page_title: Literary feud
section_title: Mark Twain and Bret Harte
hierarchical_section_title: Literary feud / Notable feuds / Mark Twain and Bret Harte
caption_attribution_description: English: Bret Harte and Mark Twain Identifier: memoriesofhostes02howe (find matches) Title: Memories of a hostess&#160;: a chronicle of eminent friendships, drawn chiefly from the diaries of Mrs. James T. Fields Year: 1922 (1920s) Authors: Howe, M. A. De Wolfe (Mark Antony De Wolfe), 1864-1960 Roy J. Friedman Mark Twain Collection (Library of Congress) DLC Fields, Annie, 1834-1915 Subjects: Fields, Annie, 1834-1915 Dickens, Charles, 1812-1870 Women -- Massachusetts Boston Diaries Friendship -- Massachusetts Boston Authors, American -- 19th century Biography Actors -- United States Biography Boston (Mass.) -- Intellectual life Publisher: Boston&#160;: Atlantic Monthly Press Contributing Library: The Library of Congress Digitizing Sponsor: Sloan Foundation View Book Page: Book Viewer About This Book: Catalog Entry View All Images: All Images From Book Click here to view book online to see this illustration in context in a browseable online version of this book. Text Appearing Before Image: trousersmore bulgy than those of any real sailor he had everobserved, and the manner of hitching up the trouserswas entirely peculiar to themselves and to the stage. We went to call upon the Burlingames. In describingHarrisburg, Virginia, where he had lectured, he said acommittee-man came to invite him to take a walk, andhe was so afflicted with a headache that he was readyto take or give away his life at any moment; so he ac-cepted the invitation and walked out with him. Theman observed that Harrisburg was a very healthy place ;only one man a day died in that vicinity. Oh! saidHarte, remembering the dangerous state of his ownmind, has that man died yet today&#160;? The man shookhis head gravely, never suspecting a joke, and said hedidnt know, but he would try to find out. WhereatHarte, to keep up the joke, said he wished he would. Hewent to the lecture forgetting all about it and saw thisman hanging around without getting a chance to speak.The next morning very early, he managed to get an Text Appearing After Image: ^ ^ STAGE FOLK AND OTHERS 243 opportunity to speak to him. I couldnt find outexactly about that man yesterday, he said. Whatman? said H. Why, the one we were speaking of;the Coroner said he could nt say precisely who it was,but the one man would average all right. Harte said in speaking of Longfellow that no one hadyet overpraised him. The delicate quality of humor, theexquisite fineness in the choice of words, the breadthand sweetness of his nature were something he couldhardly help worshipping. One day after a dinner at Mr.Lowells he said, I think I will not have a carnage toreturn to town. I will walk down to the Square. I willwalk with you, said Longfellow. When they arrived athis gate, he said, he was so beautiful that he could onlythink of the light and whiteness of the moon, and if hehad stayed a moment longer he should have put his armsaround him and made a fool of himself then and there.Whereat he said good night abruptly and turned away. He brought his novel and play ^ with Note About Images Please note that these images are extracted from scanned page images that may have been digitally enhanced for readability - coloration and appearance of these illustrations may not perfectly resemble the original work.
context_page_description: A literary feud is a conflict or quarrel between well-known writers, usually conducted in public view by way of published letters, speeches, lectures, and interviews. In the book Literary Feuds, Anthony Arthur describes why readers might be interested in the conflicts between writers: "we wonder how people who so vividly describe human failure can themselves fall short of perfection."
  Feuds were sometimes based on conflicting views of the nature of literature as between C. P. Snow and F. R. Leavis, or on disdain for each other's work such as the quarrel between Virginia Woolf and Arnold Bennett. Some feuds were conducted through the writers' works, as when Alexander Pope satirized John Hervey in Epistle to Dr Arbuthnot. A few instances resulted in physical violence, such as the encounter between Sinclair Lewis and Theodore Dreiser, and on occasion involved litigation, as in the dispute between Lillian Hellman and Mary McCarthy.
context_section_description: Mark Twain and Bret Harte, both popular American writers in the nineteenth century, were colleagues, friends, and competitors. Harte, as the editor of a magazine called Overland Monthly, "trimmed and trained and schooled" Twain into becoming a better writer, as Twain put it. In late 1876, Twain and Harte agreed to collaborate on a play, Ah Sin, that featured the character Hop Sing from Harte's earlier play, Two Men of Sandy Bar. Neither writer was satisfied with the script that resulted, and both of them were dealing with other difficulties in their lives at the time: Harte with financial troubles and drinking, and Twain with his Huckleberry Finn manuscript. The biographer Marilyn Duckett dates the estrangement between Harte and Twain to their letters in 1877, when Twain suggested that he hire Harte to work on another play with him for $25 a week (rather than lend him any money), and Harte reacted with outrage. Harte also held Twain responsible for recommending a publisher who would then mishandle Harte's novel, and declared that because of the financial losses that resulted, he need not repay Twain money he had previously borrowed. Twain described Harte's letter as "ineffable idiotcy".
  Twain reworked Ah Sin without Harte, and it opened on Broadway in July, although it was not a success. The final direct communication between the two writers was a telegram from Harte asking for his share of the box office receipts.
  When some influential friends recommended Harte to then-President Rutherford B. Hayes for a diplomatic post, Twain contacted William Dean Howells, who was related by marriage to the President, to work against any such appointment, claiming that Harte would disgrace the nation. Twain's letter included "Wherever he goes his wake is tumultuous with swindled grocers & with defrauded innocents who have loaned him money...No man who has ever known him respects him." However, Harte would eventually win an appointment to Germany.
  As Twain's fame as a writer grew and Harte's faded, Twain continued to comment on Harte's work and character, including the suggestion that Harte was homosexual. Even several years after Harte's death, in Twain's reminiscences which were published as Mark Twain in Eruption, Twain included derisive comments about Harte: "He hadn't any more passion for his country than an oyster has for its bed; in fact not so much, and I apologize to the oyster."
caption: Bret Harte (left) and Mark Twain
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