Encores are usually anticlimaxes. I never did like them. Yet here I am
again before the public with another book of "California Sketches." The
kind treatment given to the former volume, of which six editions have
been printed and sold; the expressed wishes of many friends who have
said, Give us another book; and my own impulse, have induced me to
venture upon a second appearance. If much of the song is in the minor
key, it had to be so: these Sketches are from real life, and "all lives
are tragedies."

The Author.

Nashville, September, 1881.



Introduction.

The first issue of the "California Sketches" was very popular,
deservedly so. The distinguished Author has prepared a Second Series. In
this fact the reading public will rejoice.

In these hooks we have the romance and prestige of fiction; the thrill
of incident and adventure; the wonderful phases of society in a new
country, and under the pressure of strong and peculiar excitements;
human character loose from the restraints of an old civilization--a
settled order of things; individuality unwarped by imitation--free,
varied, independent. The materials are rich, and they are embodied in a
glowing narrative. The writer himself lived amid the scenes and the
people he describes, and, as a citizen, a preacher, and an editor, was
an important factor among the forces destined to mold the elements which