A second lecture tour, however, carried out in March of the same year, was successful in every way. The audiences were enthusiastic, and the payment was liberal.
It was during this visit to England that Bret Harte became involved in a characteristic tangle. He had received the compliment of being asked to respond for Literature at the Royal Academy banquet in 1879, and, with his constitutional unwillingness to give a point-blank refusal, had promised or half-promised to be present. Meanwhile, he had returned to Crefeld, and the prospect of speaking at the dinner loomed more and more horrific in his imagination, while the uncertainty in which he left the matter was a source of vexation in London. Letters and telegrams from his friends remained unanswered, until finally, Sir Frederic Leighton, the President of the Academy, sent him a message, the reply to which was prepaid, saying, “In despair; cannot do without you. Please telegraph at once if quite impossible.”
This at last drew from Bret Harte a telegram stating that the pressure of official business would render it impossible for him to leave Crefeld. But the matter was not quite ended yet. In a day or two Bret Harte received a letter from Froude, good-naturedly reminding him that a note as well as a telegram was due to Sir Frederic Leighton. “The President of the Royal Academy,” he wrote, “is a sacred person with the state and honors of a sovereign on these occasions.” And after some further delay Bret Harte did write to Sir Frederic, and received in reply the following polite but possibly somewhat ironical note: “Dear Mr. Bret Harte,—It was most kind of you to write to me after your telegram. I fully understand the impossibility of your leaving your post, and sincerely regret my loss.”
A year later, however, in 1880, Bret Harte answered the toast to Literature at the Royal Academy dinner, and his brief speech on that occasion is included in the volume of lectures by him recently published.[99]
In October of this year, 1879, Bret Harte wrote to Washington stating that his health had suffered at Crefeld, and requesting leave of absence for sixty days in order that he might follow the advice of his physician, and seek a more favorable climate. He also asked for a reply by telegraph; and in the same letter he made application for a better Consular position, mentioning, as one reason for the exchange, that the business of the Agency at Crefeld had greatly increased during his tenure. His request for leave of absence was immediately granted, and in November he wrote to the State Department acknowledging the receipt of its telegram and letter, but adding, “Neither my affairs nor my health have enabled me yet to avail myself of the courtesy extended to me by the Department. When I shall be able to do so, I shall, agreeably to your instructions, promptly inform you.” He took this leave of absence in the following January and April.
So far as can be judged from his communications to the State Department, Bret Harte discharged the duties of the Agency in a very business-like manner. For one thing, he reduced the time consumed in passing upon invoices of goods intended for exportation to the United States from twenty-four hours to three hours, greatly to the convenience of the Crefeld manufacturers. The increase in the value of the silks and velvets shipped to this country during Bret Harte’s term amounted to about two hundred thousand dollars quarterly; but perhaps the demands of trade had something to do with this.
Two of the reports to the State Department from our Agent at Crefeld deserve to be rescued from their official oblivion. The first is dated, October 8, 1879, and it accompanies a table showing the rainfall, snowfall, and thunderstorms occurring in the district from July 1, 1878, to June 30, 1879. The Agent states:—
“The table is compiled from the observations of a competent local meteorologist. In mitigation of the fact that it has rained in this district in the ratio of every other day in the year, it may be stated that the general gloom has been diversified and monotony relieved by twenty-nine thunderstorms and one earthquake.”
The second communication, dated October 10, 1879, is in response to an official inquiry. “In reference to the Department Circular dated August 27, 1879, I have the honor to report that upon careful inquiry of the local authorities of this district I find that there is not now and never has been any avowed Mormon emigration from Crefeld, nor any emigration of people likely to become converts to that faith. Its name as well as its tenets are unknown to the inhabitants, and only to officials through the Department Circular.
“The artisans and peasants of this district—that class from which the Mormon ranks are supposed to be recruited—are hard-working, thrifty, and home-loving. They are averse to emigration for any purpose, and as Catholics to any new revealed religion. A prolific household with one wife seems to exclude any polygamous instinct in the manly breast, while the woman, who works equally with her husband, evinces no desire to share any division of the affections or the profits. The like may be predicated of the manufacturers, with the added suggestion that a duty of 60 per cent ad valorem by engaging the fullest powers of the intellect in its evasion, leaves little room for the play of the lower passions. In these circumstances I did not find it necessary to report to the Legation at Berlin.”