BRET HARTE IN LONDON
In 1880, during one of his many visits to London, Bret Harte made the
acquaintance of M. Arthur and Mme. Van de Velde, who were already
enthusiastic readers of his works, and it was not long before they became
his most intimate friends in England if not in the world. From 1885, when
he went to London to live, until the death of M. Van de Velde in 1895, he
was an inmate of their house for a great part of the time. Afterward, Bret
Harte took rooms at number 74 Lancaster Gate, which remained his
headquarters for the rest of his life; but he was often a guest at Mme.
Van de Velde's town house, and at her country home, The Red House at
Camberley in Sussex.
M. Van de Velde was a Belgian whose life had been spent in the diplomatic
service of his country. For many years he was Councillor of Legation in
London. Mme. Van de Velde, his second wife, is of Italian birth, an
accomplished woman of the world, and a writer of reputation. She
translated many of Bret Harte's stories into French, and is the author of
"Random Recollections of Court and Society," "Cosmopolitan Recollections,"
and "French Fiction of To-day." A quotation has already been made from her
discriminating essay on Bret Harte. Her influence upon him was an
important factor in the last twenty years of his life. Mme. Van de Velde
led him to take himself and his art more seriously than he had done since
coming to England. He settled down to his work, put his shoulder to the
wheel, and kept it there during the remainder of his life. For a man
naturally indolent and inclined to underrate his own writings, this
well-sustained industry was remarkable. Bret Harte was always more easily
influenced by women than by men. He showed his best side to them, and they
called out the gentleness and chivalry of his nature. No woman ever spoke
ill of him, and among his most grateful admirers to-day are the California
women who contributed to the "Overland Monthly," and who testify to the
uniform kindness and consideration with which he treated them.
Bret Harte's habits were regular and simple. He smoked a good deal, drank
very little, and took exercise every day. At one time he played golf, and
at another he was somewhat interested in amateur photography. But his real
recreation, as well as his labor, was found in that imaginary world which
sprang to life under his pen. He was often a guest at English country
houses, and was familiar with the history of English cathedrals, abbeys,
churches, and historical ruins. He made a pilgrimage to Macbeth's country
in Scotland and to Charlotte Bronte's home in Yorkshire. He loved Byron's
poetry, and was once a guest at Newstead Abbey. He frequently visited Lord
Compton, later Marquis of Northampton, at Compton Wyngates in Warwickshire
near the battleground of Edgehill, and at Castle Ashby at Northampton.
Reminiscences of these visits may be found in _The Desborough Connections_
and _The Ghosts of Stukeley Castle_. He belonged to various clubs, such as
The Beefsteak, The Rabelais, The Kinsmen; but during the last few years of
his life he frequented only the Royal Thames Yacht Club.
"This selection seemed to me so odd," writes Mr. Pemberton, "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
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.'"[103]
So Hawthorne, it will be remembered, cared little for the meetings of the
Saturday Club in Boston, and was often an absentee, but he delighted in
the company of the Yankee sea-captains at Mrs. Blodgett's boarding-house
in Liverpool. "Captain Johnson," he wrote, "assigned as a reason for not
boarding at this house that the conversation made him sea-sick; and indeed
the smell of tar and bilge-water is somewhat strongly perceptible in it."
The truth is that an aversion to the society of purely literary men should
naturally be looked for in writers of a profound or original stamp of
mind. Something may be learned and some refreshment of spirit may be
obtained from almost any man who knows almost anything at first
hand,--even from a market-gardener or a machinist; and if his subject is
what might be called a natural one, such as ships, horses or cows, it is
bound to have a certain intellectual interest. But the ordinary, clever,
sophisticated litterateur is mainly occupied neither with things nor with
ideas, but with forms of expression, and consequently he is a long way
removed from reality. It may be doubted if any society in the world is
less profitable than his.
Mr. Moncure Conway, in his autobiography, gives an amusing reminiscence of
Bret Harte's proneness to escape from what are known as "social duties."
Mrs. Conway "received" on Monday afternoons, and Bret Harte had told her
that he would be present on a particular Monday, but he failed to
appear,--much to the regret of some persons who had been invited for the
occasion. "When chancing to meet him," writes Mr. Conway, "I alluded to
the disappointment; he asked forgiveness and said, 'I will come next
Monday--_even though I promise_.'"
He had a constant dread that his friendship or acquaintance would be
sought on account of his writings, rather than for himself. A lady who sat
next to him at dinner without learning his name, afterward remarked, "I
have always longed to meet him, and I would have been so different had I
only known who my neighbor was." This, unfortunately, being repeated to
Bret Harte, he exclaimed, "Now, why can't a woman realize that this sort
of thing is insulting?... If Mrs. ---- talked with me, and found me
uninteresting as a man, how could she expect to find me interesting
because I was an author?"
During the last ten or fifteen years of his life, Bret Harte seldom went
far from home. He never visited Switzerland until September, 1895, and
even then he carried his manuscript with him, and devoted to it part of
each day. He took great delight in the Swiss mountains, often spoke of his
vacation there, and was planning to go again during the summer of his
death.
From Lucerne he wrote to a friend[104] as follows: "Strangest of all, I
find my heart going back to the old Sierras whenever I get over three
thousand feet of Swiss altitude, and--dare I whisper it?--in spite of
their pictorial composition, I wouldn't give a mile of the dear old
Sierras, with their honesty, sincerity, and magnificent uncouthness, for
one hundred thousand kilometres of the picturesque Vaud."
Of Geneva he wrote to the same correspondent: "I thought I should not like
Geneva, fancying it a kind of continental Boston, and that the shadow of
John Calvin and the old reformers, or still worse the sentimental idiocy
of Rousseau, and the De Staels and Mme. de Warens still lingered there."
But he did like Geneva; and of the lake, as he viewed it from his hotel
window, he wrote, "Ask him if he ever saw an expanse of thirty miles of
water exactly the color of the inner shell of a Mother-of-Pearl oyster."
Of Geneva itself he wrote again: "It is gay, brilliant, and even as
_pictorial_ as the end of Lake Leman; and as I sit by my hotel window on
the border of the lake I can see Mont Blanc--thirty or forty miles
away--framing itself a perfect vignette. Of course I know the whole thing
was arranged by the Grand Hotel Company that run Switzerland. Last night
as I stood on my balcony looking at the great semi-circle of lights
framing the quay and harbor of the town, a great fountain sent up a spray
from the lake three hundred feet high, illuminated by beautifully shaded
'lime lights,' exactly like a 'transformation scene.' Just then, the new
moon--a pale green sickle--swung itself over the Alps! But it was
absolutely too much! One felt that the Hotel Company were overdoing it!
And I wanted to order up the hotel proprietor and ask him to take it down.
At least I suggested it to the Colonel,[105] but he thought it would do as
well if we refused to pay for it in the bill."
The same correspondent, by the way, quotes an amusing letter from Bret
Harte, written in 1888, from Stoke Pogis, near Windsor Castle: "I had the
honor yesterday of speaking to a man who had been in personal attendance
upon the Queen for fifty years. He was naturally very near the point of
translation, and gave a vague impression that he did not require to be
born again, but remained on earth for the benefit of American tourists."
Bret Harte's reasons for remaining so long in England have already been
explained in part. The chief cause was probably the pecuniary one, for by
living in England he was able to obtain more from his writings than he
could have obtained as a resident of the United States. He continued to
contribute to the support of his wife, although after his departure from
this country Mrs. Harte and he did not live together. The cause of their
separation was never made known. On this subject both Mr. Harte and his
wife maintained an honorable silence, which, it is to be hoped, will
always be respected.
A few years before her husband's death, Mrs. Harte came to England to
live. The older son, Griswold Harte, died in the city of New York, in
December, 1901, leaving a widow and one daughter. The second son, Francis
King Harte, was married in England some years ago, and makes his home
there. He has two children. Bret Harte was often a visitor at his son's
house. The older daughter, Jessamy, married Henry Milford Steele, an
American, and lives in the United States. The younger daughter, Ethel, is
unmarried, and lives with her mother.
Beyond the pecuniary reason which impelled Bret Harte to live in England
were other reasons which every American who has spent some time in that
country will understand, and which are especially strong in respect to
persons of nervous temperament. The climate is one reason; for the English
climate is the natural antidote to the American; and perhaps the residents
of each country would be better if they could exchange habitats every
other generation.
England has a soothing effect upon the hustling American. He eats more,
worries less, and becomes a happier and pleasanter animal. A similar
change has been observed in high-strung horses taken from the United
States to England. And so of athletes--the English athlete, transported to
this country, gains in speed, but loses endurance; whereas our athletes on
English soil gain endurance and lose speed. The temperament and manners
of the English people have the same pleasant effect as the climate upon
the American visitor. Why is John Bull always represented as an irascible
animal? Perhaps he is such if his rights, real or assumed, are invaded, or
if his will is thwarted; but as the stranger meets him, he is civil and
good-natured. In fact, this is one of the chief surprises which an
American experiences on his first visit to England.
More important still, perhaps, is the ease of living in a country which
has a fixed social system. The plain line drawn in England between the
gentleman and the non-gentleman class makes things very pleasant for those
who belong to the favored division. It gives the gentleman a vantage
ground in dealing with the non-gentleman which proves as convenient, as it
is novel, to the American. The fact that it must be inconvenient for the
non-gentleman class, which outnumbers the other some thousands to one,
never seems to trouble the Englishman, although the American may have some
qualms.
Furthermore, strange as it may seem, the position of an author, _per se_
is, no doubt, higher in London (though perhaps not elsewhere in England)
than it is in the United States. With us, the well-to-do publisher has a
better standing in what is called "society" than the impecunious author.
In London the reverse would be the case. New York and Boston looked
askance upon Bret Harte, doubting if he were quite respectable; but London
welcomed him. Bret Harte was often asked to lecture in England, and
especially to speak or write upon English customs or English society; but
he always refused, being unwilling, as Thackeray was in regard to the
United States, either to censure a people from whom he had received great
hospitality, or to praise them at the expense of truth.
Nor was his belief in America and the American social system weakened in
the least by his long residence in England or by his enjoyment of the
amenities of English life.
An English author wrote of him, while he was yet living: "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 favorite in the most diverse circles, social,
literary, scientific, artistic, or military, his strong primitive nature
and his positive individuality have remained intact. Always polite and
gentle, neither seeking nor evading controversy, he is steadfastly
unchangeable in his political and patriotic beliefs."
Another English writer relates that "At the time when there was some talk
of war between Britain and America, he, while deploring even the
suggestion of such a catastrophe, earnestly avowed his intention of
instantly returning to his own country, should hostilities break out."
No two men could be more opposed in many respects than Hawthorne and Bret
Harte. Nevertheless they had some striking points of resemblance. Both
were men who united primitive instincts with consummate refinement; and
different as is the subject-matter of their stories, the style and
attitude are not unlike. They had the same craving for beauty of form, the
same self-repression, the same horror of what is prolix or tawdry, the
same love of that simplicity which is the perfection of art.
Long residence in England seems to have had much the same effect upon both
men. It heightened their feeling for their native country almost in
proportion as it pleased their own susceptibilities. Hawthorne's fondness
for England was an almost unconscious feeling. When he returned to
America, there to live for the remainder of his days, he did not find
himself at home in the manner or to the degree which he had expected. "At
Rome," his son writes, "an unacknowledged homesickness affected him, an
Old-Homesickness, rather than a yearning for America. He may have imagined
that it was America that he wanted, but when at last we returned there, he
still looked backward toward England."
That a man should find it more agreeable to live in one country, and yet
be firmly convinced that the social system of another country was
superior, is nothing remarkable. It is the presence of equality in the
United States and its absence in England which make the chief difference
between them. Even that imperfect equality to which we have attained has
rendered the American people the happiest and the most moral in the world.
To the superficial visitor, indeed, who has seen only a few great cities
in the United States, it might seem that equality is not much more
prevalent here than it is in England; but let him tarry a while in the
smaller cities, in the towns and villages of the Union, from the Atlantic
to the Pacific, and he will reach a different conclusion. An English
writer of unusual discernment speaks of "that conscious independence, that
indefinable assertion of manhood, which is the key to the American
character."
One result of Bret Harte's long residence in England was the circulation
in this country of many false reports and statements about him which
galled his sensitive nature. He had many times declined to be
"interviewed," and probably made enemies in that way. "But when," writes
Mme. Van de Velde, "in a moment of good nature he yielded to pressing
solicitations, and allowed himself to be questioned, the consequences
were, on the whole, to his disadvantage. From that moment the door was
opened to a flood of apocryphal statements of various 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."
Mr. Pemberton hints at more serious troubles which afflicted Bret Harte's
last years. "If he, in common with many of us, had his deep personal
disappointments 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 torments 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."
During the year 1901 Bret Harte's health was failing, although he still
kept at work. His disease was cancer of the throat. He hoped to go abroad
the following summer, and he had written in a letter to a friend, "Alas! I
have never been light-hearted since Switzerland." But early in 1902 his
condition became serious, and he went to stay with Mme. Van de Velde at
Camberley. The Spring was cold and sunless, and he grew worse as it
advanced. Nevertheless he was engaged in writing a play with Mr.
Pemberton, and was meditating a new story which should reintroduce that
favorite of the public, Colonel Starbottle. In March a surgical operation
was performed on his throat, but the relief was slight and temporary; and
from that time forward Bret Harte must have known that his fate was
sealed, although he said nothing to his friends and with them appeared to
be in good, even high spirits.
April 17, feeling somewhat better, he sat down to begin his new tale. He
headed it, "A Friend of Colonel Starbottle's," and wrote the opening
sentence and part of another sentence. Dissatisfied with this beginning,
he tried again, and taking a fresh sheet of paper, he wrote the title and
one sentence. There the manuscript ends. He was unable to continue it,
although after this date he wrote a few letters to friends. On May 5 he
was sitting in the morning, at his desk, thus engaged, when a hemorrhage
of the throat suddenly attacked him. He was put to bed, and doctors were
sent for. He rallied from this attack, but a second hemorrhage, late in
the afternoon, rendered him partly unconscious, and soon afterward he died
peacefully in the presence of Mme. Van de Velde and her attendants.
There is something sad in the death of any man far from home and country,
with no kith or kin about him, though ministered to by devoted friends.
Even Bret Harte's tombstone bears the name of one who was a stranger to
his blood and race. We cannot help recalling what Tennessee's Partner
said. "When a man has been running free all day, what's the natural thing
for him to do? Why, to come home." Alas! there was no home-coming for Bret
Harte; and if, as may have been the case, he felt little or no regret at
his situation, the sadness of it would only be intensified by that
circumstance. Some deterioration is inevitable when a husband and father
foregoes, even unwillingly, those feelings of responsibility and affection
which centre in the family,--feelings so natural that to a considerable
degree we share them even with the lower animals.
That Bret Harte's separation from his family was in part, at least, his
own fault seems highly probable from his character and career. He abhorred
sentimentality in literature, and the few examples of it in his writings
may be ascribed to the influence of Dickens. Nevertheless, with all his
virility, it must be admitted that his nature was that of a
sentimentalist. A sentimentalist is one who obeys the natural good
impulses of the human heart, but whose virtue does not go much beyond
that. He has right feelings and acts upon them, but in cases where there
is nothing to provoke the right feeling he falls short. He is strong in
impulse, but weak in principle. When we see a fellow-being in danger or
distress our instinct is to assist him. If we fail to do so, it is because
we hearken to reason rather than to instinct; because we obey the selfish,
second thought which reason suggests, instead of obeying the spontaneous
impulse which nature puts into our hearts.
But suppose that the person to be succored makes no appeal to the heart:
suppose that he is thousands of miles away: suppose that one dislikes or
even hates him: suppose that it is a question not of bestowing alms, or of
giving assistance or of feeling sympathy, but of rendering bare justice.
In such cases the sentimentalist lacks a sufficient spur for action: he
feels no impulse: his heart remains cold: he makes excuses to himself; and
having no strong sense of duty or principle to carry him through the
ordeal, he becomes guilty of an act (or, more often, of a failure to act)
which in another person would excite his indignation. In this sense Bret
Harte was a sentimentalist.
He would have risked his life for a present friend, but was capable of
neglecting an absent one.
This contradiction, if it be such, affords a clue to his character. In
spite of his amiability, kindness, generosity, there was in Bret Harte an
element of cruelty. Even his natural improvidence in money matters can
hardly excuse him for selling the copyright of all his stories as they
came out, leaving no income to be derived from them after his death.
The sentimentalist, being a creature of impulse, gets in the habit of
obeying his impulses, good or bad, and is apt to find some difficulty at
last in distinguishing between them. He easily persuades himself that the
thing which he wishes to do is the right thing for him to do. This was a
trait of Bret Harte's character, and it naturally accompanies that lack of
introspection which was so marked in him. There was a want of background,
both intellectual and moral, in his nature. He was an observer, not a
thinker, and his genius was shown only as he lived in the life of others.
Even his poetry is dramatic, not lyric. It was very seldom that Bret
Harte, in his tales or elsewhere, advanced any abstract sentiment or idea;
he was concerned wholly with the concrete; and it is noticeable that when
he does venture to lay down a general principle, it fails to bear the
impress of real conviction. The note of sincerity is wanting. An instance
will be found in the _General Introduction_ which he wrote for the first
volume of his collected stories, where he answers the charge that he had
"confused recognized standards of morality by extenuating lives of
recklessness and often criminality with a single, solitary virtue." After
describing this as "the cant of too much mercy," he goes on to say:--
"Without claiming to be a religious man or a moralist, but simply as an
artist, he shall reverently and humbly conform to the rules laid down by a
Great Poet who created the parables 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."
This is simply Dickens both in manner and substance, and the tone of the
whole passage is insincere and exaggerated, almost maudlin. Lamentable,
but perhaps not strange, that in the one place where Bret Harte explained
and defended what might be called the prevailing moral of his stories,
he should fall so far short of the reader's expectation!
The truth is that Bret Harte took nothing seriously except his art, and
apparently went through life with as little concern about the origin,
nature, and destiny of mankind as it would be possible for any member of
that unfortunate species to feel.
And yet there was a noble side to his character. He possessed in an
unusual degree what is, perhaps, the most rare of all good qualities,
namely, magnanimity. No man was ever more free from envy and jealousy; no
writer was ever more quick to perceive and to praise excellence in others,
or more slow to disparage or condemn. He used to say, and really seemed to
believe, that Mr. John Hay's imitations of his own dialect poems were
better than the originals. All the misconstruction and unkind criticism of
which he was the subject never drew from him a bitter remark. He had a
tenderness for children and dumb animals, especially for dogs, and his
sympathy with them gave him a wonderful insight into their natures. Who
but Bret Harte could have penned this sentence which the Reader will
recognize as occurring in _The Argonauts of North Liberty_: "He [Dick
Demorest] had that piteous wistfulness of eye seen in some dogs and the
husbands of many charming women,--the affection that pardons beforehand
the indifference which it has learned to expect."
In breadth and warmth of sympathy for his fellow-men Bret Harte had what
almost might be described as a substitute for religion; what indeed has
been described as religion itself. Long ago, an author who afterward
became famous, touched with the fervor of youthful enthusiasm for his
vocation, declared that "literature fosters in its adherents a sympathy
with all that lives and breathes which is more binding than any form of
religion." A more recent thinker, Mr. Henry W. Montague, has finely said
that "The most important function of Christianity is not to keep man from
sinning, but to widen the range and increase the depth of his sympathies."
Judged by these standards, Bret Harte could not be described as an
irreligious writer. Who, more than he, has warmed the heart and suffused
the eyes of his readers with pity for the unfortunate, with admiration for
the heroic? "A kind thought is a good deed," remarked an oriental sage.
The doctrine is a dangerous one; but if it is true of any man, it is true
of an author. His kind thoughts live after him, and they have the force
and effect of deeds. Bret Harte's stories are a legacy to the world, as
full of inspiration as of entertainment.
It was not by accident or as the result of mere literary taste that he
selected from the chaos of California life the heroic and the pathetic
incidents. Those who know California only through his tales and poems
naturally think that the aspect of it which Bret Harte presents was the
only aspect; that the Pioneer life would have impressed any other observer
just as it impressed him, the single difference being that Bret Harte had
the ability to report what he saw and heard. But such is not the case.
Bret Harte's representation of California is true; there is no
exaggeration in it; but there were other aspects of life there which would
have been equally true. If we were to call up in imagination the various
story-writers of Bret Harte's day, it would be easy to guess what features
of life on the Golden Slope would have attracted them, had they been there
in the days of the Pioneers: how the social peculiarities of San
Francisco, with its flamboyant _demi-monde_ and its early appeal to the
divorce court, would have interested one; how the adventures of outlaws
and robbers would have filled the mind of another; and how a third would
have been content to describe the picturesque traits of the Spanish
inheritors of the soil.
Bret Harte does indeed touch upon all these points and upon many
others,--not a phase of California life escaped him,--but he does not
dwell upon them. His main theme is those heroic impulses of loyalty, of
chivalry, of love, of pure friendship, which are strong enough to triumph
over death and the fear of death, and which, nevertheless, are often found
where, except to the discerning eye of sympathy, their existence would be
wholly unsuspected.
For this selection the world owes Bret Harte a debt of gratitude; and none
the less because it was made instinctively. The actions of a really
perfect character would all be instinctive and spontaneous. In such a man
conscience and inclination would coincide. His taste and his sense of duty
would be one and the same thing. A mean, an unkind, an unjust act would be
a solecism as impossible for him as it would be to eat with his knife. The
struggle would have been over before he was born, and his ancestors would
have bequeathed to him a nature in harmony with itself. The credit for his
good deeds would belong, perhaps, rather to his ancestors than to himself,
but we should see in him the perfection of human nature, the final product
of a thousand imperfect natures.
Something of this spontaneousness and finality belonged to the character
of Bret Harte. If he was weak in conviction and principle, he was strong
in instinct. If he yielded easily to certain temptations, he was
impregnable to others, because he was protected against them by the whole
current of his nature. It would be as impossible to imagine Bret Harte
taking sides against the oppressed, as it would be to imagine him
performing his literary work in a slovenly manner. Both his good and bad
traits were firmly rooted, and, it may be, inextricably mingled. Mr.
Howells said of him that "If his temperament disabled him from certain
experiences of life, it was the sure source of what was most delightful in
his personality, and perhaps most beautiful in his talent." Bret Harte's
stories are sufficient proof that he was at bottom a good man, although he
had grave faults.
His faults, moreover, were those commonly found in men of genius, and for
that reason they should be treated with some tenderness. When one
considers that the whole progress of the human race, mental and spiritual,
as well as mechanical, is due to the achievements of a few superior
individuals, whom the world has agreed to designate as men of
genius,--considering this, one should be slow to pronounce with anything
like confidence or finality upon the character of one who belongs in that
class. We know that such men are different from other men intellectually,
and we might expect to find, and we do find that they are different from
them emotionally, if not morally. A certain egotism, for example, is
notoriously associated with men of genius; and a kind of egotistic or
unconscious selfishness was Bret Harte's great defect.
Popular opinion, a safe guide in such matters, has always recognized the
fact that the genius is a species by himself. It is only the clever men of
talent who have discovered that there is no essential difference between
men of genius and themselves. Writers of this description might be named
who have summed up Bret Harte's life and character with amazing
condescension and self-assurance. Meagre as are the known facts of his
career, especially those relating to his private life, these critics have
assigned his motives and judged his conduct with a freedom and a certainty
which they would hardly feel in respect to their own intimates.
The very absence of information about Bret Harte makes misconstruction
easy. Why he lived apart from his family, why he lived in England, why he
continued to draw his subjects from California,--these are matters as to
which the inquisitive world would have been glad to be informed, but as to
which he thought it more fitting to keep silence; and from that silence no
amount of misrepresentation could move him. Mr. Pemberton has recorded the
congenial scorn with which Bret Harte used to repeat the motto upon the
coat of arms of some Scottish earl. _They say! What say they? Let them
say!_
And yet, if a writer has greatly moved or pleased us, we have a natural
desire, especially after his death, to know what manner of man he was.
Most of all, we long to ask that familiar question, the only question
which, at the close of a career, seems to have any relevance or
importance,--Was he a good man? In the present case, such answer as this
book can give has already been made; and if any Reader should be inclined
to a different conclusion, let him weigh well the peculiar circumstances
of Bret Harte's life, and make due allowance for the obscurity in which
his motives are veiled.
Upon one aspect of his career there can be no difference of opinion. His
devotion to his art was unwavering and extreme. Pagan though he may have
been in some respects, in this matter he was as conscientious a Puritan as
Hawthorne himself. Every plot, every character, every sentence, one might
almost say, every word in his books, was subjected to his own relentless
criticism. The manuscript that Bret Harte consigned to the waste-basket
would have made the reputation of another author. No "pot-boiler" ever
came from his hand, and, whatever his pecuniary difficulties, he never
dreamed of escaping from them by that dashing-off of salable stories which
is a common practice among popular writers of fiction.
Such he was at the beginning, and such he continued to be until the end.
Six months elapsed, after the publication of his first successful story,
before Bret Harte made his second appearance in the "Overland Monthly."
His friends in California have given us a picture of him, a youthful
author in his narrow office at the Mint, slowly and painfully elaborating
those masterpieces that made him famous. It was the same forty years
afterward when the fatal illness overtook him at his desk in an English
country-house. The pen that dropped from his reluctant fingers had been
engaged in writing and re-writing the simple, opening sentences of a story
that was never to be finished.
Bret Harte was one of that select band to whom the gods have vouchsafed a
glimpse of perfection. All his life, from mere boyhood, he was inspired by
a vision of that ideal beauty which is at once the joy and the despair of
the true artist. Whoever realizes that vision, even though in an imperfect
manner, has overcome the limitations of time and space, and has obtained a
position among the immortals which may be denied to better and even
greater men.