LITMIR.BIZ

      It was not long before Bret Harte was promoted from the compositor’s stand to the editorial room of the paper, and thus began his literary career. Among the sketches which he wrote a few years later, and which have been preserved in the complete edition of his works, are In a Balcony, A Boy’s Dog, and Sidewalkings. Except for a slight restraint and stiffness of style, as if the author had not quite attained the full use of his wings, they show no indications of youth or crudity. M’liss also appeared in the “Golden Era,” illustrated by a specially designed woodcut; and some persons think that this, the first, is also the best of Bret Harte’s stories. At all events, the early M’liss is far superior to the author’s lengthened and rewritten M’liss which was included in the collected edition of his works.

      When it is added that the Condensed Novels, or at least the first of them, were also published in the “Golden Era,” it will be seen with what astonishing quickness his literary style matured. He wrote at first anonymously; afterward, gaining a little self-confidence, he signed his stories “B,” and then “Bret.”

      It was while engaged in writing for the “Golden Era,” namely, on August 11, 1862, that Bret Harte was married to Miss Anna Griswold, daughter of Daniel S. and Mary Dunham Griswold of the city of New York. The marriage took place at San Raphael.

      In 1864 he was appointed Secretary of the California Mint, an office which he held for six years and until he left California. For this position he was indebted to Mr. R. B. Swain, Superintendent of the Mint, a friend and parishioner of the Reverend Mr. King, who in that way became a friend of Bret Harte. Mr. Swain had a great liking for the young author, and made the official path easy for him. In fact, the position seems to have been one of those sinecures—or nearly that—which are the traditional reward of men of letters, but which a reforming and materialistic age has diverted to less noble uses.

      In San Francisco, both before and after his marriage, Bret Harte lived a quiet, studious life, going very little into society. Of the time during which he was Secretary of the Mint, Mr. Stoddard writes: “He was now a man with a family; the resources derived from literature were uncertain and unsatisfactory. His influential friends paid him cheering visits in the gloomy office at the Mint where he leavened his daily loaves; and at his desk, between the exacting pages of the too literal ledger, many a couplet cropped out, and the outlines of now famous sketches were faintly limned. His friends were few, but notable. Society he ignored in those days. He used to accuse me of wasting my substance in riotous visitations, and thought me a spendthrift of time. He had the precious companionship of books, and the lives of those about him were as an open volume wherein he read ‘curiously and to his profit.’ ”

      Of the notable friends alluded to by Mr. Stoddard, the most important were the Reverend Thomas Starr King, and Mrs. Jessie Benton Frémont, daughter of Senator Benton, and wife of that Captain, afterward General Frémont, who became the first United States Senator from California, and Republican candidate for the Presidency in 1856, but who is best known as The Pathfinder. His adventures and narratives form an important part of California history.

      Mrs. Frémont was an extremely clever, kind-hearted woman, who assisted Bret Harte greatly by her advice and criticism, still more by her sympathy and encouragement. Bret Harte was always inclined to underrate his own powers, and to be despondent as to his literary future. On one occasion when, as not seldom happened, he was cast down by his troubles and anxieties, and almost in despair as to his prospects, Mrs. Frémont sent him some cheering news, and he wrote to her: “I shall no longer disquiet myself about changes in residence or anything else, for I believe that if I were cast upon a desolate island, a savage would come to me next morning and hand me a three-cornered note to say that I had been appointed Governor at Mrs. Frémont’s request, at a salary of $2400 a year.”

      How much twenty-four hundred a year seemed to him then, and how little a few years later! A Pioneer who knew them both writes: “Mrs. Frémont helped Bret Harte in many ways. In turn he marvelled at her worldly wisdom—being able to tell one how to make a living. He named her daughter’s pony ‘Chiquita,’ after the equine heroine of his poem.” It was by Mrs. Frémont’s intervention that Bret Harte first appeared in the “Atlantic Monthly,” for, some years before he achieved fame, namely in 1863, The Legend of Monte del Diablo was published in that magazine. The story was gracefully, even beautifully written, but both in style and treatment it was a reflection of Washington Irving, who at that time rivalled Dickens as a popular author.

      Many interesting letters were received by Mrs. Frémont from Bret Harte—letters, her daughter thinks, almost as entertaining as his published writings; but unfortunately these treasures were destroyed by a fire in the city of New York.

      Starr King, Bret Harte’s other friend, was by far the most notable of the Protestant ministers in California. The son of a Universalist minister, he was born in the city of New York, but was brought up mainly in Charlestown, now a part of Boston. Upon leaving school he became first a clerk, then a school-teacher, and finally a Unitarian minister, preaching first at his father’s old church in Charlestown, and afterward at the Hollis Street Unitarian Church in Boston.

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