The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1883-07-21
BRET HARTE.
A Little Praise and a Little Criticism OF
This Erratie Novelist.

Little Praise and a Little Criticism of
This Erratie Novelist.
New York Letter.
A new version OF Bret Harte's old story has
been started simultaneously in Longman's
Magazine, of London, and the Sunday edi-
ron of New York daily paper. ] call it
new version of the old story, because Mr..
Harte has told but one story, though he has
told it good many ways, and generally in
most charming sentences. Much as any one
may dislike Bret Harte and his personal ways,
it is out of the question to forget that he has
given to American literature something as
new as the clover blossoms in the fields and
as sweet as the spicy winds that race over the
gorges and the crags amid which its scenes
are laid. Privately, Bret Harte is a fraud of
dazzling audacity, He is so lazy
that he hates the exercise of breath
ing, and he drinks so much
brandy and soda that you can almost hear
him fizz when he goes by. He occupies the
position of United States consul at Glasgow,
and he spends most of his time in London,
where he poses in a claw hammer coat, with
his shirt-front rumpled and his hair toyzled
up to look poetic. London is the paradise of
men who are heavy drinkers, and who don't
like to pay their bills promptly. But pre-
cisely how Mr.. Harte afranges to manage the
Glasgow consulate from the private house of
a foreign diplomatist in London, or of what
earthly use he is to the American govern
LzEul. dul HOb WEAK GHOuSH 10 lLudSlut
l can tell you. Harte knew what he was
driving at when he wrote the Heather
Chinee." At any rate You would think he
did if you knew how he once played it on
great New York daily. If you knew-by
George, you shall know 1t was like this:
Harte had been engaged by newspaper to
write series OF stories for its Sunday edi-
ton. They paid him 5000 apiece for them,
and as they didn't average more than four or
five columns in length, that was a pretty
good price. Well, the stories did not prove
the hit that was expected OF them, and they
were gradually discontinued. One after
noon. some weeks after they had stopped,
Harte came into the managing editors office
with manuscript In his hand,
He proceeded. first, to spring a 35-
cent cigar on the editor, and then TO say that
he was extremely hard up. He needed pre-
cisely $500, and If the editor would like the
story at half the usual price he could have
it. The editor didn't know his man very
well, and he gathered in the document,
planking down his cash at the same time.
That afternoon the man who makes up the
foreign clippings came ins with the proof
slips of the story in his hand,
"Where did you get this?' he asked.
Bought it of Bret Harte responded the
editor, innocently. why do you ask?'
30, nothing, only here's the same, ident-
cal story in London magazine that came in
yesterday. Harte must have sold the manu-
script twice.
So he had. And he has not printed a soli-
tary line in that paper since, you may as
well believe. He gets up every morning
with the best working intentions in the
world. Just to clear the cobwebs away he
takes drink Like the man in the min
strels, it makes new man of him, and he
has to treat the new man. So that by break
fast time be has got to go out and walk off
his drinks; and he does, on an average, about
five pages of copy in a week. This United
States consulate business has been the
rulnation of more good writer's than any
other one institution above ground
1t gives them enough money so they can
live without doing anything but signing
reports, and that is about as far as the most
of them everget. 1t isn't so always, though.
John Flynn, of the Chicago News. was sent
abroad awhile ago in this capacity, and he
fairly flooded America with knowledge of
the place he had been appointed to. He
worked Ikea bever and it so astonished the
government to find one of its officers doing
anything but loaf around and chew tobacco
that Washington almost trembled. Flynn is
back in this country, l believe, thoroughly
sick OF the consul profession. But it will
never sicken Bret Harte He is not that kind
of q bird