Tuesday, September 5, 1871.—J. went to Boston. I wrote in the pastures and walked all the morning. Coming home, after dinner, came a telegram for me to meet J. and Bret Harte at Beverly station with the pony carriage. I drove hard to catch the train, but arrived in season, glad to take up the two good boys and show them Beverly shore. Stopped at Mrs. Cabot’s returning to see Mrs. ——, etc. They were all glad to have a glimpse of Bret Harte. The talk turned a little upon Hawthorne, and I was much amused to hear Mrs. —— say, drawing herself up, “Yes, he was born in Salem, but we never knew anything about him.” (The truth was, Mrs. —— was the last person to appreciate him.) ... Fortunately Miss Howes was present, whose father was one of Hawthorne’s best friends; so matters were made clear there. We left soon and came on to Manchester, where, after showing him the shore, we sat and talked during the evening.
Mr. Harte had much to say of the beautiful flowers of California, roses being in bloom about his own house there every month in the year. He found the cloudless skies and continued drought of California very hard to bear. For the first time in my life I considered how terrible perpetual cloudlessness would be! He thinks there is no beauty in the mountains of California, hard, bare, snowless peaks. Neither are there trees, nor any green grass.
He is delighted with the fragrant lawns of Newport and has, I believe, put into verse a delightful ghost story which he told us.[33] He has taken a house of some antiquity in Newport, connected with which is the story of a lady who formerly lived there and who was very fond of the odor of mignonette. The flower was always growing in her house, and after her death, at two o’clock every night, a strong odor has always been perceived passing through the house as if wafted along by the garments of a woman. One night at the appointed hour, but entirely unconnected in his thought with the story Mr. Harte had long ago heard, he was arrested in his work by a strong perfume of mignonette which appeared to sweep by him. He looked about, thinking his wife might have placed a vase of flowers in the room, but finding nothing he began to follow the odor, which seemed to flit before him. Then he recalled, for the first time, the story he had heard. He opened the door; the odor was in the hall; he opened the room where the lady died, but there was no odor there; until returning, after making a circuit of the house, he found a faint perfume as if she had passed but not stayed there also. At last, somewhat oppressed perhaps by the ghostliness of the place and hour, he went out and stood upon the porch. There his dream vanished. The sweet lawn and tree flowers were emitting an odor, as is common at the hour when dews congeal, more sweet than at any other time of day or night, and the air was redolent of sweets which might easily be construed into mignonette. The story was well told and I shall be glad to see his poem.
Many good stories came off during the evening, some very characteristic of California; ones such as that of an uproar in a theatre and a man about to be killed, when someone shouts, “Don’t waste him, but kill a fiddler with him.” Also one of the opening nights at the California theatre, the place packed, when a man who has taken too much whiskey wishes a noise; immediately the manager, a strong executive man, catches him up with the help of a policeman, and before anybody knows the thing is done or the disturber what is the matter, he finds himself set down on the sidewalk outside in the street. “Well,” said he with an oath, “is this the way you do business here; raise a fellow before he has a chance to draw?” (referring to the game of poker).
Mr. Harte is a very sensitive and nervous man. He struggles against himself all the time. He sat on the piazza with J. and talked till a late hour. This morning at breakfast I found him most interesting. He talked of his early and best-loved books. It appears that at the age of nine he was a lover and reader of Montaigne. Certain writers, he says, seem to him to stand out as friends and brothers side by side in literature. Now Horace and Montaigne are so associated in his mind. Mr. Emerson, he thinks, never in the least approaches a comprehension of the character of the man. With an admiration for his great sayings, he has never guessed at the subtle springs from which they come. The pleasant acceding to both sides in politics, and other traits of like nature, gives him affinity with Hawthorne. By the way, he is a true appreciator of Hawthorne. He was moved to much merriment yesterday by remembering a passage in the notes, where he slyly remarks, “Margaret Fuller’s cows hooked the other cows.” Speaking of Dr. Bartol, he said, “What a dear old man he is! A venerable baby, nothing more!” But Harte is most kindly and tender. His wife has been very ill and has given him cause for terrible anxiety. This accounts for much left undone, but he is an oblivious man oftentimes to his surroundings—leaves things behind!!
January 12, 1872.—Bret Harte was here at breakfast. It is curious to see his feeling with regard to society. For purely literary society, with its affectations and contempts, he has no sympathy. He has at length chosen New York as his residence, and among the Schuylers, Sherwoods, and their friends he appears to find what he enjoys. There is evidently a gêne about people and life here, and provincialisms which he found would hurt him. He is very sensitive and keen, with a love and reverence for Dickens almost peculiar in this coldly critical age. Bryant he finds very cold and totally unwilling to lead the conversation, as he should do when they are together, as he justly remarks, he being so much younger—but never a word without cart and horses to fetch it.
Bret Harte has a queer absent-minded way of spending his time, letting the hours slip by as if he had not altogether learned their value yet. It is a miracle to us how he lives, for he writes very little. Thus far I suppose he has had money from J. R. O. & Co., but I fancy they have done with giving out money save for a quid pro quo.
February, 1872 [during a visit to New York].—We had promised to dine with Mr. and Mrs. Harte early and go to the theatre afterward, therefore four o’clock found us at their door. He welcomed us by opening it himself and only this reassured Jamie. We had driven up in a “Crystal,” much to my amusement, in which J. had insisted I should sit until he discovered if that was the house. The scene was altogether comic. I shortened the ludicrousness as much as possible by jumping out and running quickly up the steps. Mrs. Harte was not ready to see me, but I found Mr. Barrett the actor with Mr. Harte in the parlor, and soon being invited upstairs, found Mrs. Barrett and Mrs. Harte together. We had a merry dinner together, the young actor evidently quite nervous with respect to the evening’s performance. He went an hour before us to the play. We sat in the stage box; the play was “Julius Cæsar.” It is useless to deny Edwin Booth great talent, exquisite grace and feeling. Both the young men, the first, Barrett, a man of intellect, and Booth, a man of inherited grace and feeling as well as good mind, have the advantage moreover of being born to the stage. Their stage habits fit them more perfectly than those of the drawing-room and they walk the stage with the ease that most men do their own parlors. During the performance Booth invited us into his drawing-room; a short carpeted way led from the box into the small room where he was sitting in Roman costume, pipe in mouth; he rose and called “Mary,” as we approached, when the tiniest woman ever called wife made her appearance. She is an ardent little spark of human flame and he really looks large beside her.