ТОП просматриваемых книг сайта:
The Life of Bret Harte, with Some Account of the California Pioneers. Henry Childs Merwin
Читать онлайн.Название The Life of Bret Harte, with Some Account of the California Pioneers
Год выпуска 0
isbn 4064066221423
Автор произведения Henry Childs Merwin
Жанр Языкознание
Издательство Bookwire
After leaving Albany the family led an unsettled, uncomfortable life, going from place to place, with occasional returns to the home of an Ostrander relative in Hudson Street in the city of New York. The late Mr. A. V. S. Anthony, the well-known engraver, was a neighbor of Bret Harte in Hudson Street, and played and fought with him there, when they were both about seven or eight years old. Afterward they met in California, and again in London. From Albany the Henry Hart family went to Hudson, where Mr. Hart acted as principal of an academy; and subsequently they lived in New Brunswick, New Jersey; in Philadelphia; in Providence, Rhode Island; in Lowell, Massachusetts; in Boston and elsewhere.
A few years before her death Mrs. Hart read the life of Bronson Alcott, and when she laid down the book she remarked that the troubles and privations endured by the Alcott family bore a striking resemblance to those which she and her children had undergone. Some want of balance in Henry Hart’s character prevented him, notwithstanding his undoubted talents, his enthusiasm, and his accomplishments, from ever obtaining any material success in life, or even a home for his family and himself. But he was a man of warm impulses and deep feeling. When Henry Clay was nominated for the Presidency in 1844, Henry Hart espoused his cause almost with fury. He gave up all other employment to electioneer in behalf of the Whig candidate, and the defeat of his idol was a crushing blow from which he never recovered. It was the first time that a really great man, as Clay certainly was, had been outvoted in a contest for the Presidency by a commonplace man, like Polk; and Clay’s defeat was regarded by his adherents not only as a hideous injustice, but as a national calamity. It is not given to every one to take any impersonal matter so seriously as Henry Hart took the defeat of his political chieftain; and his death a year later, in 1845, may justly be regarded as a really noble ending to a troubled and unsuccessful life.
CHAPTER II
BRET HARTE’S BOYHOOD
After the death of Henry Hart, his widow remained with her children in New York and Brooklyn until 1853. They were supported in part by her family, the Ostranders, and in part by Bernard Hart. There were four children, two sons and two daughters. Eliza, the eldest, who is still living, and to whom the author is indebted for information about the family, was married in 1851 to Mr. F. F. Knaufft, and her life has been passed mainly in New York and New Jersey. Mr. Ernest Knaufft, editor of the “Art Student,” and well known as a critic and writer, is her son. Unfortunately, Mrs. Knaufft’s house was burned in 1868, and with it many letters and papers relating to her father and his parents, and also the MSS. of various lectures delivered by him.
The younger daughter, Margaret B., went to California with Bret Harte, and preceded him as a contributor of stories and sketches to the “Golden Era,” and other papers in San Francisco. She married Mr. B. H. Wyman, and is still a resident of California. Bret Harte’s sisters are women of distinguished appearance, and remarkable for force of character.
Bret Harte’s only brother, Henry, had a short but striking career, which displayed, even more perhaps than did the career of Bret Harte himself, that intensity which seems to have been their chief inheritance from the Hebrew strain. The following account of him is furnished by Mrs. Knaufft:
“My brother Henry was two years and six months older than his brother Francis Brett Harte. Henry began reading history when he was six years old, and from that time until he was twelve years of age, he read history, ancient and modern, daily, sometimes only one hour, at other times from two to three hours. What interested him was the wars; he would read for two or three hours, and then if a battle had been won by his favorite warriors, he would spring to his feet, shouting, ‘Victory is ours,’ repeatedly. He would read lying on the floor, and often we would say ridiculous and provoking things about him, and sometimes pull his hair, but he never paid the slightest attention to us, being perfectly oblivious of his surroundings. His memory was phenomenal. He read Froissart’s Chronicles when he was about ten years old, and could repeat page after page accurately. One evening an old professor was talking with my mother about some event in ancient history, and he mentioned the date of a decisive battle. Henry, who was listening intently, said, ‘I beg pardon, Professor, you are wrong. That battle was fought on such a date.’ The professor was astonished. ‘Where did you hear about that battle?’ he asked. ‘I read that history last year,’ replied Henry.
“When the boy was twelve years old, he came home from school one day, and rushing into his mother’s room, shouted, ‘War is declared! War is declared!’ ‘What in the name of common sense has that got to do with you?’ asked my mother. ‘Mother,’ said Henry, ‘I am going to fight for my country; that is what I was created for.’
“After some four or five months of constant anxiety, caused by Henry’s offering himself to every captain whose ship was going to or near Mexico, a friend of my mother’s told Lieutenant Benjamin Dove of the Navy about Henry, and he became greatly interested, and finally, through his efforts, Henry was taken on his ship. Henry was so small that his uniform had to be made for him. The ship went ashore on the Island of Eleuthera, to the great delight of my brother, who wrote his mother a startling account of the shipwreck. I cannot remember whether the ship was able to go on her voyage, or whether the men were all transferred to Commander Tatnall’s ship the ‘Spitfire.’ I know that Henry was on Commander Tatnall’s ship at the Bombardment of Vera Cruz, and was in the fort or forts at Tuxpan, where the Commander and Henry were both wounded. Commander Tatnall wrote my mother that when Henry was wounded, he exclaimed, ‘Thank God, I am shot in the face,’ and that when he inquired for Henry, he was told that he was hiding because he did not want his wound dressed. When the Commander found Henry, he asked him why he did not want his wound dressed. With tears in his eyes Henry said, ‘Because I’m afraid it won’t show any scar if the surgeon dresses it.’
“When my brother returned from Mexico, he became very restless. The sea had cast its spell about him, and finally a friend, captain of a ship, took Henry on a very long voyage, going around Cape Horn to California. When they arrived at San Francisco, my brother, who was then just sixteen, was taken in charge by a relative. I never heard of his doing anything remarkable during his short life. As the irony of fate would have it, he died suddenly from pneumonia, just before the Civil War.”
Bret Harte was equally precocious, and he was precocious even in respect to the sense of humor, which commonly requires some little experience for its development. It is a family tradition that he burlesqued the rather bald language of his primer at the age of five; and his sisters distinctly remember that, a year later, he came home from a school exhibition, and made them scream with laughter by mimicking the boy who spoke “My name is Norval.” He was naturally a very quiet, studious child; and this tendency was increased by ill health. From his sixth to his tenth year, he was unable to lead an active life. At the age of six he was reading Shakspere and Froissart, and at seven he took up “Dombey and Son,” and so began his acquaintance with that author who was to influence him far more than any other. From Dickens he proceeded to Fielding, Goldsmith, Smollett, Cervantes, and Washington