A Tramp Through The Bret Harte Country | Page 3

home thereafter was
London, where he continued his literary work until his death in March,
1902.
His complete works comprise nineteen volumes. His patriotic verse is
fervid, his idyls are graceful and his humorous verse delightful. The
short story he made anew.
Harte's instincts and habits were good. He had the artistic temperament
and some of its incidental weaknesses. He acknowledged himself
"constitutionally improvident," and a debt-burdened life is not easy. His
later years were pathetic. Those who knew and appreciated him
remember him fondly. California failing to know him, wrongs herself.
Charles A. Murdock.

Preface

A desire to obtain, at first hand, any possible information in regard to
reminiscences of Bret Harte, Mark Twain and others of the little coterie
of writers, who in the early fifties visited the mining camps of
California and through stories that have become classics, played a
prominent part in making "California" a synonym for romance, led to
undertaking the tramp of which this brief narrative is a record. The
writer met with unexpected success, having the good fortune to meet
men, all over eighty years of age, who had known - in some cases
intimately Bret Harte, Mark Twain, "Dan de Quille," Prentice Mulford,
Bayard Taylor and Horace Greeley.
It seems imperative that a relation of individual experiences - however
devoid of stirring incident and adventure - should be written in the first
person. At the same time, the writer of this unpretentious story of a
summer's tramp cannot but feel that he owes his readers - should he
have any an apology for any avoidable egotism. His excuse is that, no
twit notwithstanding ding the glamour attaching to the old mining

towns, it is almost incredible how little is known of them by the
average Californian; for the Eastern tourist there is more excuse, since
the foot-hills of the Sierras lie outside the beaten tracks of travel. He
has, therefore, assumed that "a plain unvarnished tale" of actual
experiences might not be without interest to the casual reader; and
possibly might incite in him a desire to see for himself a country not
only possessed of rare beauty, but absolutely unique in its associations.
But the point to be emphasized is that the glamour is not a thing of the
past: it is there now. Nay, to a person possessed of any imagination, the
ruins - say, of Coloma - appeal in all probability far stronger than
would the actual town itself in the days when it seethed with bustle and
excitement. Not to have visited the old mining towns is not to have
seen the "heart" of California, or felt its pulsations. It is not to
understand why the very name "California" still stirs the blood and
excites the imagination throughout the civilized world.
If this brief narrative should induce anyone to "gird up his loins,"
shoulder his pack and essay a similar pilgrimage, the author will feel
that he has not been unrewarded. And if a man over threescore years of
age can tramp through seven counties and return, in spite of intense
heat, feeling better and stronger than when he started, a young fellow in
the hey-day of life and sound of wind and limb surely ought not to be
discouraged.
Thomas Dykes Beasley.

A Tramp Through the Bret Harte Country
Chapter I

Reminiscences of Bret Harte. "Plain Language From Truthfulful
James." The Glamour of the Old Mining Towns

It is forty-four years since the writer met the author of "The Luck of
Roaring Camp" - that wonderful blending within the limits of a short
story of humor, pathos and tragedy - which, incredible as it may seem,
met with but a cold reception from the local press, and was even
branded as "indecent" and "immodest!"
On the occasion referred to, I was strolling on Rincon Hill - at that time
the fashionable residence quarter of San Francisco - in company with
Mr. J. H. Wildes, whose cousin, the late Admiral Frank Wildes,
achieved fame in the battle of Manila Bay. Mr. Wildes called my
attention to an approaching figure and said: "Here comes Bret Harte, a
man of unusual literary ability. He is having a hard struggle now, but
only needs the opportunity, to make a name for himself."
That opportunity arrived almost immediately. In the September number
of the Overland Monthly, 1870, of which magazine Mr. Harte was then
editor, appeared "Plain Language from Truthful James," or "The
Heathen Chinee," as the poem was afterwards called. A few weeks later,
to my amazement, while turning the pages of Punch in the Mercantile
Library, I came across "The Heathen Chinee;" an unique compliment
so far as my recollection of Punch serves. To this generous and
instantaneous recognition of genius may be attributed in no small
measure