AUGUST 25

BRET HARTE

I

Francis Bret Harte was born in Albany,

BRET HARTE, 1839

N. Y., Aug. 25,

1839. His father

was a teacher in the Female academy, but died before he had given the boy more than a common school education. Frank, as he was then called, went to

California with his mother in 1854, and taught school at Sonora. He was not successful, but he afterwards made use of his experience in "Mliss", and "The Idyl of Red Gulch ", both of which are stories of

teachers. After he had acquired fame as an author he was made professor of recent literature in the University of California, but his removal to New York prevented his acceptance. He tried mining without success, and was for a time an express messenger, but his experiences gave him much. material for his subsequent literary work.

II

In newspaper work he found himself more at home. He became a compositor on the Golden Era, a paper which made Mark Twain and Prentice Mulford known, and for which Joaquin Miller was at one time a contributor. He began to write articles for it which were accepted, and got some local reputation as a writer, so that when the Californian was started May 28, 1864, the first two articles were his, and in 1864 he became editor. On the establishment of the Overland Monthly in 1868 he became editor of that, while from 1864 to 1870 he was secretary of the United States branch mint. In 1871 he removed to New York as a better field for literary work. In 1878 he was made consul at Crefeld, Germany, and

"The Luck of Roaring Camp" 235

in 1880 at Glasgow. In 1885 he resigned the latter office, and has since lived in London.

III

His leap into fame came with the publication of "The Luck of Roaring Camp ". There was some question whether the story would appear. The woman compositor who was to set it up refused to do so on the ground that it was unfit to print, but Mr. Harte declared that the story should go into the Overland or he would resign. It was at once received with almost unexampled favor on both continents. Blackwood's Magazine said of it: "This sketch, slight and brief as it is, answers the highest and noblest purpose of fiction. There is more

in it than in scores of three-volume novels. It opens to us a whole new and strange world, showing not one man but a crowd of men, sadly abandoned of everything that is lovely and of good report, and yet still made in God's image and possessing such qualities, hidden under the crusty profanity and reckless sinfulness, as make us pause and tremble ere we condemn. * * *

"The works of Mr. Bret Harte give, we are convinced, better promise of a true original influence in literature for America than anything we have yet seen from the other side of the Atlantic15."

It thus describes the peculiar charm of the work: "But nevertheless the whole community, in which there is not a single woman left, gets gradually absorbed in the child, and with a shamefaced submission to the soft new yoke which is thus put on its neck, it knows not how, grows a little cleaner, a little quieter, a little kinder, with a clumsy surprise at itself which is perfectly well rendered and thoroughly natural15."

IV

Though that story was published more than 30 years ago he is still writing stories, and all the best of them deal with pioneer California life. David Christie Murray says that he has given us half-a-dozen, perhaps, of the best short stories in the world18. Ferdinand Freiligrath, the German poet, has translated some of these stories into his own language, and one of them "The Idyl

"Gabriel Conroy"

237

of Red Gulch", was dramatized and played at Wallack's theatre.

V

His one novel, "Gabriel Conroy ", is looked upon as a failure. Gabriel himself is a man of tremendous physical strength, with a gentleness that in Bret Harte's stories always accompanies great power, and carried so far that as he strode along he avoided stepping upon woodland blossoms3. In one place he says: "When I seed thet man I knowed him to be a pore Mexican, whose legs I'd tended yere in the Gulch mor'n a year ago. I went up to him and when he seed me he'd hev run. But I laid my hand onto him and he stayed!" Again: "Take hold of me lower down and I'll help ye both,' he shouted, as he struck out with his only free arm for the chimisal. He reached it; drew himself up so that he could grasp it with his teeth, and then, hanging on by his jaw, raised his two clinging companions beside him3.”

VI

His most marked characteristic was his humility.