My First Book Page #2

"My First Book" by Bret Harte is a collection of charming and whimsical stories that celebrate the adventures and challenges of life in the American West during the 19th century. Through a blend of humor and keen observation, Harte captures the spirit of the era, featuring colorful characters and vivid landscapes. The book serves as a delightful introduction to Harte's narrative style and his ability to evoke the unique culture of frontier life, making it a captivating read for those interested in American literature and history.

• Short story

								

See?" The editor pointed out that this would infringe the rule he had
laid down. "I see," said the publisher thoughtfully; "well, couldn't
you pare 'em down; give the first verse entire and sorter sample the
others?" The editor thought not. There was clearly nothing to do but to
make a more rigid selection--a difficult performance when the material
was uniformly on a certain dead level, which it is not necessary to
define here. Among the rejections were, of course, the usual plagiarisms
from well-known authors imposed upon an inexperienced country press;
several admirable pieces detected as acrostics of patent medicines,
and certain veiled libels and indecencies such as mark the "first"
publications on blank walls and fences of the average youth. Still the
bulk remained too large, and the youthful editor set to work reducing
it still more with a sympathizing concern which the good-natured, but
unliterary, publisher failed to understand, and which, alas! proved to
be equally unappreciated by the rejected contributors.

The book appeared--a pretty little volume typographically, and
externally a credit to pioneer book-making. Copies were liberally
supplied to the press, and authors and publishers self-complacently
awaited the result. To the latter this should have been satisfactory;
the book sold readily from his well-known counters to purchasers who
seemed to be drawn by a singular curiosity, unaccompanied, however, by
any critical comment. People would lounge in to the shop, turn over the
leaves of other volumes, say carelessly, "Got a new book of California
poetry out, haven't you?" purchase it, and quietly depart. There were
as yet no notices from the press; the big dailies were silent; there was
something ominous in this calm.

Out of it the bolt fell. A well-known mining weekly, which I here
poetically veil under the title of the Red Dog "Jay Hawk," was first to
swoop down upon the tuneful and unsuspecting quarry. At this century-end
of fastidious and complaisant criticism, it may be interesting to
recall the direct style of the Californian "sixties." "The hogwash and
'purp'-stuff ladled out from the slop-bucket of Messrs. ---- and Co., of
'Frisco, by some lop-eared Eastern apprentice, and called 'A Compilation
of Californian Verse,' might be passed over, so far as criticism goes. A
club in the hands of any able-bodied citizen of Red Dog, and a steamboat
ticket to the Bay, cheerfully contributed from this office, would
be all-sufficient. But when an imported greenhorn dares to call his
flapdoodle mixture 'Californian,' it is an insult to the State that has
produced the gifted 'Yellow Hammer,' whose lofty flights have from time
to time dazzled our readers in the columns of the 'Jay Hawk.' That this
complacent editorial jackass, browsing among the dock and thistles which
he has served up in this volume, should make no allusion to California's
greatest bard, is rather a confession of his idiocy than a slur upon the
genius of our esteemed contributor." I turned hurriedly to my pile of
rejected contributions--the nom de plume of "Yellow Hammer" did NOT
appear among them; certainly I had never heard of its existence. Later,
when a friend showed me one of that gifted bard's pieces, I was inwardly
relieved! It was so like the majority of the other verses, in and out of
the volume, that the mysterious poet might have written under a hundred
aliases. But the Dutch Flat "Clarion," following, with no uncertain
sound, left me small time for consideration. "We doubt," said that
journal, "if a more feeble collection of drivel could have been made,
even if taken exclusively from the editor's own verses, which we note he
has, by an equal editorial incompetency, left out of the volume. When
we add that, by a felicity of idiotic selection, this person has chosen
only one, and the least characteristic, of the really clever poems of
Adoniram Skaggs, which have so often graced these columns, we have
said enough to satisfy our readers." The Mormon Hill "Quartz Crusher"
relieved this simple directness with more fancy: "We don't know
why Messrs. ---- and Co. send us, under the title of 'Selections of
Californian Poetry,' a quantity of slumgullion which really belongs
to the sluices of a placer mining camp, or the ditches of the rural
districts. We have sometimes been compelled to run a lot of tailings
through our stamps, but never of the grade of the samples offered,
which, we should say, would average about 33-1/3 cents per ton. We have,
however, come across a single specimen of pure gold evidently overlooked
by the serene ass who has compiled this volume. We copy it with
pleasure, as it has already shone in the 'Poet's Corner' of the
'Crusher' as the gifted effusion of the talented Manager of the
Excelsior Mill, otherwise known to our delighted readers as 'Outcrop.'"
The Green Springs "Arcadian" was no less fanciful in imagery: "Messrs.
---- and Co. send us a gaudy green-and-yellow, parrot-colored volume,
which is supposed to contain the first callow 'cheepings' and 'peepings'
of Californian songsters. From the flavor of the specimens before us we
should say that the nest had been disturbed prematurely. There seems to
be a good deal of the parrot inside as well as outside the covers, and
we congratulate our own sweet singer 'Blue Bird,' who has so often made
these columns melodious, that she has escaped the ignominy of being
exhibited in Messrs. ---- and Co.'s aviary." I should add that this
simile of the aviary and its occupants was ominous, for my tuneful choir
was relentlessly slaughtered; the bottom of the cage was strewn with
feathers! The big dailies collected the criticisms and published them
in their own columns with the grim irony of exaggerated head-lines. The
book sold tremendously on account of this abuse, but I am afraid that
the public was disappointed. The fun and interest lay in the criticisms,
and not in any pointedly ludicrous quality in the rather commonplace
collection, and I fear I cannot claim for it even that merit. And it
will be observed that the animus of the criticism appeared to be the
omission rather than the retention of certain writers.

But this brings me to the most extraordinary feature of this singular
demonstration. I do not think that the publishers were at all troubled
by it; I cannot conscientiously say that I was; I have every reason to
believe that the poets themselves, in and out of the volume, were not
displeased at the notoriety they had not expected, and I have long since
been convinced that my most remorseless critics were not in earnest, but
were obeying some sudden impulse started by the first attacking journal.
The extravagance of the Red Dog "Jay Hawk" was emulated by others:
it was a large, contagious joke, passed from journal to journal in
a peculiar cyclonic Western fashion. And there still lingers, not
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