Chapter XXI: Bret Harte's Style (1)

In discussing Bret Harte, it is almost impossible to separate substance from style. The style is so good, so exactly adapted to the ideas which he wishes to convey, that one can hardly imagine it as different. Some thousands of years ago an Eastern sage remarked that he would like to write a book such as everybody would conceive that he might have written himself, and yet so good that nobody else could have written the like. This is the ideal which Bret Harte fulfilled. Almost everything said by any one of his characters is so accurate an expression of that character as to seem inevitable. It is felt at once to be just what such a character must have said. Given the character, the words follow; and anybody could set them down! This is the fallacy underlying that strange feeling, which every reader must have experienced, of the apparent easiness of writing an especially good conversation or soliloquy.

The real difficulty of writing like Bret Harte is shown by the fact that as a story-teller he has no imitators. His style is so individual as to make imitation impossible. And yet occasionally the inspiration failed. It is a peculiarity of Bret Harte, shown especially in the longer stories, and most of all perhaps in _Gabriel Conroy_, that there are times when the reader almost believes that Bret Harte has dropped the pen, and some inferior person has taken it up. Author and reader come to the ground with a thud.

Mr. Warren Cheney has remarked upon this defect as follows:--

"With most authors there is a level of general excellence along which they can plod if the wings of genius chance to tire for a time; but with Mr. Harte the case is a different one. His powers are impulsive rather than enduring. Ideas strike him with extraordinary force, but the inspiration is of equally short duration. So long as the flush of excitement lasts, his work will be up to standard; but when the genius flags, he has no individual fund of dramatic or narrative properties to sustain him."

But of these lapses there are few in the short stories, and none at all in the best stories. In them the style is almost flawless. There are no mannerisms in it; no affectations; no egotism; no slang (except, of course, in the mouths of the various characters); nothing local or provincial, nothing which stamps it as of a particular age, country or school,--nothing, in short, which could operate as a barrier between author and reader.

But these are only negative virtues. What are the positive virtues of Bret Harte's style? Perhaps the most obvious quality is the deep feeling which pervades it. It is possible, indeed, to have good style without depth of feeling. John Stuart Mill is an example; Lord Chesterfield is another; Benjamin Franklin another. In general, however, want of feeling in the author produces a coldness in the style that chills the reader. Herbert Spencer's autobiography discloses an almost inhuman want of feeling, and the same effect is apparent in his dreary, frigid style.

On the other hand, it is a truism that the language of passion is invariably effective, and never vulgar. Grief and anger are always eloquent. There are men, even practised authors, who never write really well unless something has occurred to put them out of temper. Good style may perhaps be said to result from the union of deep feeling with an artistic sense of form. This produces that conciseness for which Bret Harte's style is remarkable. What author has used shorter words, has expressed more with a few words, or has elaborated so little! His points are made with the precision of a bullet going straight to the mark, and nothing is added.

How effective, for example, is this dialogue between Helen Maynard, who has just met the one-armed painter for the first time, and the French girl who accompanies her: "'So you have made a conquest of the recently acquired but unknown Greek statue?' said Mademoiselle Renee lightly.

"'It is a countryman of mine,' said Helen simply.

"'He certainly does not speak French,' said Mademoiselle mischievously.

"'Nor think it,' responded Helen, with equal vivacity."

Possibly Bret Harte sometimes carries this dramatic conciseness a little too far,--so far that the reader's attention is drawn from the matter in hand to the manner in which it is expressed. To take an example, _Johnson's Old Woman_ ends as follows:--

"'I want to talk to you about Miss Johnson,' I said eagerly.

"'I reckon so,' he said with an exasperating smile. 'Most fellers do. But she ain't _Miss_ Johnson no more. She's married.'

"'Not to that big chap over from Ten Mile Mills?' I said breathlessly.

"'What's the matter with _him_,' said Johnson. 'Ye didn't expect her to marry a nobleman, did ye?'

"I said I didn't see why she shouldn't,--and believed that she _had_."

This is extremely clever, but perhaps its very cleverness, and its abruptness, divert the reader's interest for a moment from the story to the person who tells it.

One other characteristic of Bret Harte's style, and indeed of any style which ranks with the best, is obvious, and that is subtlety. It is the office of a good style to express in some indefinable manner those _nuances_ which mere words, taken by themselves, are not fine enough to convey. Thoughts so subtle as to have almost the character of feelings; feelings so well defined as just to escape being thoughts; attractions and repulsions; those obscure movements of the intellect of which the ordinary man is only half conscious until they are revealed to him by the eye of genius;--all these things it is a part of style to express, or at least to imply. Subtlety of style presupposes, of course, subtlety of thought, and possibly also subtlety of perception. Certainly Bret Harte had both of these capacities; and many examples might be cited of his minute and sympathetic observation. For instance, although he had no knowledge of horses, and occasionally betrays his ignorance in this respect, yet he has described the peculiar gait of the American trotter with an accuracy which any technical person might envy. "The driver leaned forward and did something with the reins--Rose never could clearly understand what, though it seemed to her that he simply lifted them with ostentatious lightness; but the mare suddenly seemed to _lengthen herself_ and lose her height, and the stalks of wheat on either side of the dusty track began to melt into each other, and then slipped like a flash into one long, continuous, shimmering green hedge. So perfect was the mare's action that the girl was scarcely conscious of any increased effort.... So superb was the reach of her long, easy stride that Rose could scarcely see any undulations in the brown, shining back on which she could have placed her foot, nor felt the soft beat of the delicate hoofs that took the dust so firmly and yet so lightly."[116]

Equally correct is the description of the "great, yellow mare" Jovita, that carried Dick Bullen on his midnight ride:[117] "From her Roman nose to her rising haunches, from her arched spine hidden by the stiff _manchillas_ of a Mexican saddle, to her thick, straight bony legs, there was not a line of equine grace. In her half-blind but wholly vicious white eyes, in her protruding under lip, in her monstrous color, there was nothing but ugliness and vice."

Jovita, plainly, was drawn from life, and she must have been of thoroughbred blood on one side, for her extraordinary energy and temper could have been derived from no other source. Such a mare would naturally have an unusually straight hind leg; and Bret Harte noticed it.

As to his heroines, he had such a faculty of describing them that they stand before us almost as clearly as if we saw them in the flesh. He does not simply tell us that they are beautiful,--we see for ourselves that they are so; and one reason for this is the sympathetic keenness with which he observed all the details of the human face and figure. Thus Julia Porter's face "appeared whiter at the angles of the mouth and nose through the relief of tiny freckles like grains of pepper."

There are subtleties of coloring that have escaped almost everybody else. Who but Bret Harte has really described the light which love kindles upon the face of a woman? "Yerba Buena's strangely delicate complexion had taken on itself that faint Alpine glow that was more of an illumination than a color." And so of Cressy, as the Schoolmaster saw her at the dance. "She was pale, he had never seen her so beautiful.... The absence of color in her usually fresh face had been replaced by a faint magnetic aurora that seemed to him half spiritual. He could not take his eyes from her; he could not believe what he saw."

The forehead, the temples, and more especially the eyebrows of his heroines--these and the part which they play in the expression of emotion, are described by Bret Harte with a particularity which cannot be found elsewhere. Even the eyelashes of his heroines are often carefully painted in the picture. Flora Dimwood "cast a sidelong glance" at the hero, "under her widely-spaced, heavy lashes." Of Mrs. Brimmer, the fastidious Boston woman, it is said that "a certain nervous intensity occasionally lit up her weary eyes with a dangerous phosphorescence, under their brown fringes."

The eyes and eyelashes of that irrepressible child, Sarah Walker, are thus minutely and pathetically described: "Her eyes were of a dark shade of burnished copper,--the orbits appearing deeper and larger from the rubbing in of habitual tears from long wet lashes."

Bret Harte has the rare faculty of making even a tearful woman attractive. The Ward of the Golden Gate "drew back a step, lifted her head with a quick toss that seemed to condense the moisture in her shining eyes, and sent what might have been a glittering dewdrop flying into the loosened tendrils of her hair." The quick-tempered heroine is seen "hurriedly disentangling two stinging tears from her long lashes"; and even the mannish girl, Julia Porter, becomes femininely deliquescent as she leans back in the dark stage-coach, with the romantic Cass Beard gazing at her from his invisible corner. "How much softer her face looked in the moonlight!--How moist her eyes were--actually shining in the light! How that light seemed to concentrate in the corner of the lashes, and then slipped--flash--away! Was she? Yes, she was crying."

There is great subtlety not only of perception but of thought in the description of the Two Americans at the beginning of their intimacy:--

"Oddly enough, their mere presence and companionship seemed to excite in others that tenderness they had not yet felt themselves. Family groups watched the handsome pair in their innocent confidence and, with French exuberant recognition of sentiment, thought them the incarnation of Love. Something in their manifest equality of condition kept even the vainest and most susceptible of spectators from attempted rivalry or cynical interruption. And when at last they dropped side by side on a sun-warmed stone bench on the terrace, and Helen, inclining her brown head toward her companion, informed him of the difficulty she had experienced in getting gumbo soup, rice and chicken, corn cakes, or any of her favorite home dishes in Paris, an exhausted but gallant boulevardier rose from a contiguous bench, and, politely lifting his hat to the handsome couple, turned slowly away from what he believed were tender confidences he would not permit himself to hear."

Without this subtlety, a writer may have force, even eloquence, as Johnson and Macaulay had those qualities, but he is not likely to have an enduring charm. Subtlety seems to be the note of the best modern writers, of the Oxford school in particular, a subtlety of language which extracts from every word its utmost nicety of meaning, and a subtlety of thought in which every faculty is on the alert to seize any qualification or limitation, any hint or suggestion that might be hovering obscurely about the subject.

Yet subtlety, more perhaps than any other quality of a good style, easily becomes a defect. If it is the forte of some writers, it is the foible, not to say the vice, of others. The later works of Henry James, for instance, will at once occur to the Reader as an example. Bret Harte himself is sometimes, but rarely, over-subtle, representing his characters as going through processes of thought or speech much too elaborate for them, or for the occasion.

There is an example of this in _Susy_, where Clarence says: "'If I did not know you were prejudiced by a foolish and indiscreet woman, I should believe you were trying to insult me as you have your adopted mother, and would save you the pain of doing both in _her_ house by leaving it now and forever.'"

And again, in _A Secret of Telegraph Hill_, where Herbert Bly says to the gambler whom he has surprised in his room, hiding from the Vigilance Committee: "'Whoever you may be, I am neither the police nor a spy. You have no right to insult me by supposing that I would profit by a mistake that made you my guest, and that I would refuse you the sanctuary of the roof that covers your insult as well as your blunder.'" And yet the speaker is not meant to be a prig.

There is another characteristic of Bret Harte's style which should perhaps be regarded as a form of subtlety, and that is the surprising resources of his vocabulary. He seems to have gathered all the words and idioms that might become of service to him, and to have stored them in his memory for future use. If a peculiar or technical expression was needed, he always had it at hand. Thus when the remorseful Joe Corbin told Colonel Starbottle about his sending money to the widow of the man whom he had killed in self-defence, the Colonel's apt comment was, "A kind of expiation or amercement of fine, known to the Mosaic, Roman and old English law." And yet his reading never took a wide range. His large vocabulary was due partly, no doubt, to an excellent memory, but still more to his keen appreciation of delicate shades in the meaning of words. He had a remarkable gift of choosing the right word. In the following lines, for example, the whole effect depends upon the discriminating selection of the verbs and adjectives:--

Bunny, thrilled by unknown fears,
Raised his soft and pointed ears,
Mumbled his prehensile lip,
Quivered his pulsating hip.

Depth of feeling, subtlety of perception and intellect,--these qualities, supplemented by the sense of form and beauty, go far to account for the charm of Bret Harte's style. He had an ear for style, just as some persons have an ear for music; and he could extract beauty from language just as the musician can extract it from the strings of a violin. This kind of beauty is, in one sense, a matter of mere sound; and yet it is really much more than that. "Words, even the most perfect, owe very much to the spiritual cadence with which they are imbued."[118]

A musical sentence, made up of words harmoniously chosen, and of sub-sentences nicely balanced, must necessarily deepen, soften, heighten, or otherwise modify the bare meaning of the words. In fact, it clothes them with that kind and degree of feeling which, as the writer consciously or unconsciously perceives, will best further his intention. Style, in short, is a substitute for speech, the author giving through the medium of his style the same emotional and personal color to his thoughts which the orator conveys by the tone and inflections of his voice. Hence the saying that the style is the man.

If we were looking for an example of mere beauty in style, perhaps we could find nothing better than this description of Maruja, after parting from her lover: "Small wonder that, hidden and silent in her enwrappings, as she lay back in the carriage, with her pale face against the cold, starry sky, two other stars came out and glistened and trembled on her passion-fringed lashes."

No less beautiful in style are these lines:--

Above the tumult of the canon lifted,
The gray hawk breathless hung,
Or on the hill a winged shadow drifted
Where furze and thorn-bush clung.[119]

And yet, so exact is the correspondence between thought and word here, that we find ourselves doubting whether the charm of the passage lies in its form, or in the mere idea conveyed to the reader with the least possible interposition of language; and yet, again, to raise that very doubt may be the supreme effect of a consummate style.

Bret Harte was sometimes a little careless in his style, careless, that is, in the way of writing obscurely or ungrammatically, but very seldom so careless as to write in a dull or unmusical fashion. To find a harsh sentence anywhere in his works would be almost, if not quite, impossible. A leading English Review once remarked, "It was never among Mr. Bret Harte's accomplishments to labor cheerfully with the file"; and again, a few years later, "Mr. Harte can never be accused of carelessness." Neither statement was quite correct, but the second one comes very much nearer the truth than the first.

Beside these occasional lapses in the construction of his sentences, Bret Harte had some peculiarities in the use of English to which he clung, either out of loyalty to Dickens, from whom he seems to have derived them, or from a certain amiable perversity which was part of his character. He was a strong partisan of the "split infinitive." A Chinaman "caused the gold piece and the letter to instantly vanish up his sleeve." "To coldly interest Price"; "to unpleasantly discord with the general social harmony"; "to quietly reappear," are other examples.

The wrong use of "gratuitous" is a thoroughly Dickens error, and it almost seems as if Bret Harte went out of his way to copy it. In the story of _Miggles_, for example, it is only a few paragraphs after Yuba Bill has observed the paralytic Jim's "expression of perfectly gratuitous solemnity," that his own features "relax into an expression of gratuitous and imbecile cheerfulness."

"Aggravation" in the sense of irritation is another Dickens solecism which also appears several times in Bret Harte.

Beside these, Bret Harte had a few errors all his own. In _The Story of a Mine_, there is a strangely repeated use of the awkward expression "near facts," followed by a statement that the new private secretary was a little dashed as to his "near hopes." Diligent search reveals also "continued on" in one story, "different to" in another, "plead" for "pleaded," "who would likely spy upon you" in an unfortunate place, and "too occupied with his subject" somewhere else.

This short list will very nearly exhaust Bret Harte's errors in the use of English; but it must be admitted, also, that he occasionally lapses into a Dickens-like grandiloquence and cant of superior virtue. There are several examples of this in _The Story of a Mine_, especially in that part which relates to the City of Washington. The following paragraph is almost a burlesque of Dickens: "The actors, the legislators themselves, knew it and laughed at it; the commentators, the Press, knew it and laughed at it; the audience, the great American people, knew it and laughed at it. And nobody for an instant conceived that it ever, under any circumstances, might be different."

Still worse is this description of the Supreme Court, which might serve as a model of confused ideas and crude reasoning, only half believed in by the writer himself: "A body of learned, cultivated men, representing the highest legal tribunal in the land, still lingered in a vague idea of earning the scant salary bestowed upon them by the economical founders of the government, and listened patiently to the arguments of counsel, whose fees for advocacy of the claims before them would have paid the life income of half the bench."

That exquisite sketch, _Wan Lee, the Pagan_, is marred by this Dickens-like apostrophe to the clergy: "Dead, my reverend friends, dead! Stoned to death in the streets of San Francisco, in the year of grace, eighteen hundred and sixty-nine, by a mob of half-grown boys and Christian school-children!"

In the description of an English country church, which occurs in _A Phyllis of the Sierras_, we find another passage almost worthy of a "condensed novel" in which some innocent crusaders, lying cross-legged in marble, are rebuked for tripping up the unwary "until in death, as in life, they got between the congregation and the Truth that was taught there."

Bret Harte has been accused also of "admiring his characters in the wrong place," as Dickens certainly did; but this charge seems to be an injustice. A scene in _Gabriel Conroy_ represents Arthur Poinsett as calmly explaining to Dona Dolores that he is the person who seduced and abandoned Grace Conroy; and he makes this statement without a sign of shame or regret. "If he had been uttering a moral sentiment, he could not have been externally more calm, or inwardly less agitated. More than that, there was a certain injured dignity in his manner," and so forth.

This is the passage cited by that very acute critic, Mr. E. S. Nadal. But there is nothing in it or in the context which indicates that Bret Harte admired the conduct of Poinsett. He was simply describing a type which everybody will recognize; but not describing it as admirable. Bret Harte depicted his characters with so much _gusto_, and at the same time was so absolutely impartial and non-committal toward them, that it is easy to misconceive his own opinion of them or of their conduct.[120] From another fault, perhaps the worst fault of Dickens, namely, his propensity for the sudden conversion of a character to something the reverse of what it always has been, Bret Harte--with the single exception of Mrs. Tretherick, in _An Episode of Fiddletown_--is absolutely free.

It should be remembered, moreover, that Bret Harte's imitations of Dickens occur only in a few passages of a few stories. When Bret Harte nodded, he wrote like Dickens. But the better stories, and the great majority of the stories, show no trace of this blemish. Bret Harte at his best was perhaps as nearly original as any author in the world.

On the whole, it seems highly probable--though the critics have mostly decided otherwise--that Bret Harte derived more good than bad from his admiration for Dickens. The reading of Dickens stimulated his boyish imagination and quickened that sympathy with the weak and suffering, with the downtrodden, with the waifs and strays, with the outcasts of society, which is remarkable in both writers. The spirit of Dickens breathes through the poems and stories of Bret Harte, just as the spirit of Bret Harte breathes through the poems and stories of Kipling. Bret Harte had a very pretty satirical vein, which might easily, if developed, have made him an author of satire rather than of sentiment. Who can say that the influence of Dickens, coming at the early, plastic period of his life, may not have turned the scale?

That Dickens surpassed him in breadth and scope, Bret Harte himself would have been the first to acknowledge. The mere fact that one wrote novels and the other short stories almost implies as much. If we consider the works of an author like Hawthorne, who did both kinds equally well, it is easy to see how much more effective is the long story. Powerful as Hawthorne's short stories are--the "Minister's Black Veil," for example--they cannot rival the longer-drawn, more elaborately developed tragedy of "The Scarlet Letter."

The characters created by Dickens have taken hold of the popular imagination, and have influenced public sentiment in a degree which cannot be attributed to the characters of Bret Harte. Dickens, moreover, despite his vulgarisms, despite even the cant into which he occasionally falls, had a depth of sincerity and conviction that can hardly be asserted for Bret Harte. Dickens' errors in taste were superficial; upon any important matter he always had a genuine opinion to express. With respect to Bret Harte, on the other hand, we cannot help feeling that his errors in taste, though infrequent, are due to a want of sincerity, to a want of conviction upon deep things.

And yet, despite the fact that Dickens excelled Bret Harte in depth and scope, there is reason to think that the American author of short stories will outlast the English novelist. The one is, and the other is not, a classic writer. It was said of Dickens that he had no "citadel of the mind,"--no mental retiring-place, no inward poise or composure; and this defect is shown by a certain feverish quality in his style, as well as by those well-known exaggerations and mannerisms which disfigure it.

Bret Harte, on the other hand, in his best poems and stories, exhibits all that restraint, all that absence of idiosyncrasy as distinguished from personality, which marks the true artist. What the world demands is the peculiar flavor of the artist's mind; but this must be conveyed in a pure and unadulterated form, free from any ingredient of eccentricity or self-will. In Bret Harte there is a wonderful economy both of thought and language. Everything said or done in the course of a story contributes to the climax or end which the author has in view. There are no digressions or superfluities; the words are commonly plain words of Anglo-Saxon descent; and it would be hard to find one that could be dispensed with. The language is as concise as if the story were a message, to be delivered to the reader in the shortest possible time.

One other point of much importance remains to be spoken of, although it might be difficult to say whether it is really a matter of style or of substance. Nothing counts for more in the telling of a story, especially a story of adventure, than the author's attitude toward his characters; not simply the fact that he blames or praises them, or abstains from doing so, but his unspoken attitude, his real feeling, disclosed between the lines. Too much admiration on the part of the author is fatal to a classic effect, even though the admiration be implied rather than expressed. This is perhaps the greatest weakness of Mr. Kipling. That a man should be a gentleman is always, strangely enough, a matter of some surprise to that conscientious author, and that he should be not only a gentleman, but actually brave in addition, is almost too much for Mr. Kipling's equanimity. His heroes, those gallant young officers whom he describes so well, are exhibited to the reader with something of that pride which a showman or a fond mother might pardonably display. Mr. Kipling knows them thoroughly, but he is not of them. He is their humble servant. They are, he seems to feel, members of a species to which he, the author, and probably the reader also, are not akin. Now, almost everybody who writes about fighting or heroic men in these days,--about highwaymen, cow-boys, river-drivers, woodsmen, or other primitive characters,--imitates Mr. Kipling, very seldom Bret Harte. Partly, no doubt, this is because Mr. Kipling's mannerisms are attractive, and easily copied. That little trick, for example, of beginning sentences with the word "also," is a familiar earmark of the Kipling school.

But a stronger reason for imitating Mr. Kipling is that the attitude of frank admiration which he assumes is the natural attitude for the ordinary writer. Such a writer falls into it unconsciously, and does not easily rise above it. The author is a "tenderfoot," discoursing to another tenderfoot, the reader, about the brave and wonderful men whom he has met in the course of his travels; and the reader's astonishment and admiration are looked for with confidence.

Vastly different from all this is the attitude of Bret Harte. He takes it for granted that the Pioneers in general had the instincts of gentlemen and the courage of heroes. His characters are represented not as exceptional California men, but as ordinary California men placed in rather exceptional circumstances. Brave as they are, they are never brave enough to surprise him. He is their equal. He never boasts of them nor about them. On the contrary, he gives the impression that the whole California Pioneer Society was constructed upon the same lofty plane,--as indeed it was, barring a few renegades.

When Edward Brice, the young expressman, "set his white lips together, and with a determined face, and unfaltering step," walked straight toward the rifle held in Snapshot Harry's unerring hands, the incident astonishes nobody,--except perhaps the reader. Certainly it does not astonish the persons who witness or the author who records it. It evokes a little good-humored banter from Snapshot Harry himself, and a laughing compliment from his beautiful niece, Flora Dimwood, but nothing more. We have been told that Shakspere cut no great figure in his own time because his contemporaries were cast in much the same heroic mould,--greatness of soul being a rather common thing in Elizabethan days. For a similar reason, the heroes of Bret Harte are accepted by one another, by the minor characters, and, finally, by the author himself, with perfect composure and without visible surprise.

Bret Harte makes the reader feel that he is describing not simply a few men and women of nobility, but a whole society, an epoch, of which he was himself a part; and this gives an element of distinction, even of immortality, to his stories. Had only one man died at Thermopylae, the fact would have been remembered by the world, but it would have lost its chief significance. The death of three hundred made it a typical act of the Spartan people. The time will come when California, now strangely unappreciative of its own past, and of the writer who preserved it, will look back upon the Pioneers as the modern Greek looks back upon Sparta and Athens.

THE END

Footnotes:

[1] The final _e_ was added to Henry Hart's name in the last years of his life, and the family tradition is that this was done to distinguish him from another Henry Hart who, like himself, was very active in the political campaign of the year 1844.

[2] For the spelling of Henry Hart's name, see the footnote on page 1.

[3] The _Crusade of the Excelsior_ contains some reminiscences of the voyage.

[4] The following account of a ride in a California stage is given by Borthwick: "All sense of danger was lost in admiration of the coolness and dexterity of the driver as he circumvented every obstacle without going one inch farther out of his way than was necessary to save us from perdition. With his right foot he managed a brake, and, clawing at the reins with both hands, he swayed his body from side to side, to preserve his equilibrium, as now on the right pair of wheels, now on the left, he cut the outside edge round a stump or a rock; and when coming to a spot where he was going to execute a difficult manoeuvre on a slanting piece of ground, he trimmed the wagon, as we would a small boat in a squall, and made us all crowd up to the weather side to prevent a capsize."

[5] _Cressy._ The paragraph quoted is only a part of the description.

[6] _A Phyllis of the Sierras._

[7] Pemberton's "Life of Bret Harte," page 102.

[8] Side-meat is the thin flank of a pig, cured like a ham. It was the staple article of food in the Southwest.

[9] This poem is included in the author's collected poems under the title, _The Return of Belisarius_.

[10] Bret Harte in the General Introduction to his works.

[11] The proof-sheets of the _Heathen Chinee_ are preserved in the University of California, and they show many changes in Bret Harte's writing. See "Bret Harte's Country," an interesting illustrated article by Will. M. Clemens, in "The Bookman," vol. xiii, p. 224.

[12] _The Society upon the Stanislaus_ first appeared in the "News Letter."

[13] See Hittell's "History of California." This book, the best and fullest on the subject, contains ample evidence of our author's accuracy.

[14] A Forty-Niner, as defined by the California Society of Pioneers, is an immigrant who, before midnight of December 31, 1849, was within the State of California, or on shipboard within three miles of the coast, that being the extent of the maritime jurisdiction of the State.

[15] There was, however, a miner of seventy at Sonoma who had left a wife and six children at home in the East; and on October 1, 1850, there arrived in Sacramento a veteran of the Revolutionary War, ninety years of age. He had come all the way from Illinois to seek the fortune which fate had hitherto denied him. Unfortunately, he was so feeble that it became necessary to send him to a hospital, and history does not record his subsequent career, if indeed he survived to have one.

[16] "Pioneer Times in California."

[17] Mr. Kipling, who visited California in the year 1898, speaks of "the remarkable beauty" of the women of San Francisco,--descendants in most cases of the Pioneers.

[18] The Reverend Walter Colton, "Three Years in California."

[19] Just across the river, in the State of Illinois, is another Pike County, similar in soil and population; and this Illinois county was the scene of John Hay's "Pike County Ballads."

[20] Eliza W. Farnham, "California, Indoors and Out."

[21] Bayard Taylor, "El Dorado."

[22] Edwin Bryant, "California."

[23] See Thornton's "Oregon and California in 1848."

[24] _A Waif of the Plains._

[25] _When the Waters Were Up at "Jules'."_

[26] In _A First Family of Tasajara_ he gives the same explanation for the beauty of Clementina, which is described as "hopelessly and even wantonly inconsistent with her surroundings."

[27] "The coarse, the horny-handed, the bull-throated were the most successful. They set the fashion, those great men of the pickaxe and the pistol, and a fine, fire-eating, antediluvian, reckless fashion it was."--W. M. Fisher, "The Californians."

[28] How long this continued to be the California point of view is shown by an interesting reminiscence of Professor Royce's. "I reached twenty years of age without ever becoming clearly conscious of what was meant by judging a man by his antecedents, a judgment that in an older and less isolated community is natural and inevitable, and that, I think, in most of our Western communities grows up more rapidly than it has grown up in California, where geographical isolation is added to the absence of tradition."

[29] D. B. Woods, "Sixteen Months at the Gold Diggings."

[30] G. K. Chesterton, in "The Critic."

[31] "Perils, Pastimes and Pleasures of an Emigrant," by J. W.

[32] Eliza W. Farnham, "California, Indoors and Out."

[33] Dancing was a common amusement among the miners even when there were no women to be had as partners. "It was a strange sight to see a party of long-bearded men, in heavy boots and flannel shirts, going through all the steps and figures of the dance with so much spirit, and often with a great deal of grace; hearty enjoyment depicted on their dried-up, sun-burned faces, and revolvers and bowie-knives glancing in their belts; while a crowd of the same rough-looking customers stood around, cheering them on to greater efforts, and occasionally dancing a step or two quietly on their own account."--Borthwick's "Three Years in California."

[34] _The Romance of Madrono Hollow._

[35] The Reverend Walter Colton, "Three Years in California."

[36] W. M. Fisher, "The Californians."

[37] Mrs. D. B. Bates, "Incidents on Land and Water."

[38] J. M. Letts, "California Illustrated."

[39] "Our Italy."

[40] This quality seems to have persisted, if we can trust Mr. Rudyard Kipling, who wrote in the year 1899: "San Francisco is a mad city.... Recklessness is in the air. I can't explain where it comes from, but there it is. The roaring winds off the Pacific make you drunk, to begin with."

[41] Stephen J. Field, "Personal Reminiscences of California."

[42] William Grey, "Pioneer Times in California."

[43] See the San Francisco "Herald" of May 19, 1856.

[44] D. B. Woods, "Sixteen Months at the Gold Diggings."

[45] The Captain calmly directed the transfer of the women and children, kept his place on the paddle-box, and went down with the others. He was James Lewis Herndon, a Commander in the United States Navy, and the explorer of the Amazon. A monument to his memory was erected by brother officers in the grounds of the Naval Academy at Annapolis. The steamer was bringing $2,000,000 in gold, and the loss of this treasure increased the commercial panic then prevailing in the Atlantic States.

[46] Baron Fairfax of Cameron in the Peerage of Scotland. Many stories are told of his adventures in California.

[47] Bayard Taylor, who visited the mining camps in the winter of '49, found them well organized under the rule of an Alcalde. "Nothing in California," he wrote, "seemed more miraculous to me than this spontaneous evolution of social order from the worst elements of anarchy."

[48] William Grey, "Pioneer Times in California."

[49] "Seeking the Golden Fleece."

[50] Shucks, "Bench and Bar of California."

[51] William Grey, "Pioneer Times in California."

[52] S. J. Field, "Personal Reminiscences of Early Days in California."

[53] Journalistic affrays were frequent. See page 192 _infra_.

[54] C. W. Haskins, "The Argonauts of California."

[55] "Emerson in Concord," page 94.

[56] Introduction to volume ii of Bret Harte's works.

[57] "Alta California" of July 21, 1851.

[58] The Reverend William Taylor, "California Life."

[59] In one day two women, crazed by the sufferings of their children, drowned themselves in the Humboldt River.

[60] E. W. Farnham, "California Indoors and Out."

[61] Before the Civil War, the treatment of women, even in the Eastern cities, was almost invariably courteous and respectful. It was the exception, in New York or Boston, when a man neglected to give up his seat in a public conveyance to a woman; whereas, nowadays the exception is the other way. Profound respect shown to woman as woman is incompatible with a society founded upon an aristocratic, plutocratic, or caste system. It was never known in England. It is the product of a real democracy and of that alone; and in this country, as we become more and more plutocratic, the respect for women diminishes. The great cities of the United States are fast approaching, in this regard, the brutality of London, Paris and Berlin.

[62] In the poem, _Concepcion de Arguello_.

[63] H. A. Wise, "Los Gringos."

[64] H. R. Helper, "The Land of Gold."

[65] Horace Greeley, "An Overland Journey from New York to San Francisco."

[66] _How Santa Claus came to Simpson's Bar._

[67] _A Ward of the Golden Gate._

[68] S. C. Upham, "Scenes in El Dorado."

[69] Volume xv, page 466.

[70] See also page 103, _supra_.

[71] The late Sherman Hoar of Concord, whose name is inscribed on the tablet in Memorial Hall devoted to those Harvard Graduates who lost their lives in the Spanish War, was almost exactly such a character as Bret Harte described,--long to be remembered with affection.

[72] H. H. Bancroft, "Chronicles of the Builders."

[73] C. W. Haskins, "The Argonauts of California."

[74] Benton, "The California Pilgrim."

[75] _A Passage in the Life of Mr. John Oakhurst._

[76] Delano, "Life on the Plains."

[77] "The Virginia Editor is a young, unmarried, intemperate, pugnacious, gambling gentleman."--George W. Bagby, "The Old Virginia Gentlemen and Other Sketches."

[78] They were the Reverend Walter Colton, Chaplain in the United States Navy, and Alcalde, as already mentioned, and Dr. Robert Semple, a well-known Pioneer politician.

[79] "Men and Memories of San Francisco," by Barry and Patten.

[80] "California: its Characteristics and Prospects."

[81] See also _supra_, p. 169.

[82] It must be admitted that the ministers were placed in a difficult situation, being obliged to cope with the hardy, humorous materialism of Pioneer life. The following dialogue is an authentic illustration:--

"Mr. Small, do not you believe in the overruling Providence of God?"

"Which God?"

"There is but one God."

"I don't see it, Parson. On this yere Pacific Coast gods is numerous--Chinee gods, Mormon gods, Injin gods, Christian gods, _an' the Bank o' Californy_!"--"The Californians," by W. M. Fisher.

[83] A traveller passing through Dolores in Mexico was the witness of a marriage like that of Stephen Masterton: "Whilst stopping here I saw a smart-looking Yankee and a Spanish girl married by the priest, whose words were interpreted to the bridegroom as the ceremony proceeded. The lady was of rather dark complexion but extremely pretty; and although she knew scarcely a word of English, and the bridegroom knew still less of Spanish, it was evident from the eloquence of the glances which passed between them, that they were at no loss to make themselves understood."--"Personal Adventures in Upper and Lower California," W. R. Ryan.

[84] Mrs. Kemble, on the other hand, as the Reader may remember, described him as "tall." His real height, already mentioned, was five feet, eight inches.

[85] W. D. Howells, "Literary Friends and Acquaintance."

[86] See Pemberton's "Life of Bret Harte," page 228.

[87] _My Friend the Tramp_, written in 1872.

[88] Samuel Bowles, famous as Editor of the "Springfield Republican."

[89] Pemberton's "Life of Bret Harte," page 133.

[90] Pemberton's "Life of Bret Harte," page 136.

[91] Pemberton's "Life of Bret Harte," pp. 137-142.

[92] These lectures, with a short address delivered in London, have recently been published in a volume entitled "The Lectures of Bret Harte," by Charles Meeker Kozlay, New York.

[93] Pemberton's "Life of Bret Harte," page 145.

[94] Pemberton's "Life of Bret Harte," pp. 168-170.

[95] It was now a Commercial Agency, the grade next below that of a Consulship.

[96] Pemberton's "Life of Bret Harte," page 173.

[97] Pemberton's "Life of Bret Harte," page 186.

[98] Pemberton's "Life of Bret Harte," page 181.

[99] See footnote on page 244, _supra_.

[100] Pemberton's "Life of Bret Harte," p. 265.

[101] St. Kentigern established a Bishopric in the year 560 in the place which afterward became Glasgow, and thus he is regarded as the founder of the city. His monument is shown beneath the choir of the Cathedral where his body was interred A. D. 601.

[102] By the regulations then in force Consuls were forbidden to be absent from their posts for a period exceeding ten days, without first obtaining leave from the President.

[103] Pemberton's "Life of Bret Harte," page 334.

[104] Mary Stuart Boyd. See "Harper's Magazine," vol. 105, page 773.

[105] His friend and travelling companion, Colonel Arthur Collins.

[106] See _ante_, page 245.

[107] See _ante_, page 209.

[108] When news of the death of Dickens reached Bret Harte he was camping in the Foot-Hills, far from San Francisco, but he sent a telegram to hold back for a day the printing of the "Overland," then ready for the press, and his poem was written that night and forwarded the next morning. A week or two later Bret Harte received a cordial letter from Dickens, written just before his death, complimenting the California author, and requesting him to write a story for "All the Year Round."

[109] A miner, writing in August, 1850, from the Middle Fork of the American River, said: "When I came up here, the river was a roaring torrent, and its _sombre music_ could plainly be heard upon the tops of the mountains rising to a height of about three thousand feet."

[110] G. H. Denny, President of Washington and Lee University.

[111] Thomas E. Cramblet, President of Bethany College.

[112] Gerard Fowke, author of the "Archaeological History of Ohio."

[113] R. H. Crossfield, President of Transylvania University.

[114] J. I. D. Hinds, Dean of the University of Nashville.

[115] For the meaning of "Pike," see _supra_, page 59.

[116] _Through the Santa Clara Wheat._

[117] _How Santa Claus Came to Simpson's Bar._

[118] R. L. Stevenson.

[119] The author had described this scene before in prose, though he may have forgotten it. In the story called _Who Was My Quiet Friend?_ he wrote: "The pines in the caftan below were olive gulfs of heat, over which a hawk here and there drifted lazily, or, rising to our level, cast a weird and gigantic shadow of slowly moving wings on the mountain-side."

[120] See page 178, _supra_.

INDEX

"Abner Nott," 74, 321.

"Academy," the London, on Bret Harte's portrayal of gamblers, 173.

"Ah Sin," a play by Bret Harte and Mark Twain, 234.

"Ailsa Callender," 248, 269, 270, 299.

Alamo, 21.

Albany, birthplace of Bret Harte, 1;
Henry Hart's occupations in, 11;
Young Men's Association, 11;
12;
lecture by Bret Harte in, 239.

Albany Female Academy, Henry Hart an instructor in, 11.

Alcaldes, the, duties of, 121;
decisions by, 123, 124, 125-126.

Alcott, Bronson, 12.

Alcott family, resemblance of the Harte family to, 12, 16.

Aldrich, Thomas Bailey, 45.

"Alkali Dick," 328.

Allen, Edward A., 326.

"Allow," "'low," in the sense of declare or say, 324.

"Alta California," The, cited, 134, 140, 144, 148, 181, 185-186, 192,
193, 196, 204.

Alvarado, Spanish governor, 102.

_American Humor_, 244.

_Angelus, The_, 308.

Anthony, A. V. S., boy-neighbor of Bret Harte in Hudson Street, New
York, 11-12;
after-meetings with in California and in London, 12;
recollections of California in the '50s, 142.

_Apostle of the Tules, An_, 64, 206.

Archaic words in Bret Harte, 321, 324, 325.

Argonauts, 2, 60, 155, 218.

"Argonauts, The," Bret Harte's lecture on, 239, 259.

"Argonauts of California, The," cited, 135, 168.

_Argonauts of North Liberty, The_, 77, 148, 215, 245, 287, 301.

Argyle, Duke of, 267, 268.

Arnold, Matthew, 83.

"Art Student," 13.

_Artemis in Sierra_, 309.

"Arthur Poinsett," 341.

Astor, John Jacob, 5.

Atchison, Bret Harte's lecture in, 241.

"Atlantic Monthly," the, Bret Harte's first appearance in, 35, 47;
sale of in early California, 197;
223;
Bret Harte's contributions to, 232, 233, 245.

_Autumnal Musings_, 16.

"Baby Sylvester," 156.

Bagby, George W., 327;
his "The Old Virginia Gentlemen and Other Sketches," cited, 192 _n._

Baker's City Tavern, New York, 5.

_Ballad of the Emeu_, 40.

Bancroft, H. H., his "Chronicles of the Builders," cited, 167.

Barbour, Judge, 133.

_Barker's Luck_, 295, 296.

Barnes, George, 39.

Barrett, Lawrence, 234.

Barry and Patten, their "Men and Memories of San Francisco," cited, 198,
199.

Bates, Mrs. D. B., her "Incidents on Land and Water," cited, 100, 128,
146.

Beauty, in women, its development, 79;
of Bret Harte's women, 334, 335;
beauty in literary style, 338.

Beefsteak Club, London, 275.

_Bell-Ringer of Angels, The_, 56, 77, 152, 205.

_Belle of Canada City, A_, 209.

"Bench and Bar of California," cited, 128.

Benicia, 149, 198.

Besant, Walter, Bret Harte's acquaintance with, 271.

Bierce, Ambrose, 51, 304.

"Biglow Papers," 324.

Black, William, Bret Harte's intimacy with, 271;
first meeting of the two, 271;
272, 273.

Blondes, among Bret Harte's women, 247.

"Blue-Grass Penelope, A," 79.

_Bohemian Days in San Francisco_, 19, 115, 177.

_Bohemian Papers_, 44.

"Bookman, The," 50 _n._, 162.

Borthwick, J. D., his "Three Years in California," cited, 22 _n._, 94,
120.

Boston, 12;
Bret Harte in, 222, 223, 224, 229, 230, 231;
its characteristics, 229-230;
lecture by Bret Harte in, 239.

"Boston Daily Advertiser," the, 223.

Bowers, Joe, 60, 61.

Bowles, Samuel, 236, 236 _n._

Boy gamblers, 154.

_Boy's Dog, A_, 33.

Boyd, Mary Stuart, paper of, cited, 277.

"Bret Harte's Country," cited, 50 _n._

Bret Harte's gamblers, 173.

Bret Harte's women, 157. See also "Women."

Brett, Sir Balliol, later Viscount Esher, 8.

Brett, Catharine. See Hart, Catharine (Brett).

Brett, Catharyna (Rombout), grandmother of Catharine (Brett) Hart, 8;
estate of on the Hudson River, 9;
sketch of, 9;
a founder of the Fishkill Dutch Church, 9;
tablet to her memory, 9.

Brett, Francis, 9, 10.

Brett, Robert, 9, 10.

Brett, Roger, grandfather of Catharine (Brett) Hart, 8, 9.

Broderick, David C., 37;
duels of, 134, 136.

Bronte, Charlotte, 275.

Brooks, Noah, 41, 135, 214, 220, 236.

Broughton, Rhoda, her treatment of ministers, 210.

"Brown of Calaveras," 77, 152, 177.

Browne, Francis F., editor of "Lakeside Monthly," 221.

Brunettes, preferred by Bret Harte, 247.

Bryant, Edwin, his "California," cited, 71.

_Buckeye Hollow Inheritance, The_, 248.

"Bucking Bob," 96.

Bull-fights, 202, 204.

"Burgeoning," 321.

Bushnell, the Rev. Dr., his "California: its Characteristics and
Prospects," cited, 127, 199, 200.

Byron, Lord, 275.

_Cadet Grey_, 308, 315.

"Cahoots," 324.

"Calaveras Chronicle," the, cited, 145;
editor of in a duel, 193.

California, at the outbreak of the Civil War, 36, 37, 38;
climate of, 100-106;
society of, 148, 149;
precocity of the early California boy, 154;
the gambling element in, 160-180;
lavish manner of transacting business in the early days, 181-184;
"trade a wild unorganized whirl," 181;
soaring prices, 182-184;
"washerwomen made fortunes and founded families," 184;
reaction in 1851, with quick fall in prices, 185;
losses by fire and flood, 186-187, 188-189;
first public building erected in, an Insane Asylum, 190;
life of the farm and the vineyard, 190;
dealt with in Bret Harte's stories, 190;
literature, journalism, and religion of, 192-213;
newspaper men of, 192;
churches in, 200-202;
California children, 201;
Bret Harte's representation of true, 288, 289, 291;
open-air life in, 317-319.

"California," cited, 71.

"California: its Characteristics and Prospects," cited, 200.

"California Christian Advocate," the, 201, 203.

"California Farmer," the, 191, 196.

"California Illustrated," cited, 102.

"California Indoors and Out," cited, 63, 93, 147.

"California Life," cited, 145.

California newspapers, early. See Newspapers.

"California Pet," the, 141.

California pets, 155;
the bear cub "Baby Sylvester," 156.

California pioneers. See Pioneers.

California saloons, the bar surmounted by a woman's sunbonnet, 142.

"California Song, The," 61.

"Californian, The," 39, 40, 44, 196.

"Californians, The," cited, 85 _n._, 96, 208 _n._

Camberley, Sussex, the Red House at, 274, 283.

Cambridge, Mass., Bret Harte in, 223, 224, 225, 226, 227;
229, 232.

Canada, relatives of Bret Harte in, 4;
Bernard Hart in, 4.

Canadian Harts, the, 4.

Cape Horn, voyage around, 55, 65, 67, 143, 151, 181.

"Capital, The," failure of, 251.

"Captain Carroll," 178.

_Captain Jim's Friend_, 161, 166.

_Carquinez Woods, The_, 148, 209, 302.

Casey, James, career and death of, 116, 117-118.

"Cass Beard," 335.

Castle Ashby, 275.

"Cavortin'," 324.

"Central America," the, sinking of, 118.

Central California, 100, 101, 190.

Chaffee, J. A., the original of _Tennessee's Partner_, 165-166.

Chagres, 65, 66.

Chamberlain, partner of Chaffee, the original of _Tennessee's Partner_,
165.

Chapman, John Jay, 38.

Cheney, Warren, 327, 330.

"Cherokee Sal," 162.

Chesterfield, Lord, his style, 331.

Chesterton, G. K., on Yuba Bill, 22-23;
86, 87;
on Bret Harte's humor, 22, 305;
on Colonel Starbottle, 176;
on Bret Harte's parodies, 306.

Chicago, Bret Harte in, 220, 221, 222, 223;
lectures in, 244.

Children, Bret Harte's, 26, 29;
his impression of English children, 29;
California children, 153-155, 201;
his impression of German children, 262, 263.

Chilenos, 148.

Chinese in California, 92.

Chinese restaurant, scene in, 108.

"Chronicles of the Builders," cited, 167.

Churches in early California, 200-202.

_Cicely_, 304-305.

"Circuit-Rider, The," cited, 59.

Civil War, California's part in, 37, 38;
Bret Harte's poems relating to, 38, 314.

_Clarence_, 37, 296.

Clemens, Samuel L. See Mark Twain.

Clemens, Will. M., 50 _n._

"Clementina," 79.

Climate of California, 100-106, 317.

Clubs, London, to which Bret Harte belonged, 275.

Cohasset, Mass., Bret Harte in, 234.

Colfax, Schuyler, 8.

Collins, Col. Arthur, 278 _n._

Coloma, traits of gamblers of, 169.

"Colonel Newcome," 18.

"Colonel Starbottle," 22, 83, 135-139, 176, 192;
reintroduced in Bret Harte's last, unfinished tale, 283;
337.

"Colonel Wilson," 95.

Colton, the Rev. William, his "Three Years in California," cited, 58,
96, 122, 188, 203;
conductor of first newspaper in California, 196 _n._

Commercial agent, Bret Harte as, at Crefeld, 252, 261-262.

Compton Wyngates, 275.

"Concepcion," 105, 149.

_Conception de Arguello_, 149, 232, 308.

Concord, Mass., 227.

_Condensed Novels_, the, 33, 40, 44, 306.

Congregation Shearith Israel, New York, 6.

"Consuelo," 148.

Consul, Bret Harte as, at Glasgow, 267-273;
the consul in Bret Harte's stories, 297.

Contraltos, preferred by Bret Harte, 247.

_Convalescence of Jack Hamlin, The_, 177.

Convicts, English, 117, 129.

Conway, Moncure, on Bret Harte's avoidance of "social duties," 276.

Coolbrith, Miss Ina B., 49.

Cornbury, Lord, 8.

Coullard, Mrs., for whom Marysville was named, 142.

Cramblet, Thomas E., 326.

Crefeld, 252;
Bret Harte at, 252-256, 260-265.

"Cressy," 26, 28, 78, 82, 83, 247, 294, 324.

Crime in California, increase in, 129, 130.

"Critic, The," 87.

Crossfield, R. H., 326.

Cruces, 65, 66.

_Crusade of the Excelsior, the_, 17, 212.

"Culpeper Starbottle," the nephew, 94.

Dana, Charles A., 252.

Del Norte, 21.

Delano, A., his "Life on the Plains," cited, 185.

_Demi-monde_ in San Francisco, 99.

Denny, G. H., 326.

_Desborough Connections, The_, 275.

_Devil's Ford_, 62, 217.

Dialect, Bret Harte's dialect poems, 310;
his Pioneer and other dialect, 321-329;
masters of, 328;
humor essential to, 328;
psychology of, 329.

_Dick Boyle's Business Card_, 249.

"Dick Demorest," 287.

Dickens, Charles, his influence on Bret Harte, 177, 284, 286, 339-342;
his letter to Bret Harte, 312 _n._;
Bret Harte's poem on, 312;
compared with Bret Harte, 342, 343.

Dogs, as beasts of burden, 263-264;
Bret Harte's tenderness for, 287.

"Don Jose Sepulvida," 94, 96, 177, 211.

Donner Party, the, 72, 142.

"Dona Rosita," 148.

Douglas, James, 50, 162-165, 309.

_Dow's Flat_, 309-310.

Downieville, 164.

"Dr. Ruysdael," 82.