Once during the season I went with my wife and Mr. W. W. Story to Eton, where we supped with Oscar Browning. We were taken out boating on the river, and I enjoyed it very much. There is a romance about the Thames associated with a thousand passages in literature which goes to the very heart. I was much impressed by the marked character of Mr. Browning and his frank, genial nature; and I found some delightful old Latin books in his library. May I meet with many such men!
This year, what with the German war and the Trübner-Hotten controversy, my “Breitmann Ballads” had become, I may say, well known. The character of Hans was actually brought into plays on three stages at once. Boucicault, whom I knew well of yore in America, introduced it into something. I had found Ewan Colquhoun—the same old sixpence—and one night he took me to the Strand Theatre to see a play in which my hero was a prominent part. I was
told afterwards that the company having been informed of my presence, all came to look at me through the curtain-hole. There were some imitations of my ballads published in Punch and the Standard, and the latter were so admirably executed—pardon the vain word!—that I feared, because they satirised the German cause, that they might be credited to me; therefore I wrote to the journal, begging that the author would give some indication that I had not written them, which was kindly done. Finally, a newspaper was started called Hans Breitmann, and the Messrs. Cope, of Liverpool, issued a brand of Hans Breitmann cigars. Owing to the resemblance between the words Bret and Breit there was a confusion of names, and my photograph was to be seen about town, with the name of Bret Harte attached to it. This great injustice to Mr. Harte was not agreeable, and I, or my friends, remonstrated with the shop-folk with the to-be-expected result, “Yes-sir, yes-sir—very sorry, sir—we’ll correct the mistake, sir!” But I don’t think it was ever corrected till the sale ceased.
I was sometimes annoyed with many imitations of my poems by persons who knew no German, which were all attributed to me. A very pious Presbyterian publication, in alluding to something of the kind, said that “Mr. Leland, because he is the author of Bret Harte, thinks himself justified in publishing any trash of this description.” I thought this a very improper allusion for a clergyman, not to say libellous. In fact, many people really believed that Bret Harte was a nom de plume or the title of a poem. And I may here say by the way that I never “wrote under” the pseudonym of Hans Breitmann in my life, nor called myself any such name at any time. It is simply the name of one of many books which I have written. An American once insisting to me that I should be called so from my work, I asked him if he would familiarly accost Mr. Lowell as “Josh Biglow.” If there is anything in the world which denotes a subordinate position in the social scale or defect in education, it is the
passion to call men “out of their names,” and never feel really acquainted with any one until he is termed Tom or Jack. It is doubtless all very genial and jocose and sociable, but the man who shows a tendency to it should not complain when his betters put him in a lower class or among the “lower orders.”
Once at a reception at George Boughton’s, the artist, there was, as I heard, an elderly gentleman rushing about asking to see or be introduced to Hart Bretmann, whose works he declared he knew by heart, and with whom he was most anxious to become acquainted. Whether he ever discovered this remarkable conglomerate I do not know.
I once made the acquaintance of an American at the Langham Hotel who declared that I had made life a burden to him. His name was H. Brightman, and being in business in New York, he never went to the Custom-House or Post-Office but what the clerks cried “Hans Brightman! of course. Yes, we have read about you, sir—in history.”
But even in this London season I found more serious work to attend to than comic ballads or society. Mr. Trübner was very anxious to have me write a pamphlet vindicating the claim of Germany to Alsace and Lorraine, and I offered to do it gladly, if he would provide all the historical data or material. The result of this was the brochure entitled “France, Alsace, and Lorraine,” which had a great success. It at once reappeared in America, and even in Spanish in South America. The German Minister in London ordered six copies, and the Times made the work, with all its facts and figures, into an editorial article, omitting, I regret to say, to mention the source whence it was derived; but this I forgive with all my heart, considering the good words which it has given me on other occasions. For the object of the work was not at all to glorify the author, but to send home great truths at a very critical time; and the article in the Times, which was little else but my pamphlet condensed, caused a great sensation. But the principal result from it was this:
I had in the work discussed the idea, then urged by the French and their friends, that, to avoid driving France to “desperation,” very moderate terms should be accepted in order to conciliate. For the French, as I observed in effect, will do their very worst in any case, and every possible extreme should be anticipated and assumed. This same argument had previously been urged in my “Centralisation versus States Rights.”
When Prince Bismarck conversed with the French Commissioners to arrange terms of peace, he met this argument of not driving the French to extremes with a phrase so closely like the one which I had used in my pamphlet, that neither Mr. Trübner nor several others hesitated to declare to me that it was beyond all question taken from it. Bismarck had certainly received the pamphlet, which had been recognised by the Times, and in many other quarters, as a more than ordinary paper, and Prince Bismarck, like all great diplomatists, prend son bien où il le trouve. In any case this remains true, that that which formed the settling argument of Germany, found at the time expression in my pamphlet and in the Chancellor’s speech.