Three or four times lately I have read items to the effect that Bret Harte is trying to get a Consulship. To-day’s item says he is to have one.

Now if I knew the President, I would I would venture to write him, for he has said that in the matter of information about applicants for office he values the testimony of private citizens as well as that of Members of Congress.

You do know him; & I think your citizenship lays the duty upon you of doing what you can to prevent the appoint disgrace of literature & the country which would be the infallible result of the appointment of Bret Harte to any responsible post. Wherever he goes his wake is tumultuous with swindled grocers, & with defrauded innocents who have loaned him money. He never pays a debt but by the squeezing of the law. He borrows from all new acquaintances, & repays none. His oath is worth little, his promise nothing at all. He can lie faster than he can drivel false pathos. No He is always steeped in whisky & brandy; he gets up in the night to drink it cold. No man who has ever known him, respects him. Harte is a viler character than Geo. Butler, for he lacks Butler’s pluck & spirit.

You know that I have befriended this creature for seven years. I am even capable of doing it still—while he stays at home. But I don’t want to see him made sent to foreign parts to carry on his depredations. He told me many months ago that he was to have a consulship under Mr. Tilden, but I gave myself no concern about the matter, taking it as a mere after-breakfast lie to whet up his talent for the day’s villainies; & besides, I judged that his character was so well known that he would not be able to succeed in his nefarious design. But these newspaper items have an alarming look. Come, now, Howells, do a stroke for the honor of the guild. Put me under oath if you will. I will cheerfully make affidavit to what I have said.