A few days later he wrote from Lawrence, the morning after an
unexpectedly good audience: "I made a hundred dollars by the lecture,
and it is yours for yourself, Nan, to buy minxes with, if you want to."

From Washington he writes: "Thank you, dear Nan, for your kind, hopeful
letter. I have been very sick, very much disappointed; but I am better
now and am only waiting for money to return. Can you wonder that I have
kept this from you? You have so hard a time of it there, that I cannot
bear to have you worried if there is the least hope of a change in my
affairs. God bless you and keep you and the children safe, for the sake
of Frank."

No one can read these letters without feeling that they mirror the real
man, refined of feeling, kindly and humorous, but not strong of courage,
oppressed by obligations, and burdened by doubts of how he was to care
for those he loved. With all his talent he could not command
independence, and the lot of the man who earns less than it costs to
live is hard to bear.

Harte had the faculty of making friends, even if by neglect he sometimes
lost them, and they came to his rescue in this trying time. Charles A.
Dana and others secured for him an appointment by President Hayes as
Commercial Agent at Crefeld, Prussia. In June, 1878, he sailed for
England, leaving his family at Sea Cliff, Long Island, little supposing
that he would never see them or America again.

On the day he reached Crefeld he wrote his wife in a homesick and almost
despondent strain: "I am to all appearance utterly friendless; I have
not received the first act of kindness or courtesy from anyone. I think
things must be better soon. I shall, please God, make some good friends