vironment was all that he could wish, there were times when the divine afflatus would not come and the day's work must be abandoned. . . . . 'It's no use, Brooks,' he would say. 'Everything goes wrong; I cannot write a line. Let's have an early dinner at Martini's.' As soon as I was ready we would go merrily off to dine together, and having recovered his equanimity, he would stick to his desk through the later hours of the night, slowly forging those masterpieces which cost him so dearly."

In the year 1867 Bret Harte published the first collection of his poems under the title The Lost Galleon and Other Tales; and about the same time he issued his first book of prose containing his Condensed Novels (previously mentioned) and Bohemian Papers. This was not a very plethoric volume, as he described it. In this collection of verses were included his patriotic poems The Reveille, John Burns of Gettysburg, and others, as well as his very popular dialect poem The Society upon the Stanislaus, which held out the promise of something even better to follow. That something better did follow very shortly in the Heathen Chinee, the most famous poem Bret Harte ever wrote. Another poem worthy of special mention in this connection and generally admitted to represent the high-water mark of its author's poetic talent is Relieving Guard, noted for its genuine poetic feeling and written in memory of his friend Starr King. This first collection of his poems demonstrated beyond question Bret Harte's originality, gift of humor, and range in poetic utterance. In certain of them also his use of local slang was decidedly piquant and picturesque and constituted no insignificant element of their popularity.

In July, 1868, the Overland Monthly was founded by a San Francisco bookseller and Bret Harte was selected as the man, above all others, whose reputation best qualified him to be the editor. It was intended that this new magazine on the Pacific Coast should ultimately rival the prestige and distinction enjoyed by the Atlantic Monthly as a literary journal in the East. Bret Harte himself chose the name for this celebrated magazine and in a moment of inspiration designed the characteristic vignette of the historical grizzly bear on the railroad track defying the progress of civilization. Mark Twain, in a letter to Thomas

Bailey Aldrich, apropos of this vignette, remarked that it was "the prettiest fancy and neatest that ever shot through Bret Harte's brain"-"the ancient symbol of California savagery snarling at the approaching type of high and progressive civilization, the first overland locomotive." When the first number of the Overland Monthly was issued, the editor experienced a feeling of regret and disappointment because it did not contain any distinctive California romance. This he regarded as a sad defect. To supply this regrettable omission, in the next number he set resolutely to work and produced The Luck of Roaring Camp.

It is a singular incident of this famous story that when the proof-sheets were submitted to the office, they were handed, not to the editor-author,-the usual course, but to the publisher, and were accompanied with a note saying that the "matter was so indecent, irreligious and improper that the proof-reader, a young lady, could with difficulty be induced to read it." Despite this protest the publisher determined to stand by the literary judgment of his editor, and so the story appeared in the magazine without the alteration of a word. The Luck of Roaring Camp, it is true, met with a frosty reception in California and was denounced by the religious press as immoral and unchristian. In the East, on the contrary,-much to the delight of the author,— the story awakened great enthusiasm and was warmly welcomed. In the general introduction to his collected works published years later Bret Harte remarked of The Luck, "the East welcomed the little foundling of Californian literature with an enthusiasm that half frightened its author." Indeed, so favorable was the general verdict of the East that the editor of the Atlantic Monthly immediately sent Bret Harte an urgent request on the most satisfactory terms to write a similar story for the Atlantic. Needless to add that Bret Harte construed this request as ample justification of his own literary judgment amid the storms of criticism his story evoked in California and as a welcome vindication of his act in publishing The Luck.

The Luck of Roaring Camp established its author's literary reputation speedily throughout the entire country and incidentally was the making of the Overland Monthly. It is authori

tatively reported that "two months after its appearance, a single news-company in New York was selling twelve hundred copies of the magazine." Yet, despite the flattering reception everywhere accorded this excellent story, except in California, Bret Harte did not immediately produce another sketch and in reality six months elapsed before he followed up his first triumph with a second- The Outcasts of Poker Flat. This last story is considered by many critics the best Bret Harte ever wrote. After this Miggles, Tennessee's Partner, and other sketches followed from his facile pen in quick succession. Then appeared in the Overland, in 1870, that felicitous extravaganza previously mentioned, Plain Language from Truthful James, or the Heathen Chinee, as it is more popularly known, and Bret Harte's name became all but a household word throughout the United States by reason of the fame of this poem. It is an interesting fact attested by the author himself that just after the writing of the Heathen Chinee Bret Harte deemed it unworthy of a place in the Overland and only admitted it into his magazine after much persuasion by his friend Ambrose Bierce. The fact is, the author himself never did set much value upon this skit expressing in verse his view of the Chinese problem in California and thought its popularity out of all proportion to its real merits. The poem owed no little of its popularity probably to the happy coincidence of its appearance with the time that the Chinese problem was beginning to arrive at the acute stage on the Pacific Slope; for in the last analysis the poem appears to possess but slight literary worth and certainly cannot be regarded as of a high type of poetry. It is cleverly done, to be sure, but is hardly worthy of the reputation it enjoys. Yet it caught the popular ear and its satire demonstrated more conclusively perhaps than argument could the local prejudice against the Chinese and the weakness of their opponents who disparaged and decried their character. But Bret Harte holds no brief for the Chinaman and appears impartial in his attitude, neither approving nor condemning him. Nevertheless as he states the case against the Chinaman, he does it with a poetic insight and sympathy so that he seems to be presenting a plea for him.

It is singular that the Pacific Coast did not appreciate Bret

Harte after all he had done to embalm in literature the various early types that were to be found in that melting-pot of the Union in the pioneer days. As a writer he assuredly deserved the gratitude of his fellow-countrymen, if for no other reason, at least for the high tone and dignity of his sketches of that pioneer life,- for his literary achievement. Yet it is a fact that California accorded him slight recognition of his literary gifts and achievements; and no one, we may assume, felt this lack of appreciation more keenly than Bret Harte himself. It is probable that his appointment as Professor of Recent Literature in the University of California, which he received in 1870, may have been intended to atone in a measure for that neglect; but this honor appears not to have afforded the desired balm. For in February, 1871, Bret Harte left San Francisco-never to return-after a residence of seventeen years in California, during which period he had made a reputation for himself as a man of letters equaled by no other American west of the Rockies. Even at present Bret Harte is not esteemed in California very highly. Not a few Californians appear to regard him with cold indifference, if indeed they do not entertain a feeling of antipathy toward him on the ground that he is not a truly representative Californian writer. They seem to think that his sketches purporting to be from life were a reflection upon the character of their early settlers, the Argonauts. Obviously this supposition is far-fetched and not warranted.

Some critics think that Bret Harte showed his good sense and wisdom in leaving California when he did. They maintain that had he remained there permanently, his art would have deteriorated and consequently he would have failed to sustain his reputation as a writer. Apropos of this view Mme. Van de Velde observes: "It was decidedly fortunate that he [Bret Harte] left California when he did, never to return to it; for his quick instinctive perceptions would have assimilated the new order of things to the detriment of his talent. As it was, his singular retentive memory remained unbiased by the transformation of the centers whence he drew his inspiration. California remained to him the Mecca of the Argonauts." Be this as it may, at all events the California chapter in Bret Harte's career was

closed never to be reopened, and when he left the Pacific Coast he burnt his bridges behind him. For, although on his departure for the East, he left many friends in California, it is alleged that he did not communicate with them afterward and apparently ignored them. If this be true, perhaps it serves to explain in part the indifference, not to use a harsher term, with which the Californians are reputed to regard Bret Harte.

II

Before his departure from San Francisco Bret Harte had been in correspondence with some persons in Chicago who proposed to establish a new literary journal-to be called the Lakeside Monthly-of which he was to be the editor. But the project, for some reason or other, was abandoned and therefore Bret Harte made his way to New York without any very definite plans for the future. In New York he led a kind of Bohemian life, occupying himself with his pen and yet having no assured income from his writings. It seems to have been his usual practice to sell his literary productions outright to the publishers, so that he received no royalties from his previous work. He continued to contribute to the Atlantic Monthly; and to supplement his uncertain income from this source, he decided to enter the lyceum field with a special lecture on the subject of the Argonauts of '49. He made a tour of the country east of the Mississippi, delivering this lecture in a number of cities, but without any marked success. He did not make a success on the lecture platform, not that he was without skill as a raconteur, but chiefly because he was lacking in the art and graces of elocution. He then accepted a contract, good for one year, from the publishers of the Atlantic Monthly to write exclusively for that journal, whether little or much, at the munificent salary of $10,000. Under this contract his output for the year included the following: of stories, The Poet of Sierra Flat, Princess Bob and Her Friends, The Romance of Madroño Hollow, How Santa Claus Came to Simpson's Bar; and of verse, A Greyport Legend, A Newport Romance, Concepcion de Arguello, Grandmother Tenterden, The Idyl of Battle Hollow. This was surely a creditable year's work and a satisfactory quid pro quo. It is