Part 26 (1/2)
Mark Twain's authority on a matter of Western dialect will hardly be questioned, and this same use of ”which” is not infrequent in his stories.
Here, for instance, is an example from ”Tom Sawyer”: ”We said it was Parson Silas, and we judged he had found Sam Cooper drunk in the road, which he was always trying to reform him.” Finally, that well-known Pioneer, Mr. Warren Cheney, an early contributor to the ”Overland,”
testifies that ”which” as thus used ”is perfectly good Pike.”[115]
The rather astonis.h.i.+ng fact is that Bret Harte uses dialect words and phrases to the number, roughly estimated, of three hundred, and a hasty investigation has served to identify all but a few of these as legitimate Pioneer expressions. A more thorough search would no doubt account satisfactorily for every one of them.
However, that dialect should be authentic is not so important as that it should be interesting. Many story-writers report dialect in a correct and conscientious form, but it wearies the reader. Dialect to be interesting must be the vehicle of humor, and the great masters of dialect, such as Thackeray and Sir Walter Scott, are also masters of humor. Bret Harte had the same gift, and he showed it, as we have seen, not only in Pioneer speech, but also in the Spanish-American dialect of Enriquez Saltello and his charming sister, in the Scotch dialect of Mr. Callender, in the French dialect of the innkeeper who entertained Alkali d.i.c.k, and in the German dialect of Peter Schroeder. For one thing, a too exact reproduction of dialect almost always has a misleading and awkward effect. The written word is not the same as the spoken word, and the constant repet.i.tion of a sound which would hardly be noticed in speech becomes unduly prominent and wearisome if put before our eyes in print. In the following pa.s.sage it will be seen how Bret Harte avoids the too frequent occurrence of ”ye”
(which Tinka Gallinger probably used) by alternating it with ”you”:--
”'No! no! ye shan't go--ye mustn't go,' she said, with hysterical intensity. 'I want to tell ye something! Listen!--you--you--Mr. Fleming!
I've been a wicked, wicked girl! I've told lies to dad--to mammy--to you!
I've borne false witness--I'm worse than Sapphira--I've acted a big lie.
Oh, Mr. Fleming, I've made you come back here for nothing! Ye didn't find no gold the other day. There wasn't any. It was all me! I--I--_salted that pan_!'”
Bret Harte's writings offer a wide field for the study of what might be called the psychological aspect of dialect, especially so far as it relates to p.r.o.nunciation. What governs the dialect of any time and place?
Is it purely accidental that the London c.o.c.kney says ”piper” instead of paper, and that the Western Pioneer says ”b'ar” for bear,--or does some inner necessity determine, or partly determine, these departures from the standard p.r.o.nunciation? This, however, is a subject which lies far beyond our present scope. Suffice it to say that it would be difficult to convince the reader of Bret Harte that there is not some inevitable harmony between his characters and the dialect or other language which they employ. Who, for example, would hesitate to a.s.sign to Yuba Bill, and to none other, this remark: ”I knew the partikler style of d.a.m.n fool that you was, and expected no better.”
CHAPTER XXI
BRET HARTE'S STYLE
In discussing Bret Harte, it is almost impossible to separate substance from style. The style is so good, so exactly adapted to the ideas which he wishes to convey, that one can hardly imagine it as different. Some thousands of years ago an Eastern sage remarked that he would like to write a book such as everybody would conceive that he might have written himself, and yet so good that n.o.body else could have written the like.
This is the ideal which Bret Harte fulfilled. Almost everything said by any one of his characters is so accurate an expression of that character as to seem inevitable. It is felt at once to be just what such a character must have said. Given the character, the words follow; and anybody could set them down! This is the fallacy underlying that strange feeling, which every reader must have experienced, of the apparent easiness of writing an especially good conversation or soliloquy.
The real difficulty of writing like Bret Harte is shown by the fact that as a story-teller he has no imitators. His style is so individual as to make imitation impossible. And yet occasionally the inspiration failed. It is a peculiarity of Bret Harte, shown especially in the longer stories, and most of all perhaps in _Gabriel Conroy_, that there are times when the reader almost believes that Bret Harte has dropped the pen, and some inferior person has taken it up. Author and reader come to the ground with a thud.
Mr. Warren Cheney has remarked upon this defect as follows:--
”With most authors there is a level of general excellence along which they can plod if the wings of genius chance to tire for a time; but with Mr. Harte the case is a different one. His powers are impulsive rather than enduring. Ideas strike him with extraordinary force, but the inspiration is of equally short duration. So long as the flush of excitement lasts, his work will be up to standard; but when the genius flags, he has no individual fund of dramatic or narrative properties to sustain him.”
But of these lapses there are few in the short stories, and none at all in the best stories. In them the style is almost flawless. There are no mannerisms in it; no affectations; no egotism; no slang (except, of course, in the mouths of the various characters); nothing local or provincial, nothing which stamps it as of a particular age, country or school,--nothing, in short, which could operate as a barrier between author and reader.
But these are only negative virtues. What are the positive virtues of Bret Harte's style? Perhaps the most obvious quality is the deep feeling which pervades it. It is possible, indeed, to have good style without depth of feeling. John Stuart Mill is an example; Lord Chesterfield is another; Benjamin Franklin another. In general, however, want of feeling in the author produces a coldness in the style that chills the reader. Herbert Spencer's autobiography discloses an almost inhuman want of feeling, and the same effect is apparent in his dreary, frigid style.
On the other hand, it is a truism that the language of pa.s.sion is invariably effective, and never vulgar. Grief and anger are always eloquent. There are men, even practised authors, who never write really well unless something has occurred to put them out of temper. Good style may perhaps be said to result from the union of deep feeling with an artistic sense of form. This produces that conciseness for which Bret Harte's style is remarkable. What author has used shorter words, has expressed more with a few words, or has elaborated so little! His points are made with the precision of a bullet going straight to the mark, and nothing is added.
How effective, for example, is this dialogue between Helen Maynard, who has just met the one-armed painter for the first time, and the French girl who accompanies her: ”'So you have made a conquest of the recently acquired but unknown Greek statue?' said Mademoiselle Renee lightly.
”'It is a countryman of mine,' said Helen simply.
”'He certainly does not speak French,' said Mademoiselle mischievously.
”'Nor think it,' responded Helen, with equal vivacity.”
Possibly Bret Harte sometimes carries this dramatic conciseness a little too far,--so far that the reader's attention is drawn from the matter in hand to the manner in which it is expressed. To take an example, _Johnson's Old Woman_ ends as follows:--
”'I want to talk to you about Miss Johnson,' I said eagerly.