Harte on King: a star was falling

Thomas Starr King had been preaching in San Francisco, California, only for about four years before he died on March 4, 1864. A dynamic character, he was as influential in the pulpit as he was at more secular podiums. One of the many affected by King's death at age 39 was author Bret Harte who, like King, was born in New York state before making his way to California. Harte dedicated a poem to King as an obituary which he called "Relieving Guard":

Came the relief. "What, sentry, ho!
How passed the night through thy long waking?"
"Cold, cheerless, dark, — as may befit
The hour before the dawn is breaking."

"No sight? no sound?" "No; nothing save
The plover from the marshes calling,
And in yon western sky, about
An hour ago, a star was falling."

"A star? There's nothing strange in that."
"No, nothing; but above the thicket,
Somehow it seemed to me that God
Somewhere had just relieved a picket." 

Harte purposely used military imagery in honoring this minister, in part because King had involved himself heavily in politics, urging Californians to stay with the Union. The title, "Relieving Guard," helps make the connection between the role of a soldier and the role of a minister, as well. Moreover, the poem's simplicity belies the complexity in its imagery. In its three stanzas, we see no direct reference to King, and neither do the two soldiers who are talking. Yet, somehow one of the soldiers knows that the seemingly natural phenomenon he has witness has a greater meaning. We never hear the other soldier's reaction.

Harte had known King personally, considering him a mentor of sorts, and was even aware of his illness — diphtheria — without apparently knowing how serious it was. King had worked nonstop for years and the strain only aggravated his condition. Among his last words were Psalm 23, "Yea, though I walk through the shadow of the valley of death, I shall fear no evil." He was buried with a military guard. Harte would write two more poems to King and name a son after him.

Harte: As Yerba Buena is the good herb known

Bret Harte published his poem "The Yerba Buena" in the April 5, 1863 issue of the Golden Era in California. The title, Spanish for "the good herb," referenced an abundant low-lying plant in the mint family. It was also the original name for San Francisco. The poem deftly combines the various meanings by telling the story of the original Spanish missions, their influence on the local natives, and the well-known California plant (with a little satire of religious belief too):

When from the distant lands, and burning South,
Came Junipero — through the plains of drouth,—
Bringing God's promise by the word of mouth,

With blistered feet and fever-stricken brain,
He sank one night upon the arid plain,—
If God so willed it — not to rise again;

A heathen convert stood in wonder by;
"If God is God — the Father shall not die,"
He said. The dying priest made no reply.

"This in His name!" the savage cried, and drew
From the parched brook an herb that thereby grew,
And rubbed its leaves his dusky fingers through;

Then with the bruised stalks he bound straightway
The Padre's feet and temples where he lay,
And sat him down in faith, to wait till day;

When rose the Padre — as the dead may rise —
Reading the story in the convert's eyes,
"A miracle! God's herb" — the savage cries.

"Not so," replies the ever humble priest;
"God's loving goodness showeth in the least,
Not God's but good be known the herb thou seest!"

Then rising up he wandered forth alone;
And ever since, where'er its seed be sown,
As Yerba Buena is the good herb known.

I am not in the imitation business

Mark Twain was not too happy to be accused of writing "a feeble imitation" of Bret Harte's poem "The Heathen Chinee" (published as "Plain Language from Truthful James" the previous year). He addressed his accuser, Thomas Bailey Aldrich of the Every Saturday in Boston, with a letter dated January 15, 1871. The actual parody poem, "The Three Aces: Jim Todd's Episode in Social Euchre," was about "a euchre game that was turned into a poker & a victim betrayed into betting his all on three aces when there was a 'flush' out against him," according to Twain. The poem had recently been published in a Buffalo newspaper, immediately drawing attention in New York and beyond. To Aldrich, he admitted he would never have written the "echo" of Harte, as he was accused:

I have had several applications from responsible publishing houses to furnish a volume of poems after the style of 'Truthful James' rhymes. I burned the letters without answering them, for I am not in the imitation business.

In fact, said Twain, the actual poet was "Hy Slocum" or "Carl Byng," both pseudonyms of Frank M. Thorn, who had been contributing to the Buffalo Express. Twain had been a part owner of that newspaper since 1869. After calling him a "plagiarist," Twain also vowed to make sure neither Byng nor Slocum (nor Thorn) was ever published in the Buffalo Express again.

Twain had second thoughts about sending such a cranky letter to Aldrich and only a few days later wrote him again, begging him not to publish the letter. By the time that request reached Aldrich, it was too late. 42,000 copies of the next issue of Every Saturday were already printed — including Twain's letter under the headline "Twain says he didn't do it." More than that, other newspapers began reprinting the works of "Hy Slocum" and "Carl Byng" as other pen names of Mark Twain. He was not bothered by it, however, and he and Aldrich continued their correspondence and, eventually, became good friends.

Bret Harte: Yet we can never agree

The California-based Golden Era was one of the main literary outlets of Bret Harte, who contributed over 100 original pieces to that journal in only a couple years. That journal had the honor of publishing Harte's first poem in dialect, "The Bailie o' Perth," which was included in the December 12, 1858 issue. Harte's dialect poems, meant to emulate the spoken vernacular of California gold miners, proved incredibly popular. His poems in this vein often held a comedic edge, as in the case of "Bailie of Perth" about a married couple who struggle to find something upon which they can agree:

Bailie o' Perth was a blithesome mon,
    And a blithesome mon was he,
And his gude wife lov'd him well and true,
    And the bailie he lov'd she;
Yet mickle or muckle the cause or kind,
    Whatever the pother be,
Be it simple sair or unco deep,
    The twain could never agree.

Syne spake the bailie with blithesome mind,
    Fair and soft spake he:
"Twal lang year hae we married been,
    Yet we can never agree.
Now, my ain sweet love, let us try for aye,
    Forever and aye to see
If for ain blest time in all our life,
    You and I can ever agree.

"Now listen to me: should it chance that ye
    Were paidlint in the lane,
Ye should meet a bonnie buxom lass,
    And a winsome laddie, twain,
Wha wad ye kiss, good dame?" he said,
    "Wha wad ye kiss?" said he;
"Wad ye kiss the bonnie buxom lass,
    Or the winsome gay laddie?"

"Hoot awa, mon! are ye ganging daft?
    Are ye ganging daft?" said she;
"Twal lang year hae we married been,
    And I have been true to ye;
Mon hae never my twa lips touched,
    Nae mon hae glinted at me."
"But wha wad ye kiss, good dame?" said he;
    "I wad kiss the lass," said she.

Out laughed the bailie with muckle glee,
    For a blithesome mon was he;
"Twal lang year hae we married been,
    And now for ainst we agree;
If ye met a lad and a buxom lass
    Down in the gowans fine,
To kiss the lass wad be your choice,
    And I ken it wad be mine!"

The humor here, of course, is that the husband gets his wife to promise she would never cheat on him, while admitting that he would cheat on her. Amid a period when literary realism was booming, all while local color pieces were circulating and showing the distinct flavor of different regions around the country, Bret Harte's realistic attempt at portraying California dialect was heavily criticized even as it became popular. Mark Twain, his associate and fellow sojourner in California, later complained that "no human being living or dead ever had experience of the dialect which he puts into his people's mouths." Harte eventually gave up on his attempts at portraying western America and moved to England.

Bret Harte: the worst poem anyone ever wrote

Which I wish to remark,
     And my language is plain,
That for ways that are dark
     And for tricks that are vain,
The heathen Chinee is peculiar,
     Which the same I would rise to explain.

The "plain language" from "truthful James" was lost on the general readership of Bret Harte and the Overland Monthly. Harte had published his poem, "Plain Language from Truthful James" in the September 1870 issue of that California-based journal. He meant it as a satire against the improper treatment of Chinese immigrants, using a character named Ah Sin. Instead, the poem was accepted as a justification for racism under its appropriated name "The Heathen Chinee." The poem takes place on August 3:

It was August the third,
     And quite soft was the skies;
Which it might be inferred
     That Ah Sin was likewise;
Yet he played it that day upon William
     And me in a way I despise.

Which we had a small game,
     And Ah Sin took a hand:
It was Euchre. The same
     He did not understand;
But he smiled as he sat by the table,
     With the smile that was childlike and bland.

This Chinese man claimed not to understand the game; in reality, he stuffed his sleeves full of aces "with intent to deceive." The narrator and his friend Bill Nye finally recognize the cheat when he plays the same card the narrator already held in his hand:

Then I looked up at Nye,
     And he gazed upon me;
And he rose with a sigh,
     And said, "Can this be?
We are ruined by Chinese cheap labor," —
     And he went for that heathen Chinee.

In the scene that ensued
     I did not take a hand,
But the floor it was strewed
     Like the leaves on the strand
With the cards that Ah Sin had been hiding,
     In the game "he did not understand."

The poem was so widely reprinted, it made Harte instantly popular. Several versions included illustrations mocking the "Heathen Chinee" and "the scene that ensued" (interpreted by some as a large-scale race riot). Later, however, the author himself looked upon the poem as "trash," and declared it "the worst poem I ever wrote, possibly the worst poem anyone ever wrote." The joke was not lost, however, on the up-and-coming writer named Edgar Wilson Nye, who used "Bill Nye" as his pseudonym as a tribute to Harte's poem.

Harte, Washington, and a simple, patriotic act

"I have been to [George] Washington's Headquarters, at Morristown," begins an account by Bret Harte dated June 24, 1873 under the title "Washington in New Jersey: An Old Homestead." "The adult American who has not at some time stood beneath the same roof that once sheltered the Father of his country is to be pitied and feared." The visit, Harte writes, is a "simple, patriotic act" which would only be avoided by those guilty of "moral turpitude." Further, he notes, that "the number of roofs that Washington has slept under" shows he made a strong effort to make the shared experience "within the easy reach of every American citizen."

What inspired Harte to visit this particular roof of Washington's was the word that it would be sold at public auction. Walking up to the home "on that bright day of yellow June," he was immediately taken by what he saw. Speculating on what remained from Washington's time (the looking-glass, he assumed, was a notable artifact, as Washington undoubtedly used it while shaving). The home, he determined, was modest though dignified, and "far unlike the Cambridge Headquarters" he had previously visited in Massachusetts and referred to as a "precious jewel." Nevertheless, that humble, quiet, home in New Jersey affected Harte deeply: "Even in this gracious June sunlight you shiver and turn cold."

Harte, unsurprisingly, was concerned about the future of this historical spot. Worried what would happen when the auctioner finally slammed down his hammer: "Going, going. There is a glory on its roof for a moment, and it is Gone." The good news? A society of historians purchased the home and began its preservation. Some 60 years later, it became a unit of the National Park Service.

Harte: game for the famous Emeu!

The first issue of The Californian was published on May 28, 1864, under the editorship of Charles Henry Webb. Contributors to the San Francisco-based newspaper included Charles Warren Stoddard, Bret Harte and, occasionally, Mark Twain. William Dean Howells remarked that they were an "extraordinary group of wits and poets."

Generally, The Californian aimed to be both light-hearted and local. For the first issue, Harte contributed "Neighbourhoods I have Moved From, by a Hypochondriac" and the poem "The Ballad of Emeu" — both were unsigned. The subject of the latter, an emu, was just as un-Californian as Harte himself (he was born in New York, after all, and spent much of his later life in Europe):

Oh, say, have you seen at the Willows so green—
    So charming and rurally true—
A singular bird, with a manner absurd,
    Which they call the Australian Emeu?
            Have you
    Ever seen this Australian Emeu?

It trots all around with its head on the ground,
    Or erects it quite out of your view;
And the ladies all cry, when its figure they spy,
    "Oh! what a sweet pretty Emeu!
            Oh! do
    Just look at that lovely Emeu!"

One day to this spot, when the weather was hot,
    Came Matilda Hortense Fortescue;
And beside her there came a youth of high name,—
    Augustus Florell Montague:
            The two
    Both loved that wild, foreign Emeu.

With two loaves of bread then they fed it, instead
    Of the flesh of the white Cockatoo,
Which once was its food in that wild neighborhood
    Where ranges the sweet Kangaroo,
            That too
    Is game for the famous Emeu!

Old saws and gimlets but its appetite whets,
    Like the world-famous bark of Peru;
There's nothing so hard that the bird will discard,
    And nothing its taste will eschew
            That you
    Can give that long-legged Emeu!

The time slipped away in this innocent play,
    When up jumped the bold Montague:
"Where's that specimen pin that I gayly did win
    In raffle, and gave unto you,
            Fortescue?"
    No word spoke the guilty Emeu!

"Quick! tell me his name whom thou gavest that same,
    Ere these hands in thy blood I imbrue!"
"Nay, dearest," she cried, as she clung to his side,
    "I'm innocent as that Emeu!"
            "Adieu!"
    He replied, "Miss M. H. Fortescue!"

Down she dropped at his feet, all as white as a sheet,
    As wildly he fled from her view;
He thought 'twas her sin,—for he knew not the pin
    Had been gobbled up by the Emeu;
            All through
    The voracity of that Emeu!

He who knoweth Which and what is Which

On February 17, 1861, the California-based Golden Era published a poem titled "My Soul to Thine" with the subheading "A Transcendental Valentine." The poem's author, Bret Harte, was then more than a year away from his marriage to Anna Griswold (which, it turned out, was not the most pleasant marriage); she later claimed the poem was written for her during their courtship. If that is the case, biographers consider it their only evidence for that period.

Antithesis of Light, which is but gloom,
    Myself in darkness shrouds; I know not why
Thy glances re-illumine — yet of them, One
            Is ever in my eye!

Perchance 'tis why I hold this thought most dear —
    What is, may still be, what is fixed won't change:
The Future and the Past are not as clear
            As things that are less strange.

Who knows what's What, yet says not which is Which
    He is reticent and precise in speech;
The same should tune his thoughts to concert pitch
            By some deep sounding beach.

But he who knoweth Which and what is Which —
    He is not simple nor perchance is dull —
Shall occupy himself a vacant niche
            In some stupendous Whole. 

Whatever his motivations, Harte created a poem that was more humorous than amorous. It may have also been a late-coming satire on Transcendentalism and its confusing aphorisms. If that was his aim, his form caters to it well; the ample indentation of the fourth line of each stanza stands out, as does the odd "One" concluding the third line but serving as the subject of the fourth line.

*I would like to acknowledge Axel Nissen and his book Bret Harte: Prince and Pauper (2000) for much of the information in this post.

Harte: a gloomy spectacle of myself

As he recorded in his journal entry for October 19, 1857, Bret Harte "commenced school" in Uniontown, California. The young Harte had only recently published his first mature poem. Now faced with difficulty finding work, was hired by the wealthy Charles Liscomb to tutor his two teenage sons.

The New York-born Harte tutored the boys nearly every day (except Sunday) from about 8:30 in the morning until shortly after noon. The topics of the day included reading and writing, arithmetic, and geography. Outside the classroom, Harte apparently kept to himself; at least one local thought him "quite a snob" because of it. In fact, Harte was quite unhappy. That winter, he wrote:

What the d——l am I to do with myself — the simplest pleasure fail to please me — my melancholy and gloomy forboding stick to me closer than a brother. I cannot enjoy myself rationally like others but am forced to make a gloomy spectacle of myself to gods and men.

This period in Harte's life was quite formulaic: tutoring during the day, poor attempts at hunting in the afternoon, sermons on Sundays (which he described as often "trite" or "vapid"). He meticulously recorded the lackluster details in his journal for five months. Harte stuck out in the frontier community of Uniontown; one neighbor wrote he "did not mix very well with the rougher element which formed a great part of the population." He was, by many accounts, the best dressed in town and once refused an offer from Liscomb to go hunting on a Sunday (as "a matter of conscience"). The same month he began tutoring, however, his first prose work was published.

By March of the next year, Harte stopped tutoring the Liscomb boys. In the decade which followed, he became more established as a writer, journalist, and poet. By the 1870s, he had moved to Europe.

Harte: goblins and ghosts

The Golden Era for August 12, 1860 included "A Child's Ghost Story," a short tale by Bret Harte. The tale features a peculiar boy whose learned yet foolish ("as very learned people sometimes are") parents name "Poeta." An unusually small boy, but for his comically large head, Poeta has a certain kinship with the world around him. As he walks through the garden with his little sister Gracie, the narrative voice asks who could better explain "what the birds said to each other, what the leaves of the big elms were always whispering, and the strange stories that the brook babbled to the stones as it ran away to the distant sea?"

To entertain Gracie, Poeta (or "Etty," for short) tells her stories "of goblins as high as the elm, and of ghosts that haunted the little churchyard where their grandmother slept; and he would continue to repeat them, getting more and more terrifying in intensity." Finally, however, Gracie interrupts her brother:

"There now, Etty, dear," she once said, "I don't believe there are any ghosts."
"Isn't there," said Etty, in deep scorn.
"No! Did you ever see any, Etty?"

Her brother admits he hasn't and Gracie promises if she dies, she will try to come back as a ghost to prove it one way or another. Sure enough, she suddenly becomes sick and dies. Lost in thought, Etty feels a hand on his forehead, and knows it is his sister's; when he turns, he sees her ghost standing next to him. From then on, when Etty had trouble, he would call upon his sister for comfort.

But, as Etty grows up, he falls in with a "wicked" crowd, and no longer hears the birds or the whispers of the leaves. He no longer allows his sister's ghost to visit him, embarrassed at the kind of man he has become. Then, one day, the old familiar sounds of nature return to him...

The Golden Era published nearly 100 original pieces by Bret Harte within the span of 12 months, including both prose and poetry.

Harte: a snug little cottage

The July 16, 1864 issue of the Californian included a short sketch by Bret Harte entitled "Fixing Up an Old House." The light-hearted tale depicts a new home-owner who begins fixing up his new cottage. His attempts at hanging wall-paper and painting the walls, however, nearly end in disaster and he resorts to hiring professionals.

Harte was among the first contributors to the Californian, writing at the behest of its founding editor Charles Henry Webb (though both were born New Yorkers). In the weekly journal, he often published satirical pieces which criticized California society. Webb and Harte both disliked the type of local color writing that was prevalent in the west at the time and, as such, the Californian did not include pioneer tales or frontier fiction. In fact, Harte's writings began to avoid common tropes of fiction entirely — a modern reader will find little content in "Fixing Up an Old House."

Still, the sketch includes the kind of straight-faced humor that made Harte so unique (this kind of smart humor also drew Mark Twain as a contributor to the publication). From "Fixing Up an Old House":

When I had secured the possession of my new home, and stood in its doorway, thoughtfully twirling the key in my hand, the words of the retiring tenant struck me with renewed intensity and vigor. "It's a snug little cottage," he had said, confidentially, "and a cheap rent — but it wants to be painted and papered bad." 'As I looked around it, I could not help thinking that one of these requirements had already been met — that it had been "papered bad," and that its present ragged, torn, and dirty walls looked better now than they must have looked in the primal horrors of their original paper. 

The narrator's initial thought is to do the clean-up work himself, though his wife suggested otherwise, implying not that they needed to save money, but that he had plenty of free time; the narrator is, in fact, a writer:

"You know that you're —" But she did not proceed any further in this feminine attempt to associate my literary habits with this branch of upholstering, and only said: "You might do it after office hours instead of writing, and you 'd save money by it."

Harte: Tossed them on the flowing sea

The June 17, 1860 issue of the Golden Era included the poem "Question" by Bret Harte:

When I meet her little figure,
Simple, guileless little figure,
With its graceful crest that tosses
          Up and down the flowing sea,
Does she dream that all above her —
All around her—still must love her,
Just as I do? Does she ever
          Look at me?

When the sunset's flush is on her,
Do her fancies ever wander,
Do her girlish fancies ever
          Mingle with the flowing sea?
In her tender meditation,
In her mystic speculation,
Is there any lonely figure
          Just like me?

When she took the flowers I sent her —
Sent in secret—sent in longing;
And all, all, except the daisy,
          Tossed them on the flowing sea;
When she placed that happy flower
On her bosom's trembling dower,
Now I wonder did she ever
          Think of me?

Hush, my heart. She's coming, coming;
Loud above the city's humming,
I can hear her footfall's beating,
          With the ever flowing sea.
Rosy red—a flush is on her,
As she passes—have I won her?
Eros! help me — I am sinking
          In the ever flowing sea.

"Francis Brett Hart" (as he was legally named) contributed eleven poems and 74 prose works in the Golden Era within about twelve months. Many of these contributions were of little merit, including his several love poems like the one above. During this time, however, he experimented with various pseudonyms and nom de plumes, including "The Bohemian," before settling on the byline "Bret Harte."

Bret Harte: I am not an opera critic

Bret Harte became the editor of the San Francisco-based Californian shortly after its inception. For the weekly newspaper, he also contributed various sketches and reviews, including his essay "A Few Operatic Criticisms," published in the May 13, 1865 issue. In the humorous piece, Harte makes clear his background as an amateur:

I would state at the beginning of this article that I am not an opera critic, and do not wish to be confounded with any of those amiable gentlemen who write the regular notices, whose facile handling of musical terms always impresses me, and who, with their other varied talents seem to be gifted with a prescience with not unfrequently enables them to pen a fair description of a performance before it has taken place.

As an admitted non-expert, Harte observes while he criticizes. For instance, it seems to him that all baritones are always "unsuccessful at love," usually "jilted lovers, cruel parents or hated elder brothers."

Whatever his complaints, Harte later had some of his own writings adapted into opera forms. The Sicily-born Pietro Floridia, for example, produced La Colonia Libera in 1899 based on Harte's "M'Liss." The University of North Texas later premiered an opera version of "The Outcasts of Poker Flat" by Judah Stampfer with music by Samuel Adler.

Harte: no longer a rough Westerner

The March 16, 1896 issue of The Critic printed a short article that was, ostensibly, a review of The Bell-Ringer of Angel's and Other Stories, a new collection by Bret Harte. Instead, however, the review began by focusing on one of Harte's stories published 28 years earlier: "The Luck of Roaring Camp," printed in the Overland Monthly in 1868 while Harte was its editor.

As the review notes, that story immediately gave Harte an important position in American literature. According to The Critic, his earlier work (mostly poems), had previously "failed to elevate him" despite being widely admired 30 years later."The Luck of Roaring Camp" offered a subject and style that had "a distinct departure from the typical Western tale," with "qualities of a high order."

After working with the Overland Monthly in the late 1860s, Harte moved to Europe and served for a time as Consul to Germany before moving to London. Ultimately, he stayed in Europe for over two decades. It was while overseas that he wrote The Bell-Ringer of Angel's and Other Stories, but he still maintained his interest in the American West, as reflected in these individual stories. The Critic noted how his style maintained "the same bold, daring type of manhood... the same idea of action, of dramatic effect," but that there was a problem:
 

Something is wanting —the personal presence, the personal participation, the personal interest of the writer." Memory will not do in this day of stern realism. A man who aims to reproduce in literature a certain phase of life must be apart of that life to feel directly its influence and inspiration. Mr. Harte is no longer a rough Westerner, living heart to heart with uncouth laborers and bold adventurers. The culture and ease of an older civilization have materially influenced him—have, in fact, transformed him. And while his powers and possibilities may not be any less than they once were, they are certainly very different. He has enriched American literature immensely by the exercise of his splendid genius in immortalizing a dramatic period of our national life: he should be content to rest upon what he has done so well—so far, at least, as American literature is concerned.

So, says the reviewer, stop writing, and Harte's place in American writing is already assured. If Harte refuses to return to the United States, he should stop writing stories set here. Instead, the article says, he should write about European scenery. In fact, it was in England that Harte died in 1902.

Bierce: Very cheerfully yours

Ambrose Bierce contributed a series of "Grizzly Papers" under the name "Ursus," published in the Overland Monthly in California. To anyone who has ever had an editor, no explanation is necessary. The following is a letter from Bierce, dated March 15, 1871:

Dear Sir; If the "proofs" I had yesterday represent the amount of my copy which is accepted, I think I will quit. Everything I send you is constructed with the utmost care; most of it being written three times over, and all of it twice. This involves too much labor to be undertaken without some reasonable hope that it will not be wasted. You told me the character of the mag[azine] was not to be changed when [Bret] Harte left. Harte never suppressed, nor altered, a line of my composition—nor, I may say, did anybody else ever do so, to any great extent.

Of course, I cannot hope to remain incog[nito]; some of the Eastern papers are even now publishing the "Grizzlies" over my real name. I cannot therefore concede the right of any editor to make any alterations or excisions in what he accepts—it is unfair and unprofessional. Whatever a writer (if he is known—especially if he have already some reputation) is permitted to say, he should be allowed to say in his own way. I have myself some editorial experience, and this rule I never dared to disregard. The suppression of entire articles is perfectly proper, but has in my case been carried too far to be endurable. Besides it changes the tone of the papers as a series—a tone which I carefully decided upon giving them, and in accordance with each separate article or paragraph is written. But I cannot complain of the principle of suppression—only its excessive application.

...This scissors business is quite unprecedented, and I don't like it.

Very cheerfully yours,
A. G. Bierce

*Special thanks to editors S. T. Joshi and David E. Schultz for including this letter in A Much Misunderstood Man: Selected Letters of Ambrose Bierce (2003).

Blackened and bleeding in Chicago

The Great Chicago Fire burned for three days beginning on October 8, 1871. As with many other national tragedies, several poets were inspired to memorialize the event and its unfortunate victims lyrically. Bret Harte, for example, wrote "Chicago" a description of the horrific devastation left behind: "Blackened and bleeding, helpless, panting, prone / On the charred fragments of her shattered throne."

On the other hand, John Greenleaf Whittier noted how Americans were unified in the need to stay hopeful in his own poem, also named "Chicago":

From East, from West, from South and North,
The messages of hope shot forth,
And, underneath the severing wave,
The world, full-handed reached to save.

John Boyle O'Reilly personified Chicago as a woman "who was once so fair," but now "charred and rent are her garments." Like Whittier, O'Reilly notes that she is "rich in her treasures" because she has friends who will assist her. The country, after all, is striving for Chicago's rebirth:

Silent she stands on the prairie,
Wrapped in her fire-scathed sheet:
Around her, thank God, is the Nation,
Weeping for her desolation,
Pouring its gold at her feet...

It is estimated that as many as 400 people died in the Great Chicago Fire. The rumor persisted for years that the fire which destroyed four square miles was started by the family cow owned by the O'Leary family.

Harte: Let the stately Polar bears waltz

In a move later called "Seward's Folly" in reference to Secretary of State William Seward, Alaska officially became a territory of the United States on June 20, 1867. The land was purchased from Russia at a price of $7,200,000 under the administration of President Andrew Johnson. The move was unpopular, in part because the land was mostly barren; critics called it an "icebox."

Still early in his literary career at the time was Bret Harte, a New Yorker by birth and Californian by choice. He commemorated the acquisition of Alaska in his poem "An Arctic Vision." In it, he praises some of the same aspects about Alaska which critics denounced (slightly edited for length):

Where the short-legged Esquimaux
Waddle in the ice and snow.
And the playful Polar bear
Nips the hunter unaware;
...Let the news that flying goes
Thrill through all your Arctic floes,
And reverberate the boast
From the cliff's off Beechey's coast,
Till the tidings, circling round
Every bay of Norton Sound,
Throw the vocal tide-wave back
To the isles of Kodiac.
Let the stately Polar bears
Waltz around the pole in pairs,
And the walrus, in his glee,
Bare his tusk of ivory;
...Slide, ye solemn glaciers, slide,
One inch farther to the tide,
Nor in rash precipitation
Upset Tyndall's calculation.
Know you not what fate awaits you,
Or to whom the future mates you ?
All ye icebergs make salaam, —
You belong to Uncle Sam!

Leaning on his icy hammer
Stands the hero of this drama,
And above the wild-duck's clamor,
In his own peculiar grammar,
With its linguistic disguises,
Lo, the Arctic prologue rises:
"Wall, I reckon 'tain't so bad,
Seein' ez 't was all they had;
True, the Springs are rather late
And early Falls predominate;
But the ice crop's pretty sure.
And the air is kind o' pure;
'Tain't so very mean a trade.
When the land is all surveyed.
There's a right smart chance for fur-chase
All along this recent purchase,
And, unless the stories fail,
Every fish from cod to whale;
Rocks, too; mebbe quartz; let's see, —
'T would be strange if there should be, —
Seems I 've heerd such stories told;
Eh! — why, bless us, — yes, it's gold!"

While the blows are falling thick
From his California pick.
You may recognize the Thor
Of the vision that I saw, —
Freed from legendary glamour.
See the real magician's hammer.

*The image above is from the New York Public Library Digital Archives, which has a fairly substantial collection of Bret Harte images.