Death thought to claim you in this year of years,
But Fancy cried--and raised her shield between--
"Still let men weep, and smile amid their tears;
Take any two beside, but spare Eugene!"
In view of his near escape, the hyperbole, if such there was, might
well be pardoned, and it touched Eugene so manifestly that--now that
the eddy indeed has swept him away, and the Sabine Farm mourns for its
new-world Horace--I cannot be too thankful that such was my last
message to him.
Eugene Field was so mixed a compound that it will always be impossible
quite to decide whether he was wont to judge critically of either his
own conduct or his literary creations. As to the latter, he put the
worst and the best side by side, and apparently cared alike for both.
That he did much beneath his standard, fine and true at times,--is
unquestionable, and many a set of verses went the rounds that harmed
his reputation. On the whole, I think this was due to the fact that he
got his stated income as a newspaper poet and jester, and had to
furnish his score of "Sharps and Flats" with more or less regularity.
For all this, he certainly has left pieces, compact of the rarer
elements, sufficient in number to preserve for him a unique place among
America's most original characters, scholarly wits, and poets of
brightest fancy. Yorick is no more! But his genius will need no
chance upturning of his grave-turf for its remembrance. When all is
sifted, its fame is more likely to strengthen than to decline.