Chapter I



Reminiscences of Bret Harte. "Plain Language From Truthfulful James."
The Glamour of the Old Mining Towns



It is forty-four years since the writer met the author of "The Luck of
Roaring Camp" - that wonderful blending within the limits of a short
story of humor, pathos and tragedy - which, incredible as it may seem,
met with but a cold reception from the local press, and was even branded
as "indecent" and "immodest!"

On the occasion referred to, I was strolling on Rincon Hill - at that
time the fashionable residence quarter of San Francisco - in company
with Mr. J. H. Wildes, whose cousin, the late Admiral Frank Wildes,
achieved fame in the battle of Manila Bay. Mr. Wildes called my
attention to an approaching figure and said: "Here comes Bret Harte, a
man of unusual literary ability. He is having a hard struggle now, but
only needs the opportunity, to make a name for himself."

That opportunity arrived almost immediately. In the September number of
the Overland Monthly, 1870, of which magazine Mr. Harte was then editor,
appeared "Plain Language from Truthful James," or "The Heathen Chinee,"
as the poem was afterwards called. A few weeks later, to my amazement,