 September 1864). 
 
 Miss Blanche Says. 
 
 An Arctic Vision. 
 
 St. Thomas (A Geographical Sur- 
 vey, 1868). 
 
 OfiF Scarborough (September 
 1779)- 
 
 346 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHY 
 
 SPANISH IDYLS AND LEGENDS 
 
 The Miracle of Padre Junipero. 
 
 The Wonderful Spring of San 
 Joaquin. 
 
 The Angelus (Heard at the Mis- 
 sion Dolores, 1868), 
 
 Concepcion de Arguello (Presidio 
 de San Francisco, 1800). 
 
 " For the King " (Northern 
 Mexico, 1640). 
 
 Ramon. 
 
 Don Diego of the South (Re- 
 fectory, Mission San Gabriel, 
 1869). 
 
 At the Hacienda. 
 
 Friar Pedro's Ride. 
 
 In the Mission Garden (1865). 
 
 The Lost Galleon, 
 
 POEMS IN DIALECT 
 
 " Jim." 
 Chiquita. 
 
 Dow's Flat (1856). 
 In the Tunnel. 
 " Cicely." 
 
 Penelope (Simpson's Bar, 1858). 
 Plain Language from Truthful 
 James (Table Mountain, 1870). 
 The Society upon the Stanislaus. 
 Luke (in the Colorado Park, 
 
 1873)- 
 " The Babes in the Wood " (Big 
 
 Pine Flat, 187 1). 
 The Latest Chinese Outrage. 
 Truthful James to the Editor 
 
 (Yreka, 1873). 
 
 An Idyl of the Road (Sierras, 
 
 1876). 
 Thompson of Angel's. 
 The Hawk's Nest. 
 Her Letter. 
 
 His Answer to " Her Letter." 
 The Return of Belisarius (Mud 
 
 Flat, i860). 
 Further Language from Truthful 
 
 James (Nye's Ford, Stanislaus, 
 
 1870). 
 After the Accident. 
 The Ghost that Jim Saw. 
 " Seventy-Nine." 
 The Stage-Driver's Story. 
 
 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS 
 
 A Greyport Legend (1797). 
 
 A Newport Romance. 
 
 San Francisco (From the Sea). 
 
 The Mountain Heart's-Ease. 
 
 Grizzly. 
 
 Madrono. 
 
 Coyote. 
 
 To a Sea Bird (Santa Cruz, 
 
 1869). 
 What the Chimney Sang. 
 Dickens in Camp. 
 "Twenty Years." 
 
 347 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHY 
 
 MISCELLANEOUS FO^US— continued 
 
 Fate. 
 
 Grandmother Tenderden (Massa- 
 chusetts Shore, 1800). 
 
 Guild's Signal. 
 
 Aspiring Miss De Laine (A 
 Chemical Narrative). 
 
 A Legend of Cologne. 
 
 The Tale of a Pony. 
 
 On a Cone of the Big Trees. 
 
 Lone Mountain (Cemetery, San 
 Francisco). 
 
 Alnaschar. 
 
 The Two Ships. 
 
 Address (Delivered at the Open- 
 ing of the California Theatre, 
 San Francisco, 19th January 
 1870). 
 
 Dolly Varden, 
 
 Telemachus versus Mentor. 
 
 What the Wolf really said to 
 Little Red-Riding Hood. 
 
 Half-an-Hour Before Supper. 
 
 What the Bullet Sang. 
 
 Cadet Grey. 
 
 PARODIES, &c. 
 
 Before the Curtain. 
 
 To the Pliocene Skull (A Geo- 
 logical Address). 
 
 The Ballad of Mr. Cook (A Legend 
 of the Cliff House, San Fran- 
 cisco). 
 
 The Ballad of the Emeu. 
 
 Mrs. Judge Jenkins (Being the 
 only genuine Sequel to Maud 
 MuUer). 
 
 A Geological Madrigal. 
 
 Avitor (An Aerial Retro- 
 spect). 
 
 The Willows (After Edgar Allan 
 Poe). 
 
 North Beach (After Spenser). 
 
 The Lost Tails of Miletus. 
 
 The Ritualist (By a Communi- 
 cant of St. James's). 
 
 A Moral Vindicator. 
 
 California Madrigal (On the Ap- 
 proach of Spring). 
 
 What the Engines Said (Opening 
 of the Pacific Railroad). 
 
 The Legends of the Rhine. 
 
 Songs without Sense. 
 
 LITTLE POSTERITY 
 
 Master Johnny's Next - Door 
 
 Neighbour. 
 Miss Edith's Modest Request. 
 Miss Edith Makes it Pleasant 
 
 for Brother Jack. 
 
 Miss Edith Makes another 
 
 Friend. 
 On the Landing (An Idyl of 
 
 the Balusters). 
 
 348 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHY 
 
 " Two Men of Sandy Bar." 
 duced in America. 
 
 " Sue " (Founded on " The Judg- 
 ment of Bolinas Plain," in 
 collaboration with T. Edgar 
 Pemberton. Produced at Hoy t's 
 
 DRAMA 
 Pro 
 
 Theatre, New York, on 15 th 
 September 1896, and at the 
 Garrick Theatre, London, loth 
 June 1898). 
 
 The Lord of Fontenelle " 
 (Operetta). 
 
 AMERICAN LEGENDS, &c. 
 PROSE— EARLIER PAPERS 
 
 Mliss. 
 
 High- Water Mark. 
 
 A Lonely Ride. 
 
 The Man of No Account. 
 Notes by Flood and Field. 
 Waiting for the Ship. 
 
 THE LUCK OF ROARING CAMP AND OTHER SKETCHES 
 
 Tennessee's Partner. 
 
 The Luck of Roaring Camp. 
 The Outcasts of Poker Flat. 
 Miggles. 
 
 The Idyl of Red Gulch. 
 Brown of Calaveras. 
 
 BOHEMIAN PAPERS 
 
 Melons. 
 
 A Venerable Impostor. 
 
 A Boy's Dog. 
 
 Surprising Adventures of Master 
 
 Charles Summer ton. 
 The Mission Dolores. 
 Boonder. 
 From a Balcony. 
 John Chinaman. 
 
 On a Vulgar Little Boy. 
 From a Back Window. 
 Sidewalkings. 
 Charitable Reminiscences. 
 Seeing the Steamer off. 
 Neighbourhoods I have Moved 
 
 From. 
 My Suburban Residence. 
 The Ruins of San Francisco. 
 
 SPANISH AND AMERICAN LEGENDS 
 
 The Ogress of Silver Land. 
 The Little Drummer, or 
 
 Christmas Gift that came 
 
 Rupert. 
 
 The Legend of Monte del Diablo. 
 The Right Eye of the Commander. 
 The Legend of Devil's Point. 
 The Adventure of Padre Vincentio. 
 The Devil and the Broker. 
 
 the 
 to 
 
 349 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHY 
 
 TALES OF THE ARGONAUTS 
 
 The Iliad of Sandy Bar. 
 
 Mr. Thompson's Prodigal. 
 
 The Romance of Madrono Hollow. 
 
 The Poet of Sierra Flat. 
 
 The Princess Bob and her Friends. 
 
 How Santa Glaus came to Simp- 
 son's Bar. 
 
 Mrs. Skagg's Husbands. 
 
 An Episode of Fiddletown. 
 
 A Passage in the Life of Mr. John 
 Oakhurst. 
 
 The Rose of Tuolumne. 
 
 A Monte Flat Pastoral. 
 
 Baby Sylvester. 
 Wan Lee, the Pagan. 
 An Heiress of Red Dog. 
 The Man on the Beach. 
 Roger Gatron's Friend. 
 " Jinny." 
 
 Two Saints of the Foot-Hills. 
 "Who was My Quiet Friend?" 
 A Tourist from Injianny. 
 The Fool of Five Forks. 
 The Man from Solano. 
 A Ghost of the Sierras. 
 
 EASTERN SKETGHES 
 
 Views from a German Spion. 
 Peter Schroeder. 
 Morning on the Avenues. 
 My Friend the Tramp. 
 A Sleeping-Gar Experience. 
 
 The Man Whose Yoke was not 
 
 Easy. 
 The Office-Seeker. 
 With the Entries. 
 
 GABRIEL GONROY 
 A Novel in Seven Books. 
 
 STORIES 
 
 The Story of a Mine. 
 Thankful Blossom : A Romance 
 of the Jerseys (1779). 
 
 The Twins of Table Mountain. 
 Jeff Brigg's Love Story, 
 
 GONDENSED NOVELS 
 
 Muck-a-Muck : A Modern Indian 
 
 Novel (After Gooper). 
 Selina Sedilia. By Miss E. 
 
 B — dd and Mrs. H — n — y 
 
 W— d. 
 
 The Ninety-Nine Guardsmen. 
 
 By Al — X — d — r D — m — s. 
 Miss Mix. By Gh— 1— tte 
 
 Br— nt^. 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHY 
 
 CONDENSED 'NOY^LS— continued 
 
 Mr. Midshipman Breezy : A Naval 
 
 Officer. By Captain M — rry — t, 
 
 R.N. 
 Guy Heavystone ; or, Entire : 
 
 A Muscular Novel. By the 
 
 Author of " Sword and 
 
 Gun." 
 John .Jenkins; or, The Smoker 
 
 Reformed. By T. S. A— th— r. 
 Fantine. After the French of 
 
 Victor Hugo. 
 La Femme. After the French of 
 
 M. Michelet. 
 The Dweller of the Threshold. 
 
 By Sir Ed— d L— tt^n 
 
 B— 1— wr. 
 
 N N. Being a Novel in the 
 French Paragraphic Style. 
 
 No Title. By W— Ik— e 
 C— 11— ns. 
 
 Handsome is as Handsome Does. 
 By Ch— 3 R— de. 
 
 Lothaw; or, The Adventures of 
 a Young Gentleman in Search 
 of "Religion." By Mr. Ben- 
 jamins. 
 
 The Haunted Man : A Christmas 
 Story. By Ch— s D— ck— ns. 
 
 The Hoodlum Band; or, The 
 Boy Chief, the Infant Politi- 
 cian, and the Pirate Prodigy. 
 
 TALES OF THE PACIFIC SLOPE 
 
 Flip. 
 
 Maruja. 
 
 A Waif of the Plains. 
 
 A Phyllis of the Sierras. 
 
 Found at Blazing Star. 
 
 A Drift from Redwood Camp. 
 
 A Gentleman of La Porte. 
 
 A Ward of the Golden Gate. 
 
 A Sappho of Green Springs. 
 
 The Chatelaine of Burnt Ridge. 
 
 Through the Santa Clara Wheat. 
 
 A Maecenas of the Pacific Slope. 
 Colonel Starbottle's Client. 
 The Postmistress of Laurel Run. 
 A Night at " Hay's." 
 Johnson's " Old Woman." 
 The New Assistant at Pine Clear- 
 ing School. 
 In a Pioneer Restaurant. 
 A Treasure of the Galleon. 
 The Ghosts of Stukeley Castle. 
 The Great Deadwood Mystery. 
 
 TALES OF THE PINE AND CYPRESS 
 
 Snow-Bound at Eagle's. 
 
 Susy. 
 
 Sally Dows. 
 
 The Conspiracy of Mrs. Bunker. 
 
 The Transformation of Buckeye 
 
 Camj:). 
 Their Uncle from California. 
 
 351 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHY 
 
 BUCKEYE AND CHAPPARAL 
 
 A Prot^g^ of Jack Hamlin's. 
 An Ingenue of the Sierras. 
 The Reformation of James Reddy. 
 The Heir of the M'Hulishes. 
 An Episode of West Woodlands. 
 The Mystery of the Hacienda. 
 The Bell-Ringer of Angel's. 
 
 Johnnyboy. 
 
 Young Robin Gray. 
 
 The Sheriff of Siskyou. 
 
 A Rose of Glenbogie. 
 
 The Home-Coming of Jim Wilkes. 
 
 " Chu-Chu ! " 
 
 TALES OF TRAIL AND TOWN 
 
 Barker's Luck. 
 
 A Yellow Dog. 
 
 A Mother of Five. 
 
 Bulger's Reputation. 
 
 In the Tules. 
 
 A Convert of the Mission. 
 
 The Indiscretion of Elsbeth. 
 
 The Devotion of Enriquez. 
 
 A Millionnaire of Rough & Ready. 
 
 The Ancestors of Peter Atherly. 
 
 Two Americans. 
 
 The Judgment of Bolinas Plain. 
 
 The Strange Experience of Alkali 
 Dick. 
 
 A Night on the Divide. 
 
 The Youngest Prospector in Cala- 
 veras. 
 
 A Tale of Three Truants. 
 
 STORIES IN LIGHT AND SHADOW 
 
 " Unser Karl." 
 
 Uncle Jim and Uncle Billy. 
 
 See Yup. 
 
 The Desborough Connections. 
 
 Salomy Jane's Kiss. 
 
 The Man and the Mountain. 
 
 The Passing of Enriquez. 
 
 MR. JACK HAMLIN'S MEDIATION, AND OTHER 
 STORIES 
 
 Mr. Jack Hamlin's Media- 
 tion. 
 
 The Man at the Semaphore. 
 
 An Esmerelda of Rocky Canon. 
 
 Dick Spindler's Family Christ- 
 mas. 
 
 When the Waters were up at 
 " Jules." 
 
 The Boom in the Calaveras Cla- 
 rion. 
 
 The Secret of Sobriente's Well. 
 
 Liberty Jones's Discovery. 
 
 ZS'^ 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHY 
 
 FROM SAND-HILL TO PINE 
 
 A Niece of " Snapshot Harry's.' 
 What Happened at the Fonda. 
 A Jack and Jill of the Sierras. 
 A Belle of Canada City. 
 
 A Treasure of the Redwoods. 
 Mr. Bilson's Housekeeper. 
 How I Went to the Mines. 
 
 UNDER THE REDWOODS 
 
 Jimmy's Big Brother from Cali- 
 fornia. 
 The Youngest Miss Piper. 
 A Widow of the Santa Ana Valley. 
 The Mermaid of Lighthouse Point. 
 Under the Eaves. 
 
 How Reuben Allen saw Life in 
 
 San Francisco. 
 Three Vagabonds of Trinidad. 
 A Vision of the Fountain. 
 A Romance of the Line. 
 Bohemian Days in San Francisco. 
 
 ON THE OLD TRAIL 
 
 A Mercury of the Foothills. 
 Colonel Starbottle for the Plaintiff. 
 The Landlord of the Big Flume 
 
 Hotel. 
 A Buckeye Hollow Inheritance. 
 
 The Re-incarnation of Smith. 
 Lanty Foster's Mistake. 
 An Ali Baba of the Sierras. 
 Miss Peggy's Proteges. 
 The Goddess of Excelsior. 
 
 CONDENSED NOVELS 
 
 New Bxi,rlesques\ 
 
 Rupert the Resembler. By 
 
 A — th — y H — pe. 
 The Stolen Cigar Case. By 
 
 A. C— n— n D— le. 
 GoUy and the Christian ; or, The 
 
 Minx and the Manxman. By 
 
 H—ll C— ne. 
 The Adventures of John Long- 
 
 bowe, Yoeman. Compiled from 
 
 several eminent sources. 
 
 Dan'l Borem. By E. N— s— 
 
 W— t— t. 
 Stories Three — 
 
 For Simla Reasons. 
 
 A Private's Honour. 
 
 Jungle Folk. By R— dy— d 
 K-pl-g. 
 "Zut-Ski." By M— r— e C — 
 
 r— Hi. 
 
 353 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHY 
 
 OTHER WORKS 
 
 The Queen of the Pirate Isle. A 
 Tale for Children. Illustrated 
 by Kate Greenaway. 
 
 Devil's Food. 
 
 Clarence. 
 
 In a Hollow of the Hills. 
 
 Three Partners ; or, The Big- 
 Strike on Heavy Tree Hill. 
 
 At the Mission of San Carmel. 
 
 A Blue Grass Penelope. 
 
 Left out on Lone Star Mountain. 
 
 The Argonauts of North Liberty. 
 
 The Crusade of the Excelsior. 
 
 Cressy. 
 
 The Heritage of Deadlow Marsh. 
 
 A First Family of Tasajara. 
 
 Drift from Two Shores. 
 In the Carquinez Woods. 
 An Apostle of the Tules. 
 Sarah Walker. 
 A Ship of '49. 
 ■ Prosper 's Old Mother. 
 A Pupil of Chestnut Ridge. 
 A Ward of Colonel Starbottle's. 
 Mr. M'Glowrie's Widow. 
 Trent's Trust. 
 
 Dick Boyle's Business Card. 
 The Convalescence of Jack Hamlin. 
 The Sword of Don Jose. 
 Longfellow (A Tribute). 
 William Francis Bartlett. Poem 
 {In Memoriarii). 
 
 LATER POEMS 
 
 Artemis in Sierra. 
 
 Jack of the Tules (Southern Cali- 
 fornia). 
 
 The Old Camp Fire. 
 
 " Crotalus " (Rattlesnake Bar, 
 Sierras). 
 
 The Station - Master of Lone 
 Prairie. 
 
 By Pines and Tules 
 
 The Mission Bells of Monterey. 
 Her Last Letter (Being a Reply to 
 
 " His Answer "). 
 Lines to a Portrait (By a Superior 
 
 Person). 
 Old Time and New. 
 
 Reported by Truthful Jaims 
 
 The Spelling Bee at Angel's. 
 A Question of Privilege. 
 
 The Thought Reader of Angel's. 
 Free Silver at Angel's. 
 
 The Birds of Cirencester. 
 What Miss Edith Saw from Her 
 Window. 
 
 354 
 
 Little Posterity 
 
 " Hasta Manana." 
 
INDEX 
 
 Albany City, 2 j De Bovet, Madame Marie Anne, 
 
 " Argonauts of '49, The," 38 I 343 
 
 " Arsenical Spring of San Joaqnin, j Densmore, Mr., 80 
 
 The," 155 
 AihencBum, Tlie, 190 
 " Autumn Musings," 6 
 
 "Ballad of the Emeu, The," 57 
 Barnes, George, y2> 
 Barrett, Lawrence, 124 
 Bartlett, William Francis, 306 
 Black, William, 215, 216, 217, 218, 
 
 2ig, 220, 221 
 
 "Blue Grass Penelope, A," 275 
 *' Bohemian Days in San Fran- 
 cisco," 9 
 Booth, Edwin, 294 
 Boucicault, Dion, 261 
 Boughton, G. H., R.A., 204 
 Bourchier, Arthur, 274 
 Boyd, Alexander Stuart, 242. 340 
 Bronte, Miss Charlotte, 301 
 Brooks, Noah, 79, So, 91, 107, 115, 
 
 341 
 " Buckeye and Chapparal," 298 
 Burgin, G. B., 341 
 
 Californian Gold Fields, the, 38 
 
 " Californian, The," 72> 
 
 Chappell, Miss, 318, 319, 320, 321 
 
 Chesterton, G. K., 341 
 
 " Clarence," 298 
 
 Collins, Colonel Arthur, 279, 280, 
 
 340 
 "Condensed Novels," 75 
 " Cressy," 298 
 Crewe, the Earl of, 304 
 
 Dickens, Charles, 161, 165 
 "Dickens in Camp," 161 
 "Dick's Song," 284 
 " Drift of Red Wood Camp, A," 31 1 
 
 " Father Pedro," 283 
 Fremont, Mrs. General, 76 
 " From Sand Hill to Pine," 298 
 Froude, J. A., 181, 206 
 Froude, Miss Mary C. 341 
 
 "Gabriel Conroy," 124, 268, 298 
 Gounod, Charles, 288 
 Griswold, Miss, 279, 288 
 
 Hare, John, 290, 342 
 Harte, Bret : — 
 
 Albany City, home of, in, 2 
 
 Bartlett, William Francis, lines 
 to, 307 
 
 Birth of, I 
 
 Book-reviewer, as a, 106 
 
 Boyhood, delicate, i 
 
 California, leaves San Francisco 
 for, 37 
 
 Californian, The, contributor to, 
 
 72, 
 Characters drawn from life by, 
 
 98 
 CoUaborateur, as a, 264, 266, 267, 
 
 271 
 Crefeld— 
 
 Leaves America for, 1 5 1 
 Life at, 161 
 
 2SS 
 
INDEX 
 
 Harte, Bret — 
 
 Daily Neics article on, 1 1 7 
 Death of, 340 
 Dickens, Charles — 
 
 Admiration for, 3 
 
 At the grave of, 166 
 Dramatist, as a, 257 
 Drng store, assistant in a, 58 
 Father, his, i, 9 
 Favourite novel, his, 334 
 Fresh work, 237 
 Friends made in London, 213 
 Froude, J. A., visits^ 180 
 Glasgow — 
 
 Consul at, 208 
 
 Life in^ 212 
 Goes west at the age of seven- 
 teen, 9 
 Goldfields, at the, 38 
 Grave of, in Frimley Churchyard, 
 
 341 
 Kemble, Fiances Anne, friend- 
 ship with, 126, 127, 128, 
 129 
 Lecturer, as a, 1 32 
 Lectures at — 
 
 Berkely Springs, 143 
 
 England, principal towns of, 
 190, 203 
 
 Kansas, 140 
 
 Leeds, 325 
 
 Ottawa, 136 
 
 St. Louis, 138 
 Letters to — 
 
 Black, William, 218 
 
 Chappell, Miss, 318 
 
 Collins, Colonel Arthur, 279, 
 280 
 
 Jackson, Miss, 326 
 
 Pemberton, Miss May, 322, 
 
 323^ 324, 325 
 Pemberton, Mr. T. Edgar, 227, 
 
 290, 316 
 Pemberton, Mrs. T. Edgar, 
 
 315, 316 
 
 Harte, Bret — 
 
 Letters to — 
 
 Son, his (Francis King Harte), 
 
 173 
 Van de Velde, Madame, 239 
 Watt, A. P., 310,311, 312,313. 
 
 314 
 
 Wife, his, 112, 133, 136, 140, 
 143, 145, 168, 170, 180, 184, 
 185, 186, 199, 201 
 Letters, one of his last, 96 
 Letters received from — 
 
 Besant, Walter, 222 
 
 Black, William, 219, 220 - 
 
 Booth, Edwin, 294 
 
 Froude, J. A., 224 
 
 Hay, Colonel John, 222, 238 
 
 Leighton, Lord, 207 
 
 Lowell, J. R., 222, 223 
 
 Robson, Stuart, 259 
 
 Sullivan, Sir Arthur, 278 
 Literary work, latest, 300 
 Longfellow, tribute to, 228 
 "Luck of Roaring Camp, The," 
 
 favourable criticisms, 93 
 Married in 1862, 70 
 Messenger of the Adams Express 
 
 Company, as a, 53 
 Miner, as a, 53 
 Musical criticism by, 1 87 
 Overland Mon th hj, The, editor of, 82 
 Pemberton, Mrs. T. Edgar, 288 
 Printer, as a, 61 
 San Francisco — 
 
 Leaves for California, 37 
 
 Life at, 18 
 
 "Send off" from, 114 
 
 Wanderings in, 13 
 Schoolmaster, as a, 63 
 Secretary at the San Francisco 
 
 Mint, 114 
 Switzerland, visits, 316 
 Twain, Mark, first meeting with, 
 
 73 
 Verse, first volume of, 78 
 
 2^S^ 
 
INDEX 
 
 Harte, Francis King, 78, 340 | "Mission of San Carmel, At the," 
 
 Harte, Miss Ethel, 340 ! 282 
 
 Harte, Mrs. Bret, 340. See their , " Mliss," 264 
 
 marriage, her letters, &c. ! " Monte Cristo,"' 334 
 
 Harting, J. E., 336 
 " Hasta Manana," 288 
 Hatton, Joseph, 264, and on 
 Hay, Colonel John, 321, 238, 342 
 " Heathen Chinee, The," 107 
 " H.M.S. Pinafore," 277 
 Holmes, Dr. Oliver Wendell, 68 
 Hood, Tom, 152, 158, 159, 160 
 
 " Iliad of Sandy Bar, The," 62 
 " In the Tunnel," 99 
 
 Jackson, Miss, 326, 327, 328, 329, 
 
 330. 331, 332, 333, and on 
 " Judgment of Bolinas Plain. The," 
 269 
 
 Kemble, Mrs. Frances Anne, 126, 
 
 127, 128, 129 
 Kilton, Frederic G., 163 
 King, Clarence, 308 
 King, Thomas Starr, 48, 76, 78 
 
 Lawrence, J., 69 
 
 Le Gallienne, Richard, 341 
 
 Leighton, Sir Frederick K., 207 
 
 " Lines in an Album," 309 
 
 " Lord of Fontenelle, The," 284 
 
 " Lost Galleon, The," 7 
 
 " Luck of Roaring Camp, The," 86 
 
 "Lullaby to a Child," 283 
 
 " Maruja," 298 
 
 "Miggles," 94 
 
 Miller, Joaquin, 70, 81, 149, 165, 
 
 267, 341 
 " Miss Mix," 302 
 " Mission Bells of Monterey, The," 
 
 288 
 
 Moor, Emmanuel, 284 
 Morris, Miss Clare, 95 
 Mulford, Prentice, 70, 7;^ 
 
 "Neighbourhoods I have moved 
 
 from," 75 
 Northampton, the Marquis of, 303, 
 
 341 
 
 " On a Pen of Thomas Starr King," 
 
 345 
 " On the Old Trail," 298 
 " Outcasts of Poker Flat, The," 94 
 
 Overland Monthly, The, 82, 87 
 
 Pembbrton, Miss May, 322, 323, 
 
 324, 325 
 Pemberton, Mrs. T. Edgar, 288, 
 
 315 
 Pemberton, T. Edgar, 267, 273, 
 
 290? 314, 316 
 Pettie, John, 311 
 
 Reid, Sir Wemyss, 2 1 5 
 
 " Relieving Guard," 78 
 
 " Reveille, The," 76 
 
 "Rise of the Short Story, The," 
 
 298 
 Robertson, Tom, 337 
 Robson, Stuart, 124 
 Roosevelt, President, 340 
 Russell, Miss Annie, 270 
 
 San Francisco, 9, 22, 30, 72 
 
 " Scotch Lines to A.S.B.," 240 
 
 "See Yup," 31 
 
 " Selina Sedilia," loi 
 
 " Serenade," 70 
 
 " Shore and Sedge," 298 
 
 " Some Later Verses," 321 
 
 " Songs," 286 
 
 357 
 
INDEX 
 
 Spanish Californians, 5 1 
 
 Stern, Leo, 288 
 
 Stoddard, Charles Warren, 67, 69, 
 
 73, 103, 113, 121, 342 
 "Stories in Light and Shadow," 
 
 298 
 " Sue," 270 
 
 Sullivan, Sir Arthur, 277, 278 
 " Susy/' 298 
 
 " Tales of the Pine and Cypress," 
 
 298 
 " Tales of Trail and Town," 298 
 " Tennessee's Partner," 94 
 " Thankful Blossom," 123 
 Toole, J, L., 275, 277 
 Trevelyan, Sir George, 276 
 
 Twain, Mark, 70, 73, 75 
 "Two Men of Sandy Bar," 257 
 
 " Uncle Juba," 289 
 "Unser Karl," 176 
 
 Van de Velde, Madame, 214, 251, 
 275, 296, 310. 334, 338, 340 
 
 Ward, Artemus, 337 
 
 Watt, A. P., 310, 311, 312,313, 314 
 
 Watts-Dunton, Theodore, 341 
 
 Webb, C. H., 73 
 
 " What The Chimney Sang," 288 
 
 Winter, William, 295, 342 
 
 " Young Robin Gray," 242 
 "Yuba Bill," 54 
 
 THE END 
 
 Printed by Ballantyne, Hanson b' Co. 
 Edinburgh 6= London