BRET HARTE​--​LETTERS FROM HIM​--​VISITS US​--​STAY AT BOCKEN​--​CONVERSATIONS​--​MRS. SENATOR SHERMAN​--​EVENINGS AT BOCKEN​--​WE ALL GO TO THE RIGI​--​HOW WE GOT THE “PRINCE’S” ROOMS​--​HARTE GOES WITH US TO OBSTALDEN IN THE ALPS​--​VERY SIMPLE LIFE​--​A STRANGE FUNERAL​--​HARTE FINDS HIS STORIES IN A VILLAGE INN​--​MORE LETTERS​--​WE VISIT THE MOSELLE RIVER​--​FINER THAN THE RHINE​--​A WONDERFUL CASTLE OF THE MIDDLE AGES​--​ALL FURNISHED AND FRESH AS WHEN NEW​--​THE FRENCH DID NOT FIND IT WHEN THEY WERE DEMOLISHING GERMAN CASTLES​--​AN EXQUISITE GOTHIC CHURCH FIVE HUNDRED YEARS OLD​--​WONDERFUL ROMAN RUINS AT TREVES​--​MORE LETTERS FROM BRET HARTE​--​A HAPPY MAN.

May 30.​--​One day I was wandering quite alone in the Jura Mountains. I had little with me save my umbrella, my overcoat, and a pocket copy of Bret Harte’s poems. When I rested, here and there, under a tree at the roadside, I read the poems​--​all of them; but “John Burns of Gettysburg,” “Dickens in Camp,” “The Reveille” and “Her Letter,” I read often, and felt them to be the rarest verses any American had ever written.

His “Heathen Chinee” had given him fame, while these other great things were but little known.

I believe I had never asked a man for an autograph in my life, but I did want Bret Harte’s own name at the foot of “Burns of Gettysburg;” for I had read it with a thrill, and with tears. I sent him the very same little book I had carried around with me.

He returned the copy with these words written on the margin:

“Phrases such as camps may teach,
Sabre cuts of Saxon speech.”

He also wrote me. He was now U. S. Consul at Crefeld, near the lower Rhine.

“United States Consulate, Crefeld, May 28, 1879.

“My Dear Mr. Byers:​--​I have written my name in your book, and return it to you by to-day’s post. I beg you to believe that I have never performed that simple act with more pleasure. I only regret that the quality of the paper on page 91 rather limited the legible expression of my good will, and that I could not show as clearly as I would like my thanks to one who has written so appreciatingly of my hero.

“I might have added ‘fellow soldier’ to the inscription, but I fear that my year’s service against the Indians on the California frontier, when the regular troops were withdrawn to Eastern battlefields, would scarcely justify me in taking that title. But I want you to believe that my knowledge of men and camps enabled me to praise a hero understandingly.

“If you still feel under any obligation to me, you can discharge it very easily. I am anxious to know something about your vicinity, and the prices and quality of accommodations to be found there this summer. My doctor has ordered me to the mountains, for my neuralgia and dyspepsia, and I can procure a leave of absence of three or four weeks. I have thought of going to Switzerland with a member of my family who is studying painting in Düsseldorf, and I should therefore prefer some locality where she can sketch from nature. I want some quiet, pretty place, away from the beaten track of tourists​--​some little pension, not too expensive. Can you give me some information regarding prices, localities, etc., etc., and how early in the season it would be advisable to come?

“I shall look forward confidently to your telling me something as soon as you can.

“Yours very truly,
Bret Harte.”

This letter gratified me, as I now looked forward to the pleasure of having Mr. Harte with us in Switzerland. He wished a quiet place. Where in all the world was there so quiet and so lovely a spot as our own “Bocken,” on the lake, with the green hills about it and its views of snow mountains, and all close to beautiful Zurich. We were to spend our third summer there. So I proposed “Bocken” and also “Obstalden,” a hamlet we often went to in the higher Alps.

He took up with Bocken, however, and wrote: