which were noticed
above, and among them I saw--'Cavalry Life, by J. S. Winter.'

For full ten minutes I sat there, feeling sick and more fit to die than
anything else. I was perfectly incapable of looking at the notice above.
But, at last, I plucked up courage to meet my fate, very much as one
summons up courage to have a tooth out and get the horrid wrench over.
Judge of my surprise and joy when, on reading the notice, I found that
the _Saturday_ had given me a rattling good notice, praising the new
author heartily and without stint. I shall never, as long as I live,
forget the effect of that, my first review, upon me. For quite half an
hour I sat without moving, only feeling, 'I shall never be able to keep
it up. I shall never be able to follow it up by another.' I felt
paralysed, faint, crushed, anything but elated and jubilant. And, at
last, through some instinct, I put my hand up to my head to find that it
was cold and wet, as if it had been dipped in the river. Thank Heaven,
from that day to this I have never known what a cold sweat was. It was
my first experience of such a thing, and sincerely I hope it will be my
last.

[Illustration: I TOOK UP THE 'SATURDAY REVIEW']

[Illustration: Drawing signed A. S. Boyd, 18th Mar. 1892

with signature below: Bret Harte

_A Sketch from Life_]

'_CALIFORNIAN VERSE_'

BY BRET HARTE

When I say that my 'first book' was _not_ my own, and contained beyond
the title-page not one word of my own composition, I trust that I shall
not be accused of trifling with paradox, or tardily unbosoming myself of
youthful plagiary. But the fact remains that in priority of publication
the first book for which I became responsible, and which probably
provoked more criticism than anything I have written since, was a small
compilation of Californian poems indited by other hands.

A well-known bookseller of San Francisco one day handed me a collection
of certain poems which had already appeared in Pacific Coast magazines
and newspapers, with the request that I should, if possible, secure
further additions to them, and then make a selection of those which I
considered the most notable and characteristic for a single volume to be
issued by him. I have reason to believe that this unfortunate man was
actuated by a laudable desire to publish a pretty Californian
book--_his_ first essay in publication--and at the same time to foster
Eastern immigration by an exhibit of the Californian l