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Directory of Mark Twain's maxims, quotations, and various opinions:

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

BRET HARTE

In the early days I liked Bret Harte and so did the others, but by and by I got over it; so also did the others. He couldn't keep a friend permanently. He was bad, distinctly bad; he had no feeling and he had no conscience.
- Mark Twain's Autobiography

 

Harte is a liar, a thief, a swindler, a snob, a sot, a sponge, a coward, a Jeremy Diddler, he is brim full of treachery, and he conceals his Jewish birth as if he considered it a disgrace.
- Letter to William Dean Howells, June 1878

 

Harte, in a mild and colorless way, was that kind of man -- that is to say, he was a man without a country; no, not man -- man is too strong a term; he was an invertebrate without a country. He hadn't any more passion for his country than an oyster has for its bed; in fact not so much and I apologize to the oyster.
- Mark Twain's Autobiography

 

I detest him, because I think his work is 'shoddy.' His forte is pathos but there should be no pathos which does not come out of a man's heart. He has no heart, except his name, and I consider he has produced nothing that is genuine. He is artificial.
- interview in Sydney Australia Argus, 17 September 1895


Mark Twain and Bret Harte as depicted in
Old Crow whiskey advertisement


Bret Harte in VANITY FAIR, Jan. 4, 1899
from the Dave Thomson collection

Harte stamp
Bret Hart stamp
from the Dave Thomson collection

NEW YORK EVENING WORLD
May 6, 1902, p. 10

MARK TWAIN TELLS OF CALIFORNIA DAYS

Mark Twain was an old-time friend and a great admirer of Bret Harte. He was much grieved to hear of Mr. Harte's sudden death. Mr. Twain said:

"Bret Harte and I were intimate friends many years ago in San Francisco. He was the private secretary to the Superintendent of the Mint, and I was in on the third story over his head as a reporter for the Morning Call.

"In the first year of this acquaintance, if I remember correctly, he was the editor of the Californian, a literary weekly journal.

"He made a local name in that capacity through writing attractive sketches and satires, and presently was made editor of the Overland. This happened while I was in the Sandwich Islands in 1866. When I returned after a long absence I found that he had become famous all over the world through his 'Heathen Chinee.'

"He said 'The Luck of Roaring Camp' was the salvation of his literary career. It placed him securely upon a literary road which was more to his taste.

"So far as I know none of my intimates of thirty-eight years ago in San Francisco are now living, except Noah Brooks, Charles Warren Stoddard, professor of English in the Catholic University of Washington, and Charles Henry Webb.

"Bret Harte came east in 1870 and his progress was marked from station to station by telegraph, as the progress of a Prince would be.

"I think he made on attempt to picture Eastern life and that was not regarded as successful.

"A man must live the life before he can write it. Bret Harte wisely fell back upon the life he had led in California, and he remained faithful to it ever after. He was successful in finding such details of that life as he had lived and his pen pictures of California camps and mountain scenery has seldom been equalled and never surpassed."


By ancient training and inherited habits, I have been heaping blame after blame, censure after censure, upon Bret Harte, and have felt the things I have said, but when my temper is cool I have no censures for him. The law of his nature was stonger than man's statutes and he had to obey it. It is my conviction that the human race is no proper target for harsh words and bitter criticisms, and that the only justifiable feeling toward it is compassion, it did not invent itself, and it had nothing to do with the planning of its weak and foolish character.
- Autobiography of Mark Twain, Vol. 2 (2013), p. 430. Dictated 4 February 1907

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