A La California/Introduction
INTRODUCTION.
My lamented friend, Col. Albert S. Evans, was engaged upon this book for some time prior to his death. Of its success he entertained confident expectations, and had spared no pains to render it attractive in every respect.
He perished in the unfortunate disaster by which the steamship "Missouri" was burned at sea in October, 1872, while on her passage from New York towards Havana; and his work has thus unexpectedly fallen on those who had no other thought than one of sympathy with him in his hopes of its success, financially as well as in a literary point of view.
The author was quite widely and favorably known from his long connection with journalism and previous literary efforts. To a large circle of friends he was endeared by admirable social qualities and a career of unswerving integrity. Whatever may be the judgment of careful critics as to the merits of this posthumous publication, to those who knew him it will have a value beyond the reach of any standard of letters. It is the final and unfinished work of his day of life, and for that reason, if no other, they will cherish it. It is, alas! one of the few presently available resources of a desolated family; and for that reason, if no other, they will cheerfully, I am sure, contribute towards its pecuniary success.
That it has high literary merit, will not be doubted. To other than Californian readers it will commend itself by the freshness and vitality of its style, and the charming though rather strongly localized character of its descriptions and incidents. Doubtless there is somewhat of incompleteness in the detail and final arrangement of its parts, which would have been remedied, and perhaps remodeled, had Col. Evans' life been spared. Still his friends have not thought it advisable to attempt to revise or change it for better or worse. It goes to the press and the reading public just as his own hand left it—a literary orphan.
To those who may have to deal with it in the way of book notices, may be suggested the propriety of distinguishing between what are or might have been remediable faults, and those which are inherent in the nature of the undertaking.
To the public of our own city and State it commends itself as a work of strong local interest, embodying, in a permanent and attractive form, much that otherwise would have early perished from sight and memory; as the production of one of our own citizens; as the resource of an interesting family, which has been doubly bereaved in the sudden death of husband and father; and it appeals forcibly to that sentiment of generous sympathy for the living and regret for the dead, which is so singularly characteristic of Californian social life.
WM. H. L. BARNES.
San Francisco, May, 1873.