the hands of a fancied friend of his dear old reprobate Colonel, he,
like Kentuck, "drifted away into the shadowy river that flows forever to
the unknown sea."

In his more than forty years of authorship he was both industrious and
prolific. In the nineteen volumes of his published work there must be
more than two hundred titles of stories and sketches, and many of them
are little known. Some of them are disappointing in comparison with his
earlier and perhaps best work, but many of them are charming and all are
in his delightful style, with its undertone of humor that becomes
dominant at unexpected intervals. His literary form was distinctive,
with a manner not derived from the schools or copied from any of his
predecessors, but developed from his own personality. He seems to have
founded a modern school, with a lightness of touch and a felicity of
expression unparalleled. He was vividly imaginative, and also had the
faculty of giving dramatic form and consistency to an incident or story
told by another. He was a story-teller, equally dexterous in prose or
verse. His taste was unerring and he sought for perfect form. His
atmosphere was breezy and healthful--out of doors with the fragrance of
the pine-clad Sierras. He was never morbid and introspective. His
characters are virile and natural men and women who act from simple
motives, who live and love, or hate and fight, without regard to
problems and with small concern for conventionalities. Harte had
sentiment, but was realistic and fearless. He felt under no obligation
to make all gamblers villains or all preachers heroes. He dealt with
human nature in the large and he made it real.

His greatest achievement was in faithfully mirroring the life of a new
and striking epoch. He seems to have discovered that it was picturesque
and to have been almost alone in impressing this fact on the world. He