. It is of interest both in the little he records and from the
significant omissions. It reveals a very simple life of a clever,
kindly, clean young man who did his work, enjoyed his outdoor
recreation, read a few good books, and generally "retired at 9 1/2 P.M."
He records sending letters to various publications. On a certain day he
wrote the first lines of "Dolores." A few days later he finished it, and
mailed it to the _Knickerbocker_.

He wrote and rewrote a story, "What Happened at Mendocino." What
happened to the story does not appear. He went to church generally, and
some of the sermons were good and others "vapid and trite." Once in a
while he goes to a dance, but not to his great satisfaction. He didn't
dance particularly well. He tells of a Christmas dinner that he helped
his sister to prepare. Something made him dissatisfied with himself and
he bewails his melancholy and gloomy forebodings that unfit him for
rational enjoyment and cause him to be a spectacle for "gods and men."
He adds: "Thermometer of my spirit on Christmas day, 1857, 9 A.M., 40 deg.;
temperature, 12 A.M., 60 deg.; 3 P.M., 80 deg.; 6 P.M., 20 deg. and falling
rapidly; 9 P.M., at zero; 1 A.M., 20 deg. below."

His entries were brief and practical. He did not write to express his
feelings.

At the close of 1857 he indulged in a brief retrospect, and an emphatic
statement of his determination for the future.

After referring to the fact that he was a tutor at a salary of
twenty-five dollars a month and board, and that a year before he was
unemployed, at the close he writes: "In these three hundred and
sixty-five days I have again put forth a feeble essay toward fame and
perhaps fortune. I have tried literature, albeit in a humble way. I have
written some passable prose and it has been successfully published. The
conviction is forced on me by observation, and not by vain enthusiasm,
that I am fit for nothing else. Perhaps I may succeed; if not, I can at
least make the trial. Therefore I consecrate this year, or as much as
God may grant for my services, to honest, heartfelt, sincere labor and
devotion to this occupation. God help me! May I succeed!"

Harte profited by his experience in tutoring my two boy friends, gaining
local color quite unlike that of the Sierra foothills. Humboldt is also
on the grand scale and its physical characteristics and its type of
manhood were fresh and inspiring.

His familiarity with the marsh and the sloughs