think of it, that it will not, perhaps, be amiss if I give the reason in
this paper. It happened like this. During our negotiations, my guide
suggested that I had better take some _nom de guerre_, as it would
never do to bring out such a book under a woman's name. 'Make it as
real-sounding and non-committing as you can,' he wrote, and so, after
much cogitation and cudgelling of my brains, I chose the name of the
hero of the only story of the series which was written in the first
person, and called myself J. S. Winter. I believe that 'Cavalry Life'
was published on the last day of 1881.
Then followed the most trying time of all--that of waiting to see what
the Press would say of this, my first child, which had been so long in
coming to life, and had been chopped and changed, bundled from pillar to
post, until my heart was almost worn out before ever it saw the light.
Then, on January 14, 1882, I went into the Subscription Library at York,
where I was living, and began to search the new journals through, in but
faint hopes, however, of seeing a review of my book so soon as that; for
I was quite alone in the world, so far as literary matters went. Indeed,
not one friend did I possess who could in any way influence my career,
or obtain the slightest favour for me.
I remember that morning so well; it is, I think, printed on my memory as
the word 'Calais' was on the heart of Queen Mary. It was a fine, cold
morning, and there was a blazing fire in the inner room, where the
reviews were kept. I sat down at the table, and took up the _Saturday
Review_, never dreaming for a moment that I should be honoured by so
much as a mention in a journal which I held in such awe and respect. And
as I turned over the leaves, my eyes fell on a row of foot-notes at the
bottom of the page, giving the names of the books which were noticed
above, and among them I saw--'Cavalry Life, by J. S. Winter.'
For full ten minutes I sat there, feeling sick and more fit to die than
anything else. I was perfectly incapable of looking at the notice above.
But, at last, I plucked up courage to meet my fate, very much as one
summons up courage to have a tooth out and get the horrid wrench over.
Judge of my surprise and joy when, on reading the notice, I found that
the _Saturday_ had given me a rattling good notice, praising the new
author heartily and without stint. I shall never, as long as I live,
forget the effect of that, my first review, upon me. For quite half an
hour I sat without moving, only feeling, 'I shall never be able to keep
it up. I shall never be able to follow it up by another.' I felt
paralysed, faint, crushed, anything but elated and jubilant. And, at
last, through some instinct, I put my hand up to my head to find that it
was cold and wet, as if it had been dipped in the river. Thank Heaven,
from that day to this I have never known what a cold sweat was. It was
my first experience of such a thing, and sincerely I hope it will be my
last.
[Illustration: I TOOK UP THE 'SATURDAY REVIEW']
[Illustration: Drawing signed A. S. Boyd, 18th Mar. 1892
with signature below: Bret Harte
_A Sketch from Life_]
'_CALIFORNIAN VERSE_'
BY BRET HARTE
When I say that my 'first book' was _not_ my own, and contained beyond
the title-page not one word of my own composition, I trust that I shall
not be accused of trifling with paradox, or tardily unbosoming myself of
youthful plagiary. But the fact remains that in priority of publication
the first book for which I became responsible, and which probably
provoked more criticism than anything I have written since, was a small
compilation of Californian poems indited by other hands.
A well-known bookseller of San Francisco one day handed me a collection
of certain poems which had already appeared in Pacific Coast magazines
and newspapers, with the request that I should, if possible, secure
further additions to them, and then make a selection of those which I
considered the most notable and characteristic for a single volume to be
issued by him. I have reason to believe that this unfortunate man was
actuated by a laudable desire to publish a pretty Californian
book--_his_ first essay in publication--and at the same time to foster
Eastern immigration by an exhibit of the Californian literary product,
but, looking back upon his venture, I am inclined to think that the
little volume never contained anything more poetically pathetic or
touchingly imaginative than that gentle conception. Equally simple and
trustful was his selection of myself as compiler. It was based somewhat,
I think, upon the fact that 'the artless Helicon' I boasted 'was
Youth,' but I imagine it was chiefly owing to the circumstance that I
had from the outset, with precocious foresight, confided to him my
intention of not putting any of my own verses in the volume. Publishers
are appreciative; and a self-abnegation so sublime, to say nothing of
its security, was not without its effect.
[Illustration: WE SETTLED TO OUR WORK]
[Illustration: A CIRCULATION IT HAD NEVER KNOWN BEFORE]
We settled to our work with fatuous self-complacency, and no suspicion
of the trouble in store for us, or the storm that was to presently
hurtle around our devoted heads. I winnowed the poems, and he exploited
a preliminary announcement to an eager and waiting Press, and we moved
together unwittingly to our doom. I remember to have been early struck
with the quantity of material coming in--evidently the result of some
popular misunderstanding of the announcement. I found myself in daily
and hourly receipt of sere and yellow fragments, originally torn from
some dead and gone newspaper, creased and seamed from long folding in
wallet or pocket-book. Need I say that most of them were of an emotional
or didactic nature; need I add any criticism of these homely souvenirs,
often discoloured by the morning coffee, the evening tobacco, or, Heaven
knows! perhaps blotted by too easy tears! Enough that I knew now what
had become of those original but never re-copied verses which filled the
'Poet's Corner' of every country newspaper on the coast. I knew now the
genesis of every didactic verse that 'coldly furnished forth the
marriage table' in the announcement of weddings in the rural Press. I
knew now who had read--and possibly indited--the dreary _hic jacets_ of
the dead in their mourning columns. I knew now why certain letters of
the alphabet _had_ been more tenderly considered than others, and
affectionately addressed. I knew the meaning of the 'Lines to Her who
can best understand them,' and I knew that they had been understood. The
morning's post buried my table beneath these withered leaves of
posthumous passion. They lay there like the pathetic nosegays of
quickly-fading wild flowers, gathered by school children, inconsistently
abandoned upon roadsides, or as inconsistently treasured as limp and
flabby superstitions in their desks. The chill wind from the Bay blowing
in at my window seemed to rustle them into sad articulate appeal. I
remember that when one of them was whisked from the window by a
stronger gust than usual, and was attaining a circulation it had never
known before, I ran a block or two to recover it. I was young then, and
in an exalted sense of editorial responsibility which I have since
survived, I think I turned pale at the thought that the reputation of
some unknown genius might have thus been swept out and swallowed by the
all-absorbing sea.
There were other difficulties arising from this unexpected wealth of
material. There were dozens of poems on the same subject. 'The Golden
Gate,' 'Mount Shasta,' 'The Yosemite,' were especially provocative. A
beautiful bird known as the 'Californian Canary' appeared to have been
shot at and winged by every poet from Portland to San Diego. Lines to
the 'Mariposa' flower were as thick as the lovely blossoms themselves in
the Merced Valley, and the Madrone tree was as 'berhymed' as Rosalind.
Again, by a liberal construction of the publisher's announcement,
_manuscript_ poems, which had never known print, began to coyly unfold
their virgin blossoms in the morning's mail. They were accompanied by a
few lines stating, casually, that their sender had found them lying
forgotten in his desk, or, mendaciously, that they were 'thrown off' on
the spur of the moment a few hours before. Some of the names appended to
them astonished me. Grave, practical business men, sage financiers,
fierce speculators, and plodding traders, never before suspected of
poetry, or even correct prose, were among the contributors. It seemed as
if most of the able-bodied inhabitants of the Pacific Coast had been in
the habit at some time of expressing themselves in verse. Some sought
confidential interviews with the editor. The climax was reached when, in
Montgomery Street, one day, I was approached by a well-known and
venerable judicial magnate. After some serious preliminary conversation,
the old gentleman finally alluded to what he was pleased to call a task
of 'great delicacy and responsibility' laid upon my 'young shoulders.'
'In fact,' he went on paternally, adding the weight of his judicial hand
to that burden, 'I have thought of speaking to you about it. In my
leisure moments on the Bench I have, from time to time, polished and
perfected a certain college poem begun years ago, but which may now be
said to have been finished in California, and thus embraced in the scope
of your proposed selection. If a few extracts, selected by myself, to
save you all trouble and responsibility, be of any benefit to you, my
dear young friend, consider them at your service.'
[Illustration: 'CONSIDER THEM AT YOUR SERVICE']
In this fashion the contributions had increased to three times the bulk
of the original collection, and the difficulties of selection were
augmented in proportion. The editor and publisher eyed each other
aghast. 'Never thought there were so many of the blamed things alive,'
said the latter with great simplicity, 'had you?' The editor had not.
'Couldn't you sort of shake 'em up and condense 'em, you know? keep
their ideas--and their names--separate, so that they'd have proper
credit. See?' The editor pointed out that this would infringe the rule
he had laid down. 'I see,' said the publisher thoughtfully--'well,
couldn't you pare 'em down; give the first verse entire and sorter
sample the others?' The editor thought not. There was clearly nothing to
do but to make a more rigid selection--a difficult performance when the
material was uniformly on a certain dead level, which it is not
necessary to define here. Among the rejections were, of course, the
usual plagiarisms from well-known authors imposed upon an inexperienced
country Press; several admirable pieces detected as acrostics of patent
medicines, and certain veiled libels and indecencies such as mark the
'first' publications on blank walls and fences of the average youth.
Still the bulk remained too large, and the youthful editor set to work
reducing it still more with a sympathising concern which the
good-natured, but unliterary, publisher failed to understand, and which,
alas! proved to be equally unappreciated by the rejected contributors.
The book appeared--a pretty little volume typographically, and
externally a credit to pioneer book-making. Copies were liberally
supplied to the Press, and authors and publisher self-complacently
awaited the result. To the latter this should have been satisfactory;
the book sold readily from his well-known counters to purchasers who
seemed to be drawn by a singular curiosity, unaccompanied, however, by
any critical comment. People would lounge into the shop, turn over the
leaves of other volumes, say carelessly, 'Got a new book of California
poetry out, haven't you?' purchase it, and quietly depart. There were as
yet no notices from the Press; the big dailies were silent; there was
something ominous in this calm.
[Illustration: I WAS INWARDLY RELIEVED]
Out of it the bolt fell. A well-known mining weekly, which I here
poetically veil under the title of the Red Dog _Jay Hawk_, was first to
swoop down upon the tuneful and unsuspecting quarry. At this century-end
of fastidious and complaisant criticism, it may be interesting to recall
the direct style of the Californian 'sixties.' 'The hogwash and
"purp"-stuff ladled out from the slop bucket of Messrs.---- & Co., of
'Frisco, by some lop-eared Eastern apprentice, and called "A Compilation
of Californian Verse," might be passed over, so far as criticism goes. A
club in the hands of any able-bodied citizen of Red Dog and a steamboat
ticket to the Bay, cheerfully contributed from this office, would be
all-sufficient. But when an imported greenhorn dares to call his
flapdoodle mixture "Californian," it is an insult to the State that has
produced the gifted "Yellow Hammer," whose lofty flights have from time
to time dazzled our readers in the columns of the _Jay Hawk_. That this
complacent editorial jackass, browsing among the dock and thistles which
he has served up in this volume, should make no allusion to California's
greatest bard, is rather a confession of his idiocy than a slur upon the
genius of our esteemed contributor.' I turned hurriedly to my pile of
rejected contributions--the _nom de plume_ of 'Yellow Hammer' did _not_
appear among them; certainly I had never heard of its existence. Later,
when a friend showed me one of that gifted bard's pieces, I was inwardly
relieved! It was so like the majority of the other verses, in and out of
the volume, that the mysterious poet might have written under a hundred
aliases. But the Dutch Flat _Clarion_, following, with no uncertain
sound, left me small time for consideration. 'We doubt,' said that
journal, 'if a more feeble collection of drivel could have been made,
even if taken exclusively from the editor's own verses, which we note he
has, by an equal editorial incompetency, left out of the volume. When we
add that, by a felicity of idiotic selection, this person has chosen
only one, and the least characteristic, of the really clever poems of
Adoniram Skaggs, which have so often graced these columns, we have said
enough to satisfy our readers.' The Mormon Hill _Quartz Crusher_
relieved this simple directness with more fancy: 'We don't know why
Messrs.---- & Co. send us, under the title of "Selections of Californian
Poetry," a quantity of slum-gullion which really belongs to the sluices
of a placer mining camp, or the ditches of the rural districts. We have
sometimes been compelled to run a lot of tailings through our stamps,
but never of the grade of the samples offered, which, we should say,
would average about 33-1/3 cents per ton. We have, however, come across
a single specimen of pure gold evidently overlooked by the serene ass
who has compiled this volume. We copy it with pleasure, as it has
already shone in the "Poet's Corner" of the _Crusher_ as the gifted
effusion of the talented Manager of the Excelsior Mill, otherwise known
to our delighted readers as "Outcrop."' The Green Springs _Arcadian_ was
no less fanciful in imagery: 'Messrs.---- & Co. send us a gaudy
green-and-yellow, parrot-coloured volume, which is supposed to contain
the first callow "cheepings" and "peepings" of Californian songsters.
From the flavour of the specimens before us we should say that the nest
had been disturbed prematurely. There seems to be a good deal of the
parrot inside as well as outside the covers, and we congratulate our own
sweet singer "Blue Bird," who has so often made these columns melodious,
that she has escaped the ignominy of being exhibited in Messrs.---- &
Co.'s aviary.' I should add that this simile of the aviary and its
occupants was ominous, for my tuneful choir was relentlessly
slaughtered; the bottom of the cage was strewn with feathers! The big
dailies collected the criticisms and published them in their own columns
with the grim irony of exaggerated head-lines. The book sold
tremendously on account of this abuse, but I am afraid that the public
was disappointed. The fun and interest lay in the criticisms, and not in
any pointedly ludicrous quality in the rather commonplace collection,
and I fear I cannot claim for it even that merit. And it will be
observed that the animus of the criticism appeared to be the omission
rather than the retention of certain writers.
[Illustration: THE BOOK SOLD TREMENDOUSLY]
But this brings me to the most extraordinary feature of this singular
demonstration. I do not think that the publishers were at all troubled
by it; I cannot conscientiously say that _I_ was; I have every reason to
believe that the poets themselves, in and out of the volume, were not
displeased at the notoriety they had not expected, and I have long since
been convinced that my most remorseless critics were not in earnest, but
were obeying some sudden impulse started by the first attacking journal.
The extravagance of the Red Dog _Jay Hawk_ was emulated by others: it
was a large, contagious joke, passed from journal to journal in a
peculiar cyclonic Western fashion. And there still lingers, not
unpleasantly, in my memory the conclusion of a cheerfully scathing
review of the book which may make my meaning clearer: 'If we have said
anything in this article which might cause a single pang to the
poetically sensitive nature of the youthful individual calling himself
Mr. Francis Bret Harte--but who, we believe, occasionally parts his name
and his hair in the middle--we will feel that we have not laboured in
vain, and are ready to sing _Nunc Dimittis_, and hand in our checks. We
have no doubt of the absolutely pellucid and lacteal purity of Franky's
intentions. He means well to the Pacific Coast, and we return the
compliment. But he has strayed away from his parents and guardians while
he was too fresh. He will not keep without a little salt.'
It was thirty years ago. The book and its Rabelaisian criticisms have
been long since forgotten. Alas! I fear that even the capacity for that
Gargantuan laughter which met them, in those days, exists no longer. The
names I have used are necessarily fictitious, but where I have been
obliged to quote the criticisms from memory I have, I believe, only
softened their asperity. I do not know that this story has any moral.
The criticisms here recorded never hurt a reputation nor repressed a
single honest aspiration. A few contributors to the volume, who were of
original merit, have made their mark, independently of it or its
critics. The editor, who was for two months the most abused man on the
Pacific slope, within the year became the editor of its first successful
magazine. Even the publisher prospered, and died respected!
[Illustration: signed,
Very faithfully yours,
A. T. Quiller Couch.]
'_DEAD MAN'S ROCK_'
BY 'Q.'
I cherish no parental illusions about 'Dead Man's Rock.' It is two or
three years since I read a page of that blood-thirsty romance, and my
only copy of it was found, the other day, in turning out the lumber-room
at the top of the house. Later editions have been allowed to appear with
all the inaccuracies and crudities of the first. On page 116, Bombay is
still situated in the Bay of Bengal, and may continue to adorn that
shore. The error must be amusing, since unknown friends continue to
write and confess themselves tickled by it; and it is stupid to begin
amending a book in which you have lost interest. But though this is my
attitude towards 'Dead Man's Rock,' I can still look back on the writing
of it as on an amusing adventure.
[Illustration: 'Q.' JUNIOR]
It was begun in the late summer of 1886, and was my first attempt at
telling a story on paper. I am careful to say 'on paper,' because in
childhood I was telling myself stories from morning to night. Tens of
thousands of small boys are doing the same every day in the year; but I
should be sorry to guess how much of my time, between the ages of seven
and thirteen, must have been given up to weaving these childish epics.
They were curious jumbles; the characters (of which I had a constant
set) being drawn indiscriminately from the 'Morte d'Arthur,' 'Bunyan's
Holy War,' 'Pope's Iliad,' 'Ivanhoe,' and a book of Fairy Tales by Holme
Lee, as well as from history; and the themes ranging from battles and
tournaments to cricket, wrestling, and sailing matches. Anachronisms
never troubled the story-teller. The Duke of Wellington would cheerfully
break a lance with Captain Credence or Tristram of Lyonesse, and I
rarely made up a football fifteen without including Hardicanute (whom I
loved for his name), Hector (dear for his own sake) and Wamba (who
supplied the comic interest and scored off Thersites). They were brave
companions; but at the age of thirteen they deserted me suddenly. Or
perhaps after reading Mr. Stevenson's 'Chapter on Dreams,' I had better
say it was the Piskies--the Small People--who deserted me. They alone
know why--for their pensioner had never betrayed a single one of their
secrets--or why in these later times, when he sells their confidences
for money, they have come back to help him, though more sparingly. Three
or four of the little stories in 'Noughts and Crosses' are but
translated dreams, and there are others in my notebook; but now I never
compose without some pain, whereas in the old days I had but to sit
alone in a corner or take a solitary walk and invite them, and they did
all the work. But one summer evening I summoned them and met with no
response. Without warning the tales had come to an end.
From my first school at Newton Abbot I went to Clifton, and from Clifton
in my nineteenth year to Oxford. It was here that the old desire to
weave stories began to come back. Mr. Stevenson's 'Treasure Island' was
the immediate cause. I had been scribbling all through my school days;
had written a prodigious quantity of bad reflective poetry and burnt it
as soon as I really began to reflect; and was now plying the _Oxford
Magazine_ with light verse, a large proportion of which was lately
reprinted in a thin volume, with the title of 'Green Bays.' But I wrote
little or no prose. My prose essays at school were execrable. I had
followed after false models for a while, and when gently made aware of
this by the sound and kindly scholar who looked over our sixth-form
essays at Clifton, had turned dispirited and wrote scarcely at all.
Though reading great quantities of fiction, I had, as has been said, no
thought of telling a story, and so far as I knew, no faculty. The
desire, at least, was awakened by 'Treasure Island,' and, in explanation
of this, I can only quote the gentleman who reviewed my first book in
the _Athenæum_, and observed that 'great wits jump, and lesser wits jump
with them.' That is just the truth of it. I began as a pupil and
imitator of Mr. Stevenson, and was lucky in my choice of a master.
The germ of 'Dead Man's Rock' was a curious little bit of family lore,
which I may extract from my father's history of Polperro, a small haven
on the Cornish coast. The Richard Quiller of whom he speaks is my great
grandfather.
'In the old home of the Quillers, at Polperro, there was hanging on
a beam a key, which we as children regarded with respect and awe,
and never dared to touch, for Richard Quiller had put the key of
his quadrant on a nail, with strong injunctions that no one should
take it off until his return (which never happened), and there, I
believe, it still hangs. His brother John served for several years
as commander of a hired armed lugger, employed in carrying
despatches in the French war, Richard accompanying him as
subordinate officer. They were engaged in the inglorious
bombardment of Flushing in 1809. Some short time after this they
were taken, after a desperate fight with a pirate, into Algiers,
but were liberated on the severe remonstrances of the British
Consul. They returned to their homes in most miserable plight,
having lost their all, except their Bible, much valued then by the
unfortunate sailors, and now by a descendant in whose possession
it is. About the year 1812 these same brothers sailed to the island
of Teneriffe in an armed merchant ship, but after leaving that
place were never heard of.'