A character created by this author is said to have “smiled not unkindly, then chastely retreated” to both seduce and abandon several men. Another of his characters delivers a eulogy that begins by reflecting “when a man has been running free all day, what’s the natural thing for him to do? Why, to come home” in a story that opens with the line “I do not think that we ever knew his real name.” In another of this man's stories, characters sing a hymn with the refrain (*) “I’m proud to live in the service of the Lord, and I’m bound to die in His army” and listen to a version of the Iliad starring “Ash-Heels.” In that story by this man, the Duchess and Piney Woods freeze to death while Mother Shipton and the gambler John Oakhurst commit suicide. For 10 points, name this author of “Tennessee's Partner” and “The Outcasts of Poker Flat.” ■END■
ANSWER: Bret Harte [or Francis Brett Hart]
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