Other stories and poems of merit followed.
Harte's growing reputation burst in full bloom when in 1870 he filled a
blank space in the "Overland" make-up with "The Heathen Chinee." It was
quoted on the floor of the Senate and gained world-wide fame. He
received flattering offers and felt constrained to accept the best. In
February, 1871, he left California. A Boston publisher had offered him
$10,000 for whatever he might write in the following year. Harte
accepted, but the output was small.
For seven years he wrote spasmodically, eking out his income by
lecturing and newspaper work. Life was hard. In 1878 he sailed for
Europe, having been appointed consular agent at Crefeld, Prussia, about
forty miles north of Cologne. In 1880 he was made Consul at Glasgow,
where he remained five years. His home thereafter was London, where he
continued his literary work until his death in March, 1902.
His complete works comprise nineteen volumes. His patriotic verse is
fervid, his idyls are graceful and his humorous verse delightful. The
short story he made anew.
Harte's instincts and habits were good. He had the artistic temperament
and some of its incidental weaknesses. He acknowledged himself
"constitutionally improvident," and a debt-burdened life is not easy.
His later years were pathetic. Those who knew and appreciated him
remember him fondly. California failing to know him, wrongs herself.
Charles A. Murdock.
Preface
A desire to obtain, at first hand, any possible information in regard to
reminiscences of Bret Harte, Mark Twain and others of the little coterie
of writers, who in the early fifties visited the mining camps of
California and through stories that have become classics, played a
prominent part in making "California" a synonym for romance, led to
undertaking the tramp of which this brief narrative is a record. The
writer met with unexpected success, having the good fortune to meet men,
all over eighty years of age, who had known - in some cases intimately
Bret Harte, Mark Twain, "Dan de Quille," Prentice Mulford, Bayard Taylor
and Horace Greeley.
It seems imperative that a relation of individual experiences - however
devoid of stirring incident and adventure - should be written in the
first person. At the same time, the writer of this unpretentious story
of a summer's tramp cannot but feel that he owes his readers - should he
have any an apology for any avoidable egotism. His excuse is that, no
twit notwithstanding ding the glamour attaching to the old mining towns,
it is almost incredible how little is known of them by the average
Californian; for the Eastern tourist there is more excuse, since the
foot-hills of the Sierras lie outside the beaten tracks of travel. He
has, therefore, assumed that "a plain unvarnished tale" of actual
experiences might not be without interest to the casual reader; and
possibly might incite in him a desire to see for himself a country not
only possessed of rare beauty, but absolutely unique in its
associations.
But the point to be emphasized is that the glamour is not a thing of the
past: it is there now. Nay, to a person possessed of any imagination,
the ruins - say, of Coloma - appeal in all probability far stronger than
would the actual town itself in the days when it seethed with bustle and
excitement. Not to have visited the old mining towns is not to have seen
the "heart" of California, or felt its pulsations. It is not to
understand why the very name "California" still stirs the blood and
excites the imagination throughout the civilized world.
If this brief narrative should induce anyone to "gird up his loins,"
shoulder his pack and essay a similar pilgrimage, the author will feel
that he has not been unrewarded. And if a man over threescore years of
age can tramp through seven counties and return, in spite of intense
heat, feeling better and stronger than when he started, a young fellow
in the hey-day of life and sound of wind and limb surely ought not to be
discouraged.
Thomas Dykes Beasley.
A Tramp Through the Bret Harte Country
Chapter I
Reminiscences of Bret Harte. "Plain Language From Truthfulful James."
The Glamour of the Old Mining Towns
It is forty-four years since the writer met the author of "The Luck of
Roaring Camp" - that wonderful blending within the limits of a short
story of humor, pathos and tragedy - which, incredible as it may seem,
met with but a cold reception from the local press, and was even branded
as "indecent" and "immodest!"
On the occasion referred to, I was strolling on Rincon Hill - at that
time the fashionable residence quarter of San Francisco - in company
with Mr. J. H. Wildes, whose cousin, the late Admiral Frank Wildes,
achieved fame in the battle of Manila Bay. Mr. Wildes called my
attention to an approaching figure and said: "Here comes Bret Harte, a
man of unusual literary ability. He is having a hard struggle now, but
only needs the opportunity, to make a name for himself."
That opportunity arrived almost immediately. In the September number of
the Overland Monthly, 1870, of which magazine Mr. Harte was then editor,
appeared "Plain Language from Truthful James," or "The Heathen Chinee,"
as the poem was afterwards called. A few weeks later, to my amazement,
while turning the pages of Punch in the Mercantile Library, I came
across "The Heathen Chinee;" an unique compliment so far as my
recollection of Punch serves. To this generous and instantaneous
recognition of genius may be attributed in no small measure the rapid
distinction won by Bret Harte in the world of letters.
