The Bell-Ringer of Angel's, and Other Stories

by Bret Harte

  MY FIRST BOOK.

  When I say that my "First Book" was NOT my own, and contained beyond thetitle-page not one word of my own composition, I trust that I will notbe accused of trifling with paradox, or tardily unbosoming myself ofyouthful plagiary. But the fact remains that in priority of publicationthe first book for which I became responsible, and which probablyprovoked more criticism than anything I have written since, was a smallcompilation of Californian poems indited by other hands.

  A well-known bookseller of San Francisco one day handed me a collectionof certain poems which had already appeared in Pacific Coast magazinesand newspapers, with the request that I should, if possible, securefurther additions to them, and then make a selection of those which Iconsidered the most notable and characteristic, for a single volume tobe issued by him. I have reason to believe that this unfortunate man wasactutated by a laudable desire to publish a pretty Californian book--HISfirst essay in publication--and at the same time to foster Easternimmigration by an exhibit of the Californian literary product; but,looking back upon his venture, I am inclined to think that the littlevolume never contained anything more poetically pathetic or touchinglyimaginative than that gentle conception. Equally simple and trustfulwas his selection of myself as compiler. It was based somewhat, I think,upon the fact that "the artless Helicon" I boasted "was Youth," but Iimagine it was chiefly owing to the circumstance that I had from theoutset, with precocious foresight, confided to him my intention of notputting any of my own verses in the volume. Publishers are appreciative;and a self-abnegation so sublime, to say nothing of its security, wasnot without its effect.

  We settled to our work with fatuous self-complacency, and no suspicionof the trouble in store for us, or the storm that was to presentlyhurtle around our devoted heads. I winnowed the poems, and he exploiteda preliminary announcement to an eager and waiting press, and we movedtogether unwittingly to our doom. I remember to have been early struckwith the quantity of material coming in--evidently the result of somepopular misunderstanding of the announcement. I found myself in dailyand hourly receipt of sere and yellow fragments, originally torn fromsome dead and gone newspaper, creased and seamed from long folding inwallet or pocketbook. Need I say that most of them were of an emotionalor didactic nature; need I add any criticism of these homely souvenirs,often discolored by the morning coffee, the evening tobacco, or, heavenknows! perhaps blotted by too easy tears! Enough that I knew now whathad become of those original but never recopied verses which filled the"Poet's Corner" of every country newspaper on the coast. I knew nowthe genesis of every didactic verse that "coldly furnished forth themarriage table" in the announcement of weddings in the rural press. Iknew now who had read--and possibly indited--the dreary hic jacets ofthe dead in their mourning columns. I knew now why certain lettersof the alphabet had been more tenderly considered than others, andaffectionately addressed. I knew the meaning of the "Lines to Her whocan best understand them," and I knew that they HAD been understood.The morning's post buried my table beneath these withered leaves ofposthumous passion. They lay there like the pathetic nosegays ofquickly fading wild flowers, gathered by school children, inconsistentlyabandoned upon roadsides, or as inconsistently treasured as limp andflabby superstitions in their desks. The chill wind from the Bay blowingin at the window seemed to rustle them into sad articulate appeal. Iremember that when one of them was whisked from the window by a strongergust than usual, and was attaining a circulation it had never knownbefore, I ran a block or two to recover it. I was young then, and in anexalted sense of editorial responsibility which I have since survived,I think I turned pale at the thought that the reputation of some unknowngenius might have thus been swept out and swallowed by the all-absorbingsea.

  There were other difficulties arising from this unexpected wealth ofmaterial. There were dozens of poems on the same subject. "The GoldenGate," "Mount Shasta," "The Yosemite," were especially provocative. Abeautiful bird known as the "Californian Canary" appeared to have beenshot at and winged by every poet from Portland to San Diego. Lines tothe "Mariposa" flower were as thick as the lovely blossoms themselves inthe Merced valley, and the Madrone tree was as "berhymed" as Rosalind.Again, by a liberal construction of the publisher's announcement,MANUSCRIPT poems, which had never known print, began to coyly unfoldtheir virgin blossoms in the morning's mail. They were accompanied bya few lines stating, casually, that their sender had found them lyingforgotten in his desk, or, mendaciously, that they were "thrown off" onthe spur of the moment a few hours before. Some of the names appendedto them astonished me. Grave, practical business men, sage financiers,fierce speculators, and plodding traders, never before suspected ofpoetry, or even correct prose, were among the contributors. It seemed asif most of the able-bodied inhabitants of the Pacific Coast had been inthe habit at some time of expressing themselves in verse. Some soughtconfidential interviews with the editor. The climax was reached when,in Montgomery Street, one day, I was approached by a well known andvenerable judicial magnate. After some serious preliminary conversation,the old gentleman finally alluded to what he was pleased to call a taskof "great delicacy and responsibility laid upon my young shoulders.""In fact," he went on paternally, adding the weight of his judicialhand to that burden, "I have thought of speaking to you about it. Inmy leisure moments on the Bench I have, from time to time, polished andperfected a certain college poem begun years ago, but which may now besaid to have been finished in California, and thus embraced in the scopeof your proposed selection. If a few extracts, selected by myself, tosave you all trouble and responsibility, be of any benefit to you, mydear young friend, consider them at your service."

  In this fashion the contributions had increased to three times thebulk of the original collection, and the difficulties of selectionwere augmented in proportion. The editor and publisher eyed each otheraghast. "Never thought there were so many of the blamed things alive,"said the latter with great simplicity, "had you?" The editor had not."Couldn't you sorter shake 'em up and condense 'em, you know? keep theirideas--and their names--separate, so that they'd have proper credit.See?" The editor pointed out that this would infringe the rule he hadlaid down. "I see," said the publisher thoughtfully; "well, couldn'tyou pare 'em down; give the first verse entire and sorter sample theothers?" The editor thought not. There was clearly nothing to do but tomake a more rigid selection--a difficult performance when the materialwas uniformly on a certain dead level, which it is not necessary todefine here. Among the rejections were, of course, the usual plagiarismsfrom well-known authors imposed upon an inexperienced country press;several admirable pieces detected as acrostics of patent medicines,and certain veiled libels and indecencies such as mark the "first"publications on blank walls and fences of the average youth. Still thebulk remained too large, and the youthful editor set to work reducingit still more with a sympathizing concern which the good-natured, butunliterary, publisher failed to understand, and which, alas! proved tobe equally unappreciated by the rejected contributors.

  The book appeared--a pretty little volume typographically, andexternally a credit to pioneer book-making. Copies were liberallysupplied to the press, and authors and publishers self-complacentlyawaited the result. To the latter this should have been satisfactory;the book sold readily from his well-known counters to purchasers whoseemed to be drawn by a singular curiosity, unaccompanied, however, byany critical comment. People would lounge in to the shop, turn over theleaves of other volumes, say carelessly, "Got a new book of Californiapoetry out, haven't you?" purchase it, and quietly depart. There wereas yet no notices from the press; the big dailies were silent; there wassomething ominous in this calm.

  Out of it the bolt fell. A well-known mining weekly, which I herepoetically veil under the title of the Red Dog "Jay Hawk," was first toswoop down upon the tuneful and unsuspecting quarry. At this century-endof fastidious and complaisant criticism, it may be interesting torecall the direct style of the Californian "sixties." "The hogwash and'purp'-stuff ladled out from the slo
p-bucket of Messrs. ---- and Co., of'Frisco, by some lop-eared Eastern apprentice, and called 'A Compilationof Californian Verse,' might be passed over, so far as criticism goes. Aclub in the hands of any able-bodied citizen of Red Dog, and a steamboatticket to the Bay, cheerfully contributed from this office, wouldbe all-sufficient. But when an imported greenhorn dares to call hisflapdoodle mixture 'Californian,' it is an insult to the State that hasproduced the gifted 'Yellow Hammer,' whose lofty flights have from timeto time dazzled our readers in the columns of the 'Jay Hawk.' That thiscomplacent editorial jackass, browsing among the dock and thistles whichhe has served up in this volume, should make no allusion to California'sgreatest bard, is rather a confession of his idiocy than a slur upon thegenius of our esteemed contributor." I turned hurriedly to my pile ofrejected contributions--the nom de plume of "Yellow Hammer" did NOTappear among them; certainly I had never heard of its existence. Later,when a friend showed me one of that gifted bard's pieces, I was inwardlyrelieved! It was so like the majority of the other verses, in and out ofthe volume, that the mysterious poet might have written under a hundredaliases. But the Dutch Flat "Clarion," following, with no uncertainsound, left me small time for consideration. "We doubt," said thatjournal, "if a more feeble collection of drivel could have been made,even if taken exclusively from the editor's own verses, which we note hehas, by an equal editorial incompetency, left out of the volume. Whenwe add that, by a felicity of idiotic selection, this person has chosenonly one, and the least characteristic, of the really clever poems ofAdoniram Skaggs, which have so often graced these columns, we havesaid enough to satisfy our readers." The Mormon Hill "Quartz Crusher"relieved this simple directness with more fancy: "We don't knowwhy Messrs. ---- and Co. send us, under the title of 'Selections ofCalifornian Poetry,' a quantity of slumgullion which really belongsto the sluices of a placer mining camp, or the ditches of the ruraldistricts. We have sometimes been compelled to run a lot of tailingsthrough our stamps, but never of the grade of the samples offered,which, we should say, would average about 33-1/3 cents per ton. We have,however, come across a single specimen of pure gold evidently overlookedby the serene ass who has compiled this volume. We copy it withpleasure, as it has already shone in the 'Poet's Corner' of the'Crusher' as the gifted effusion of the talented Manager of theExcelsior Mill, otherwise known to our delighted readers as 'Outcrop.'"The Green Springs "Arcadian" was no less fanciful in imagery: "Messrs.---- and Co. send us a gaudy green-and-yellow, parrot-colored volume,which is supposed to contain the first callow 'cheepings' and 'peepings'of Californian songsters. From the flavor of the specimens before us weshould say that the nest had been disturbed prematurely. There seems tobe a good deal of the parrot inside as well as outside the covers, andwe congratulate our own sweet singer 'Blue Bird,' who has so often madethese columns melodious, that she has escaped the ignominy of beingexhibited in Messrs. ---- and Co.'s aviary." I should add that thissimile of the aviary and its occupants was ominous, for my tuneful choirwas relentlessly slaughtered; the bottom of the cage was strewn withfeathers! The big dailies collected the criticisms and published themin their own columns with the grim irony of exaggerated head-lines. Thebook sold tremendously on account of this abuse, but I am afraid thatthe public was disappointed. The fun and interest lay in the criticisms,and not in any pointedly ludicrous quality in the rather commonplacecollection, and I fear I cannot claim for it even that merit. And itwill be observed that the animus of the criticism appeared to be theomission rather than the retention of certain writers.

  But this brings me to the most extraordinary feature of this singulardemonstration. I do not think that the publishers were at all troubledby it; I cannot conscientiously say that I was; I have every reason tobelieve that the poets themselves, in and out of the volume, were notdispleased at the notoriety they had not expected, and I have long sincebeen convinced that my most remorseless critics were not in earnest, butwere obeying some sudden impulse started by the first attacking journal.The extravagance of the Red Dog "Jay Hawk" was emulated by others:it was a large, contagious joke, passed from journal to journal ina peculiar cyclonic Western fashion. And there still lingers, notunpleasantly, in my memory the conclusion of a cheerfully scathingreview of the book which may make my meaning clearer: "If we havesaid anything in this article which might cause a single pang to thepoetically sensitive nature of the youthful individual calling himselfMr. Francis Bret Harte--but who, we believe, occasionally parts his nameand his hair in the middle--we will feel that we have not labored invain, and are ready to sing Nunc Dimittis, and hand in our checks. Wehave no doubt of the absolutely pellucid and lacteal purity of Franky'sintentions. He means well to the Pacific Coast, and we return thecompliment. But he has strayed away from his parents and guardians whilehe was too fresh. He will not keep without a little salt."

  It was thirty years ago. The book and its Rabelaisian criticisms havebeen long since forgotten. Alas! I fear that even the capacity for thatGargantuan laughter which met them, in those days, exists no longer.The names I have used are necessarily fictitious, but where I have beenobliged to quote the criticisms from memory I have, I believe, onlysoftened their asperity. I do not know that this story has any moral.The criticisms here recorded never hurt a reputation nor repressed asingle honest aspiration. A few contributors to the volume, who wereof original merit, have made their mark, independently of it or itscritics. The editor, who was for two months the most abused man on thePacific slope, within the year became the editor of its first successfulmagazine. Even the publisher prospered, and died respected!