Bret Harte has been called the writer of the best short stories in the
English language. A literary court of arbitration would doubtless find
that the best of his short stories are without superiors. It should not
be forgotten that the reading public is still under the magic spell
which Mr. Harte wove more than a third of a century ago with "The Luck
of Roaring Camp," "Plain Language from Truthful James," "Tennessee's
Partner," "Miggles" and the other works which first called attention
to the author's still unquestioned genius. "The Luck of Roaring Camp"
and "Under the Redwoods" mark the present extremes of one of the most
romantic chapters in our literary history.
Some years ago, when the popular writer and his wife were spending the
summer at Newport, a woman said confidentially to Mrs. Harte, "What
is your husband's real name?" It evidently did not seem natural to
the inquirer that an author could always have borne such a crisp and
striking name; and the same idea, that the name must be simply a happy
pseudonym, has, we believe, struck many others. The idea is partly
wrong and partly right. Francis Brett Harte was his name originally.
That form was changed to Francis Bret Harte, then to F. Bret Harte,
and finally to the attractive form which long ago endeared itself to
the whole English-reading world. For it is well known, undoubtedly,
that the Bret Harte stories are quite as popular in England and in the
British colonies as in the United States; that Germany yields to none
in her admiration for them; and that one of them, "Gabriel Conroy,"
has been printed in at least fourteen languages. Indeed, a quarter of
a century ago the name of Bret Harte was as powerful the world over as
was Mr. Kipling's a few years since. Perhaps the felicitous brevity of
the name was one of the elements of that power.
Bret Harte was born in Albany, N. Y., on August 25, 1839. His father
was at that time a teacher in the Albany Female Seminary. Bret was
still in boyhood when his father died. The boy, who had received an
ordinary public school education, went to California with his mother in
1854. The Golden State was then one enormous mining-camp. The laws were
largely unwritten. A passion either for gold or for adventure had taken
possession of thousands of persons and thrown them together in one of
the wildest parts of the world. In this exciting school of life young
Harte studied his first lessons of life. For three years he was thrown
hither and thither, with his eyes and his ears wide open, and with his
mind sponging up the lively incidents which, through his skillful pen,
have since become the idyls of the pioneer West, with all its vice and
virtue, its heroes and cravens, its showy wealth and its heart-touching
poverty. For a year he was an express rider, with a route lying among
the ravines and gulches of the northern part of the State; and what he
had not learned by his own observation he learned during this period
from other observers. This was the time when Yuba Bill and the other
heroic road-agents took form in his imagination. At another time he
picked up the trade of compositor in a newspaper office in Eureka; and
at still another time he went out prospecting, and there was a sign of
later days in the fact that before the three years of his uncertainty
came to an end he taught school for a short while. It was then that,
for the first time, he indulged the literary instincts awakened by
his experience in the newspaper office in Eureka. This budding age is
outlined in "M'liss."
In 1857 the young man settled down in San Francisco as a compositor
in the office of the _Golden Era_, a weekly periodical. A few
round-about-town sketches called "A Boy's Dog," "Sidewalkings," and
"In a Balcony," submitted most humbly and respectfully to the editor,
brought to the ambitious printer the reward of an invitation to join
the editorial staff. With the acceptance of the invitation began a most
brilliant literary career. We are indebted to a friend of the author's
for the statement: "Those were busy days, and much of the matter ground
out in that time of probation is as pregnant with genius and wit as
any that he has seen fit to retain in his complete edition." But the
edition is not yet complete, we may remark.
When, not long afterward, a weekly called _The Californian_ was
established in San Francisco, the new writer went over to it
enthusiastically. In the columns of this periodical and of some of
the daily papers appeared the poems and the sketches which rounded
out Mr. Harte's "time of probation." _The Californian_ was the means
of acquainting him with Mark Twain, also a new figure on the literary
horizon. Indeed, it has been said by men who knew the little group of
enthusiasts connected with _The Californian_ that it was Harte who
induced the Mississippi pilot first to put to use his genius as a
humorist.
This catch-penny work of the days of _The Californian_ was profitable
to Harte simply as experience. Like many another story-teller, he came
to the conclusion that steady employment, with a few leisure hours in
the day, would do more to advance him than anything else, and so he
found work, first in the United States Surveyor General's office, then
with the United States Marshal, and later in the mint. Shortly before
going to the mint he was introduced to Easterners by a sketch in _The
Atlantic Monthly_, "The Legend of Monte Diablo," which introduction was
due largely to the patronage of Jessie Benton Fremont, one of the most
cultivated women in California. His secretaryship at the mint, which
began in 1864, led to a very productive period, some of the fruits
of which are "John Burns of Gettysburg," "The Pliocene Skull," "The
Society on the Stanislow" and the remarkable "Condensed Novels," in the
writing of which, as one of the old-time critics remarked "a new set of
faculties was required."
At this point naturally comes in the question, What was Bret Harte's
first book? The question was answered last year by the author himself,
in this statement: "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 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 California poems indited by other hands.
There was an ominous calm when the book reached the market. Out of it
the bolt fell. A well-known mining weekly, which I will poetically veil
under the title of the Red Dog _Jay Hawk_, was the first to swoop down
upon the tuneful and unsuspecting quarry as follows: 'The hog wash
and "purp" stuff ladled out from the slop bucket of Messrs. ---- and
Company, of 'Frisco, by some lop-eared Eastern apprentice and called
"A Compilation of Californian Verses," might be passed over as 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 the thistles which he has served up in this volume, should make
allusion to California's greatest bard, is rather a confession of
idiocy than a slur upon the genius of our esteemed contributor.'"
There were other bolts quite as forceful, but as a sample of the
literary criticism found in California in the great mining days,
and also of the reins that kept editorial enterprise in check, the
foregoing will suffice.
In 1868, while Mr. Harte was still working in the mint and quietly
hitching his literary wagon to a star, Mr. Roman, an ambitious San
Francisco publisher, projected _The Overland Monthly_, a periodical
that has had considerable influence on the literary growth of the
far West. He invited the secretary of the mint to be its editor. The
invitation was accepted, and the editor-to-be at once went to work on
a story for the first number, which was to appear in July. The scheme
of the magazine was thoroughly Eastern, but the editor decided that,
for the honor of the West, his story should have a strong local flavor.
He called it "The Luck of Roaring Camp," and, without a thought of any
impropriety, had it put into type. For the sake of accuracy we take the
liberty of relating the consequences as they were related in the old
days:
"The first intimation that it was likely to arouse criticism of any
kind, good or bad, came to him in the form of a protest from the young
woman who read proof on the paper. She sent word to him that if matter
as indecent as 'The Luck of Roaring Camp' was to be printed in _The
Overland Monthly_ she could not retain her place as an employee of
the paper. Harte read the story over again in proof to see where the
indecencies were, but could find none. Then he took it to the owner of
the paper, and asked his opinion of it. The owner took it home and
read it to his wife. It made her cry, and she thought it was a powerful
production, but she agreed with the proof-reader that it was too daring
in its conception, and too frank in its details even for the not-over
particular society which inhabited California. Harte heard her judgment
with amazement. He was utterly unable to see anything improper in the
story. Finally the owner of the paper so far went over to the side of
the story's critics as to say that he thought the story would have to
be left out. Harte took a day and a night to think the matter over, and
then he announced his own decision. He said that if the story was left
out of that month's issue of _The Overland Monthly_ he would himself
insist on being left out of all connection with the paper in the
future. There was no quarrel. He simply was certain that his judgment
was good, and felt that if it was considered bad on this occasion by
the owner, he would never be able to suit him in the future. Finally,
after the matter had been placed on this definite basis, the owner
made up his mind to let the story run." We have met the account of the
momentous difficulty in a slightly different form, but the account
which we have repeated may be accepted as substantially correct.
"The Luck of Roaring Camp" did not please the Californians, and it
seemed for some time as if the censure of the feminine critics would be
justified popularly; but when the flattering opinions of the Eastern
readers were reported, the gold hunters changed their minds. No doubt
they were astonished to hear that a Boston publishing house, at that
time the most powerful organization of its kind in the land, had
offered to accept anything the author might offer at his own terms.
Harte was busy sending provisions to the snowbound camps in the Sierras
in the fall of 1868, so that his next story, "The Outcasts of Poker
Flat," made its appearance as late as January, 1869. That same year,
too, "Plain Language from Truthful James," popularly known as "The
Heathen Chinee," came to delight the reading public; and since that
time Bret Harte's fame has remained more or less brilliant.
For a time he filled the chair of Modern Literature in the University
of California. In 1871 he came East. The journey was a triumph. Nothing
like it ever occurred before, or has occurred since. Once in the East,
_The Atlantic Monthly_ agreed to pay him one thousand dollars a month
for a poem and a short story; but the author soon found the agreement
irksome. He lectured and wrote at his leisure in this country until
1878, when he was appointed United States Consul at Crefeld, Germany,
and two years later he was sent to Glasgow. His term there closed in
1885, and ever since he has made London his home.
However, he has always been Californian in his stories. His latest
offering, "Under the Redwoods," is as reflective of the growing days
of the West as are early masterpieces like "Tennessee's Partner" and
"Miggles." His star may be a trifle lower in the heavens than it was
when he went abroad, but it is still of the first magnitude.