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Bret Harte Biography

Francis Bret Harte (August 25, 1836 – May 5, 1902) was an American short story writer and poet, best remembered for his short fiction featuring miners, gamblers, and other romantic figures of the California Gold Rush. In a career spanning more than four decades, he wrote poetry, plays, lectures, book reviews, editorials, and magazine sketches in addition to fiction. As he moved from California to the eastern U.S. to Europe, he incorporated new subjects and characters into his stories, but his Gold Rush tales have been most often reprinted, adapted, and admired.

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Bret Harte Quotes

But still when the mists of doubt prevail, And we lie becalmed by the shores of age, We hear from the misty troubled shore The voce of children gone before. Drawing the soul to its anchorage.

Children, Drawing, Lying, Mists, Shore

The dominant expression of a child is gravity.

Childhood, Children, Dominant, Expression, Gravity

There is peace in the swamp, though the quiet is Death

Death, Peace, Quiet, Swamps, Though

It would seem evident, therefore, that the secret of the American short story was the treatment of characteristic American life, with absolute knowledge of its peculiarities and sympathy with its method.

American, Characteristics, Method, Peculiarities, Secret, Stories

Your voices break and falter in the darkness, Break, falter, and are still.

Bells, Darkness, Falter, Voice, Voices

The delicate thought, that cannot find expression, For ruder speech too fair, That, like thy petals, trembles in possession, And scatters on the air.

Air, Expression, Petals, Speech, Trembles

It may be broadly stated that. . . . . of all animals kept for the recreation of mankind the horse is alone capable of exciting a passion that shall be absolutely hopeless.

Animal, Exciting, Hopeless, Horse, Passion

Crude at first [the short story] received a literary polish in the press, but its dominant quality remained. It was concise and condense, yet suggestive. It was delightfully extravagant - or a miracle of understatement

Miracle, Quality, Received, Short, Stories, Understatement

One big vice in a man is apt to keep out a great many smaller ones.

Big, Great Men, Man, Men, Vice, Vices

If, of all words of tongue and pen, The saddest are, It might have been,' More sad are these we daily see: 'It is, but hadn't ought to be!'

Might, Ought, See, Tongue, Words

Thiar ain't no sense In gittin' riled!

Gittin, Riled, Sense, Thiar

Never a lip is curved with pain that can't be kissed into smiles again.

Kissed, Life, Pain, Smile, Smiles

Love differs from all the other contagious diseases: the last time a man is exposed to it, he takes it most readily, and has it the worst!

Disease, Diseases, Exposed, Love, Men

A bird in the hand is a certainty, but a bird in the bush may sing.

Bird, Bush, Hands, Inspirational, Sing

For the glory born of Goodness Never dies, And its flag is not half-masted In the skies.

Born, Flag, Flags, Half, Skies, Sky

Hark! I hear the tramp of thousands, And of armèd men the hum; Lo, a nation's hosts have gathered Round the quick alarming drum Saying, Come, Freemen, Come! Ere your heritage be wasted, Said the quick alarming drum.

Arms, Drum, Hark, Heritage, Men, Round

Never a tear bedims the eye that time and patience will not dry.

Bedims, Dry, Eye, Patience, Tears, Time

Nobody shoulders a rifle in defense of a boarding house.

Boarding, Defense, House, Rifle, Rifles

Don't be too quickTo break bad habits: better stick,Like the Mission folk, to your arsenic.

Arsenic, Habit, Habits, Mission, Sticks

The creator who could put a cancer in a believer's stomach is above being interfered with by prayers.

Cancer, Creator, God, Prayer, Stomach

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