Mr. Bret Harte, who died on Monday, the 5th inst.,
at the age of sixty-three, probably exerted a greater influence on English literature than any other American author. Going west- ward in the early 'fifties," he turned the raw material of his experiences in the mining camps to supremely artistic account both in prose and verse, and created the dramatic short story of emotion as we now know it. His claim to immortality is based on but a few pie,es,—his early stories, a, few serious poems, and the "Heathen Chinee " ; but he wrote some charming vers de soeiete, and in his "Sensation Novels Condensed" displayed an incomparable gift of literary travesty. It is difficult for the present generation to realise the astonishing impression produced on their fathers by the appearance of "The Luck of Roaring Camp" and its immediate successors. Nothing like them had been seen before, and their resounding success was probably responsible for the unremitting efforts of the author to repeat it. The suddenness of his conquest probably- impaired his powers of self-criticism, for he did little more than utter echoes, more or less faint, of his ringing tones in the " sixties " and "seventies."
Previous page
