BRET HARTE'S DEPARTURE FROM CALIFORNIA
Bret Harte, as we have seen, was, for a few years at least, well placed in
San Francisco, but, as time went on, he had many causes of unhappiness.
There were heavy demands upon his purse from persons not of his immediate
family, which he was too generous to refuse, although they distressed,
harassed and discouraged him. His own constitutional improvidence added to
the difficulties thus created.
Mr. Noah Brooks, who knew Bret Harte well, has very truly described this
aspect of his life: "It would be grossly unjust to say that Harte was a
species of Harold Skimpole, deliberately making debts that he did not
intend to pay. He sincerely intended and expected to meet every financial
obligation that he contracted. But he was utterly destitute 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."
The theory, thus stated by Mr. Brooks, is supported by an unsolicited
letter, now first published, but written shortly after Mr. Harte's
death:--
... After going abroad, Mr. Harte from time to time--whenever able to
do so--sent through the business house of my husband and son money in
payment of bills he was yet owing,--and this when three thousand
miles removed from the pressure of payment,--which too many would
have left unpaid. Life was often hard for him, yet he met it
uncomplainingly, unflinchingly and bravely. A kindly, sweet soul, one
without gall, bitterness or envy, has gone beyond the reach of our
finite voices, leaving the world to us who knew and loved him darker
and poorer in his absence.
MRS. CHARLES WATROUS
Hague, N. Y.
May 26, 1902.
Moreover, there was much friction between Bret Harte and the new publisher
of the "Overland," who had succeeded Mr. Roman; and finally, the moral and
intellectual atmosphere of San Francisco was uncongenial to him. The
early, generous, reckless days of California had passed, and now,
especially in San Francisco, a commercial type of man was coming to the
front. In _The Argonauts of North Liberty_, Bret Harte has depicted
"Ezekiel Corwin, ... a shrewd, practical, self-sufficient and
self-asserting unit of the more cautious later California emigration."
More than once Bret Harte had run counter to California sentiment. As we
have seen already, he was dismissed from his place as assistant Editor of
a country newspaper because he had chivalrously espoused the cause of the
friendless Indian. His first contribution to the "Overland," as also we
have seen, was that beautiful poem in which he laments the shortcomings of
the city. Had the same thing been said in prose, the business community
would certainly have resented it.
I know thy cunning and thy greed,
Thy hard, high lust, and wilful deed,
And all thy Glory loves to tell
Of specious gifts material.
Drop down, O Fleecy Fog, and hide
Her sceptic sneer and all her pride!
And yet, with characteristic optimism, the poet looks forward to a time--
When Art shall raise and Culture lift
The sensual joys and meaner thrift.
Later, but in the same year, Bret Harte incurred the enmity of some
leading men in San Francisco by his gentle ridicule of their attempts to
explain away--for the sake of Eastern capitalists--the destructive
earthquake which shook the city in October, 1868. An old Californian thus
relates the story: "As soon as the first panic at this disturbance had
subsided, and while lesser shocks were still shaking the earth, some of
the leading business men of San Francisco organized themselves into a sort
of vigilance committee, and visited all the newspaper offices. They
strictly enjoined that the story of the earthquake be treated with
conservatism and understatement;--it would injure California if Eastern
people were frightened away by exaggerated reports of _el temblor_; and a
similar censorship was exercised over the press despatches sent out from
San Francisco at that time.
"This greatly amused Bret Harte, and in his 'Etc.' in the November number
of the 'Overland,' he treated the topic jocularly, saying that, according
to the daily papers, the earthquake would have suffered serious damage if
the people had only known it was coming. Harte's pleasantry excited the
wrath of some of the solid men of San Francisco, and when, not long after
that, it was proposed to establish a chair of recent literature in the
University of California and invite Bret Harte to occupy it, one of the
board of regents, whose word was a power in the land, temporarily defeated
the scheme by swearing roundly that a man who had derided the dispute
between the earthquake and the newspapers should never have his support
for a professorship. Subsequently, however, this difficulty was overcome,
and Harte received his appointment."
San Francisco was then a crude, commercial, restless town, caring little
for art or literature, religious in a narrow way, confident of its own
ideals, and as content with the stage through which it was passing as if
human history had known, and human imagination could conceive, nothing
higher or better.
In _A Jack and Jill of the Sierras_ Bret Harte makes the youthful hero
reproach himself by saying, or rather thinking, "He had forgotten them for
those lazy, snobbish, purse-proud San Franciscans--for Bray had the
miner's supreme contempt for the moneyed trading classes."
Bret Harte, whose view of life was mainly derived from eighteenth-century
literature, shared that contempt, and expressed his own feeling, no doubt,
in the sentiment which he attributes to the two girls in _Devil's Ford_.
"It seemed to them that the five millionaires of Devil's Ford, in their
radical simplicity and thoroughness, were perhaps nearer the type of true
gentlemanhood than the citizens who imitated a civilization which they
were unable yet to reach."
No wonder, then, that, with tempting offers from the East, harassed with
debts, disputes, cares and anxieties, disgusted with the atmosphere in
which he was living,--no wonder Bret Harte felt that the hour for his
departure had struck. Had he remained longer, his art would probably have
suffered. A nature so impressionable as Bret Harte's, so responsive, would
insensibly have been affected by his surroundings, and the more so because
he had in himself no strong, intellectual basis. His life was ruled by
taste, rather than by conviction; and taste is a harder matter than
conviction to preserve unimpaired. Of all the criticisms passed upon Bret
Harte there has been nothing more true than Madame Van de Velde's
observations upon this point: "It was decidedly fortunate that he left
California when he did, never to return to it; for his quick instinctive
perceptions would have assimilated the new order of things to the
detriment of his talent. As it was, his singularly retentive memory
remained unbiassed by the transformation of the centres whence he drew his
inspiration. California remained to him the Mecca of the Argonauts."
Bret Harte left many warm friends in California, and they were much hurt,
in some cases much angered, because they never had a word from him
afterward. And yet it is extremely doubtful if he expected any such
result. Certainly it was not intended. Kind and friendly feelings may
still exist, although they are not expressed in letters. Bret Harte was
indolent and procrastinating about everything except the real business of
his life, and into that all his energy was poured. And there was another
reason for the failure to communicate with his old friends, which has
probably occurred to the Reader, and which is suggested in a private
letter from one of the very persons who were aggrieved by his silence. "He
went away with a sore heart. He had cares, difficulties, hurts here,
_many_, and they may have embittered him against all thoughts of the
past."
This, no doubt, is true. The California chapter in Bret Harte's life was
closed, and it would have been painful for him to reopen it even by the
writing of a letter. To say this, however, is not to acquit him of all
blame in the matter.
The night before he left California a few of his more intimate friends
gave him a farewell dinner which, in the light of all that followed, now
wears an almost tragic aspect. It is thus described by one of the company:
"A little party of us, eight, all working writers, met for a last
symposium. It was one of the veritable _noctes ambrosianae_; 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 our friend to California were sundered forever."
Bret Harte left San Francisco in February, 1871.
Seventeen years before he had landed there, a mere boy, without money or
prospects, without trade or profession. Now he was the most distinguished
person in California, and his departure marked the close of an epoch for
that State. Who can imagine the mingled feelings, half-triumphant,
half-bitter, with which he must have looked back upon the slow-receding,
white-capped Sierras that had bounded his horizon for those seventeen
eventful years!