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.
Mr. Harte read his "Heathen Chinee" to Mrs. Wildes, some time before it
was published.
