This Lady, A Woman Of Brilliant Attainments And One Who
Had A Host Of Friends In Old San Francisco, Possessed The Keenest Sense
Of Humor.
Mr. Harte greatly valued her critical judgment.
He was in the
habit of reading his stories and poems to her for her opinion and
decision, before publication, and it may well be that her hearty
laughter and warm approval helped to strengthen his wavering opinion of
the lines which convulsed Anglo-Saxondom; for no one was more surprised
than he at the sensation they created. He had even offered the poem for
publication to Mr. Ambrose Bierce, then editing the San Francisco News
Letter; but Mr. Bierce, recognizing its merit, returned it to Mr. Harte
and prevailed upon him to publish it in his own magazine.
Had one at that time encountered Mr. Harte in Piccadilly or Fifth
Avenue, he would simply have been aware of a man dressed in perfect
taste, but in the height of the prevailing fashion. On the streets of
San Francisco, however, Bret Harte was always a notable figure, from the
fact that the average man wore "slops," devoid alike of style or cut,
and usually of shiny broadcloth. Broad-brimmed black felt hats were the
customary headgear, completing a most funereal costume.
Mr. Harte impressed me as being singularly modest and utterly devoid of
any form of affectation. To be well dressed in a period when little
attention was paid clothes by the San Franciscan, might, it is true, in
some men have suggested assumption of an air of superiority; but with
Mr. Harte, to dress well was simply a natural instinct. His long,
drooping moustache and the side-whiskers of the time - incongruous as
the comparison may seem - called to mind the elder Sothern as "Lord
Dundreary." His natural expression was pensive, even sad. When one
considers that pathos and tragedy, perhaps even more than humor, pervade
his stories, that was not surprising.
I had but recently arrived from England - a mere lad. California was
still the land of gold and romance; the glamour with which Bret Harte
surrounded both, that bids fair to be immortal, held me enthralled.
Angel's, Rough and Ready, Sandy Bar, Poker Flat, Placerville, Tuolumne
and old Sonora represented to me enchanted ground. Fate and life's
vicissitudes prevented, except in imagination, a knowledge of the Sierra
foot-hill counties; but in the back of my head all these years had
persisted a determination to, at some time, visit a region close to the
heart of every old Californian, and what better way than on foot?
In spite of Pullman cars and automobiles - or, rather, perhaps on
account of them - the only way to see a country, to get into touch with
Nature and meet the inhabitants on the dead level of equality and human
sympathy, is to use Nature's method of locomotion. Equipped with a stout
stick - with a view to dogs - a folding kodak camera, and your "goods
and chattels" slung in a haversack across your shoulders, you feel
independent of timecards and "routes;" and sally forth into the world
with the philosophical determination to take things as they come; keyed
to a pleasurable pitch of excitement by the knowledge that "Adventure"
walks with you hand-in-hand, and that the "humors of the road" are yours
for the seeing and understanding.
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