Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1902-05-10
SOUND AMERICAN

Some of the. newspaper biographers of
the late Bret .HaEte, have more than limited
that the deceased author was a voluntary
'expatriate. saffething after the William
Waldorf AstorS paf tern. remarked Wash
ingtonian. who MAS for some years at
tached to the. Office of the consul general
at London. and who writer himself. was
on terms of considerable intimacy with
the master pprtmyer of the Argonauts
such an impHation is an insxcusable de-
Fiaeion from thei truth. Harte was as
SOUND an American from the crown of his
heao 10 the sotessof his feet as 1 ever met
up with. and there was never an hour dur
ing MS long residence abroad in which he
was not ready 10 toss his cap in the air
over american diplomatic, commercial and
otner trlumphs. Domestic troubles were at
the Dottom of his reluctance to visit the
land OF his birth!- Harte was not a man to
eve. mention the nature of these difficult
yes TO ms 1ntfmates, so that nobody except
the surviving wife and children really know
tne nature of the Harte family troubles,
ait,nongn good many of the biographical
49,, tSH appear to pretend that they
Know the whole story :
another reason why Harte preferred to
remain In England was because he was
uliquestionably appreciated more over there
.nan he ever was in this country. Of
course, Harte's1 California stories are
american classics land they have long been
regarded as such, but the Harte vogue dis
appeared in the United States good many
years ago.
1t is veritable fact that Harte has for
Quarter of century been more widely
READ IN England than any other American
autnor' with perhaps the single exception
VI 1osar Allen Poe-another American
genius, by the way, who has always been
Vastly more highly rated by the English
IMAM by Americans. English essayists have
lor many years looked upon Bret Harte as
not only the originator but the first living
master OF the English short story and they
have paid commensurate homage to him.
several OF the soundest critics of English
letters including, if 1 remember correctly,
poth Andrew Lang and Edmund Gosse,
nave unhesltatingly declared Harte to be
an innilltely more perfect master of the
snort story than their own great exponent
oI mat style of fiction Rudyard Kipling.
VI course, the men, manners and cond-
lions of which Harte wrote in his early
ana most famous stories have long since
disappeared, but you would find it difficult
10 convince the English admirer of Harte's
stories that such is the case. | don't think
go / go wide OF the mark in saying that per-
maps one-half of the English people have
der1sed their ideas of the United States
from their reading of the works of Bret
Harte, and l never met an Eng,ishman
VINO didn't know as much about Truthful
James, Tennessee's Partner, John Oak
hurst OF The OutcaSts of Poker Flat the
small central figure in How Santa Claus
came to Simpsons Bar Dickens in Camp
ana SO on. as 1 did, and l was an admrer
OF Hartes from the beginning of his liter
airy vogue. Harte gathered into his literary
net everything that was most picturesque
ana appealing in the California environ
ment in which he found himself and his
taieS OF adventure, some of them of Eng
fish nativity, in the far-away land of gold
made such deep impression upon English
men that they We're never able to under
stand why Harte as a, writer was not per-
Fetual literary lion in the United States
Harte lived almost the life of recluse
IN LONDON. He was member of many of
the best clubs, but he rarely visited any Of
them. For an of the Observation-Disclosures
or some of his stories he was himself
good deal of dreamer. and, being
dreamer, he was naturally enough little or
nothing of a man Of business so that [ do
not imagine that h.. left much of an estate
the tremendous sales his
works had in. this country. and their still
steady sales in Great Britain
l observe that some of the biographers
or Harte are stating that he was always
more or less ashamed OF Truthful James,
better known as The Heather Chinee.' Just
as lot of photographers have been stating
Tor number. of years that John Hay is
ashamed of his Jim .Bludsoe.' One of these
iarte was distinctly proud of Truthful
James, and, far from looking chagrined
when that poem was mentioned. he always
i1ked to hear it recited by persons capable
" " ssoiiS IL VIII -LeOrSe GrOSSmlth, the
f1hsnsn entertainer. can render Truthful
James in an !nimitable manner and he did
so several times in Hartes presence, to the
authors IT vast and obvious delight.
Il was walking on the Thames embank-
ment with Harte one afternoon several
years ago when, during pause in the
talk. suddenly asked him which of his
stories he liked the most. He rarely if ever
cared to talk of his own literary work. but
he unhesitatlngly replied 'Tennessee's Pard-
ner. He went on to say that he liked IT
the most because 1t was an absolutely exact
account of an incident of which he had been
a Witness and that he had never been able
to get out of his mind the mental picture
of the perspiring, great-hearted 'pardner'
OF the hanged Tennessee digging the lat
ters clayey grave on the hot afternoon of
that tragedy