His attempts to increase his income by lecturing were even less rewarding.

From his departure from California in 1872 to his death thirty years later, Harte's struggles to regain financial stability were unremitting: and to these efforts is due the relinquishment of his early ideal of "a peculiarly characteristic Western American literature." Henceforth Harte accepted, as Prof.Hicks remarks, "the role of entertainer, and as an entertainer he survived for thirty years his death as an artist." The final period extends from 1878, when he managed to get himself appointed consul to Crefeld in Germany, to 1902, when he died of a throat cancer.

He left for Crefeld without his wife or son--perhaps intending, as his letters indicate, to call them to him when circumstances allowed; but save for a few years prior to his death, the separation, for whatever complex of reasons, remained permanent.

Harte, however, continued to provide for them as liberally as he was able.

In Crefeld Harte wrote A LEGEND OF SAMMERSTANDT, VIEWS FROM A GERMAN SPION, and UNSER KARL.