5 May: Boreham on Bret Harte

An Epic of the West
The life story of Bret Harte, the anniversary of whose death, in 1902 we mark today, represents a pilgrimage from the softest of carpets to the rockiest of roads. Born in New York in 1839, he was so puny, so delicate, so frail, that he looked as if a puff of wind would blow him away. From the sports and pastimes of other boys he was sternly excluded, lest any undue exertion should exhaust his slender stock of physical energy. His father, fearful of submitting his fragile treasure to the rough and tumble of ordinary school life, personally undertook his education. He was essentially a hot-house plant. But a worm will turn. As Bret passed into his teens, he became restless and dissatisfied. He resented all the coddling and the cossetting. At the age of 15, he left home, made his way to California—which was then the end of the world—and entered upon that hazardous and variegated life in the wild and woolly West which stands faithfully mirrored in his stirring pages.

His presence, at so tender an age, among scenes so crude and so savage may seem to argue precocity and overweening self-confidence. Such a conclusion would be utterly false. No boy could have been more bashful or shrinking. On one occasion, impelled by curiosity, he entered a brightly-lit gambling saloon and took a chair at the tables. Fascinated by the spectacle, he was suddenly startled by a gruff voice behind him: "If you don't want to try your luck, boy, I do!" Rather than confess that he was too cautious to speculate, Bret tossed his only coin upon the wheel. A moment later he beheld such a pile of gold in front of him as took his breath away. Too timid to touch it, he allowed the croupier to assume that he desired to stake it all on another desperate throw. He lost the lot and smiled laconically as he left the saloon. Easy come, easy go! Bret Harte's life was crowded with such adventures—adventures of which he made good use in the famous days that followed.

The Comradeship Of The Quill
Among the shining romances of his extraordinary career were the romances that linked his name first with that of Mark Twain and afterwards with that of Charles Dickens. It was in 1864 that Mark Twain and Bret Harte were thrown together. Bret Harte was editor of the "Californian." Mark Twain, four years his senior, became a member of the staff. Both were young and ambitious; each had a vague consciousness of his own ability, and each recognised the talents of the other. Mark Twain went out among the mines, and, on his return, sat chatting one evening with Bret Harte. All at once a whimsical mood overtook him and he told the story that afterwards made him famous—the story of the Jumping Frog of Calaveras County. Bret Harte insisted that his friend should sit down and write out the ludicrous tale as a contribution to the "Californian," and, by that act, he initiated the illustrious career of the greatest humorist of modern times.

Into the relationship between Bret Harte and Charles Dickens there enters an element of poignant pathos. The two men never met; and it was not until the death of Dickens had made a meeting impossible, that the revelation was made of the profound admiration that each cherished for the other. Bret Harte was a young fellow of 31 when, in June, 1870, the melancholy news was flashed found the world that Charles Dickens, the most creative genius of his time, had laid aside the pen for ever. It never occurred to Bret Harte that that great master who was being borne by a weeping nation to an honoured grave in Westminster Abbey had ever so much as heard his name.

A Voice Speaks From The Tomb
Bret Harte knew, however, that among the vast woods and rolling prairies of the West, the loss would be deeply mourned as beneath the window of St. Paul's. Out of the fullness of his own sad heart, he crept away to his desk and penned one of his choicest and most tuneful elegies. It depicts a rough mining camp out among the lonely Sierras. The men are gathered in the gloaming around a crackling fire. Suddenly, one bronzed youth draws from his pocket a copy of "The Old Curiosity Shop." Cards are tossed aside and every strident voice is hushed:

And then, while round them
shadows gathered faster,
And as the firelight
fell,
He read aloud the book wherein the Master
Had writ of Little
Nell.

Eyes unaccustomed to tears glistened suspiciously in the light of the dying flame. Forster, the friend and biographer of Dickens, confesses that, of all the eloquent and powerful tributes that were paid to the immortal memory of Dickens, none more deeply affected him than these lyrical verses from the far West.

It then transpired that the admiration of the American for the Englishman was fully reciprocated. "For," adds Forster, "not many months before my illustrious friend passed from us, he sent me two magazines containing sketches by Bret Harte—"The Luck of Roaring Camp" and "The Outposts of Poker Flat"—in which he had discovered genius of a really transcendental character. On the very day on which amidst such scenes of sorrow as even the Abbey has seldom witnessed, the body of Dickens was being lowered into its historic tomb in Poets' Corner, a letter in his handwriting was crossing the Atlantic expressing to Bret Harte the warmest appreciation of his work, asking him to contribute to the journal that Dickens then edited, and begging him, when he came to England, to be the guest of Dickens at Gad's Hill.

The emotions of Bret Harte when he read that letter from the dead master were so profound that, when he himself passed away in 1902, he still regarded the receipt of that letter as the most memorable event of his colourful life.

F W Boreham

Image: Bret Harte