NATURE OF HIS DAILY WORK
In the last chapter I have told in general terms how Field employed
himself day by day, from which the reader may form the impression that
between eleven A.M. and midnight not over one-quarter of his time was
actually employed in work, the balance being frittered away in seeming
play. In one sense the reader would be right in such an inference.
Field worked harder and longer at his play than at what the world has
been pleased to accept as the work of a master workman, but out of
that play was born the best of all that he has left. His daily column
was a crystallization of the busy fancies that were running through
his head during all his hours of fooling and nights of light-hearted
pleasure. It reflected everything he read and heard and saw. It was a
"barren sea from which he made a dry haul"--a dreary and colorless
gathering that left him without material for his pen. He did not hunt
for this material with a brass band, but went for it with studied
persistence. Field never believed that he was sent into the world to
reform it. His aim was to amuse himself, and if in so doing he
entertained or gratified others, so much the better. "Reform away," he
was once reported as saying, "reform away, but as for me, the world is
good enough for me as it is. I am a thorough optimist. In temperament
I'm a little like old Horace--I want to get all the happiness out of
the world that's possible." And he got it, not intermittently and in
chunks, but day by day and every hour of the day.
His brother Roswell has said that the "curse of comedy was on Eugene,"
and "it was not until he threw off that yoke and gave expression to
the better and sweeter thoughts within him that, as with Bion, the
voice of song flowed freely from the heart."
I do not think it is quite fair to regard comedy as a curse or a yoke.
Certainly Eugene Field never suffered under the blight of the one nor
staggered under the burden of the other. If there is any curse in
comedy, unadulterated by lying, malice, or envy, he never knew it. He
knew--none better--that the author who would command the tears that
purify and sweeten life must move the laughter that lightens it. What
says our Shakespeare?--
_Jog on, jog, on the foot-path way,
And merrily hent the stile-a,
A merry heart goes all the day,
Your sad tires in a mile-a._
Eugene Field trod the footpath way to popularity and fame with a
buoyant and merry heart. If there was any abatement of his joyous
spirits I never knew it, and I do not think that his writings disclose
any sweeter strain, as his brother suggests, in the days when
ill-health checked the ardor of his boyish exuberance, but could not
dim the unextinguishable flame of his comedy. The two books that
contain what to the last he considered his choicest work--a judgment
confirmed by their continued popularity and sale, "A Little Book of
Western Verse" and "A Little Book of Profitable Tales"--were compiled
from the writings (1878-1887) that flowed from his pen when he
worshipped most assiduously at the shrine of the goddess of comedy and
social intercourse.
I have been tempted into this digression in order that the reader may
not be at a loss to reconcile the apparent frivolity of Field's life
and the mass of his writings at this period with the winnowed product
as it appeared in the two volumes just mentioned. Out of the comedy of
his nature came the sweetness of his work, and out of his association
with all conditions of his fellow-men came that insight into the
springs of human passion and action that leavens all that he wrote,
from "The Robin and the Violet" (1884) down to "The Love Affairs of a
Bibliomaniac" (1895).
The general character of Eugene Field's life and writing went through
a gradual process of evolution from the time of his arrival in Chicago
to the final chapters of "The Love Affairs," which were his last work.
But it can be safely divided into two periods of six years each, with
the turning point at the publication of his little books of verse and
tales in the year 1889. Nearly all that he wrote previous to that year
was marked by his association with his kind; that which he wrote
subsequently was saturated with his closer association with books.
About all the preparation he needed for his daily "wood-sawing" was a
hurried glance through the local papers and his favorite exchanges,
among which the New York Sun held first place, with the others
unplaced. He insisted that the exchange editor should send to his desk
daily a dozen or more small country sheets from the most out of the
way places--papers that recorded the painting of John Doe's front
fence or that Seth Smith laid an egg on the editor's table with a
breezy "come again, Seth, the Lord loveth a cheerful liar." When Field
had accumulated enough of these items to suit his humor, he would
paraphrase them, and, substituting the names of local or national
celebrities, as the incongruity tickled his fancy, he would print them
in his column under the heading of local, social, literary, or
industrial notes, as the case might be. He seldom changed the form of
these borrowed paragraphs materially, for he held most shrewdly that
no humorist could improve upon the unconscious humor of the truly
rural scribe. Field never outgrew the enjoyment and employment of this
distinctively American appreciation of humor. As late as October 29th,
1895, "The Love Affairs" had to wait while he regaled the readers of
the Chicago Record with his own brand of "Crop Reports from East
Minonk," of which the following will serve as specimens:
All are working to get in the corn crop as if they never expected to
raise another crop. The schools are almost deserted, and even the
schoolm'ams may yet be drafted in as huskers. As the season advances
the farmers begin to realize the immensity of the crop, and the
dangers and difficulties of handling it. Owing to its cumbersomeness
the old-fashioned way of handling it becomes obsolete, and new
methods will have to be adopted and hydraulic machinery procured.
Many new uses can be made of the corn-stalks, such as flag-poles for
school-houses, telegraph poles and sewer-pipes. By hollowing out a
corn-stalk it will make the very best of windmill towers, as the
plunger-rod can be placed inside, thus protecting it from the
weather, and if desired, an excellent fountain can be obtained by
perforating the joints with an awl.
A freight train on the Santa Fé railroad was delayed four hours last
Saturday by a corn-stalk in Jake Schlosser's field, which had been
undermined by hogs, falling across the track. It was removed with a
crane and considerable difficulty by the wrecking crew.
The town of Hegler, on the Kankakee, Minonk and Western railroad, is
invisible in a forest of corn. A search party under the direction of
the road commissioners are looking for it.
These solemnly exaggerated crop notes were strung out to the extent of
over half a column. Some will question the wit of such fantastic
extravagance, but Field had early learned the truth of Puck's
exclamation: "Lord, what fools these mortals be!" He knew that there
was absolutely no bounds to the gullibility of mankind, and he felt it
a part of his mission to cater to it to the top of its bent. One of
his most successful impositions was international in its scope. On
September 13th, 1886, the following paragraph, based on the current
European news of the day, appeared in his column:
We do not see that Prince Alexander, the deposed Bulgarian monarch,
is going to have very much difficulty in keeping the wolf away from
the door. In addition to the income from a $2,000,000 legacy, he has
a number of profitable investments in America which he can realize
upon at any time. He owns considerable real estate in Chicago, Kansas
City, Denver, and Omaha, and he is a part owner of one of the largest
ranches in New Mexico. His American property is held in the name of
Alexander Marie Wilhelm Ludwig Maraschkoff, and his interests in this
country are looked after by Colonel J.S. Norton, the well-known
attorney of this city. Colonel Norton tells us that he would not
be surprised if Prince Alexander were to come to this country to
live. In a letter to Colonel Norton last June the Prince said: "If
ever it is in divine pleasure to release us from the harassing
responsibilities which now rest upon us, it will be our choice to
find a home in that great country beyond the Atlantic, where, removed
from the intrigues of court and state, we may enjoy that quiet
employment and peaceful meditation for which we have always yearned."
Now it must be confessed that this bears a sufficient air of
verisimilitude to deceive the casual reader. It is as perfect a
specimen of the pure invention which Field delighted to deck out in
the form of truth with facts and the names of real personages as he
ever wrote. In that year not only Englishmen, but other foreigners,
were investing in American real estate. James S. Norton was indeed a
well-known attorney of Chicago, as he deserved to be for his wit and
professional ability. He was on such friendly terms with Field that
the latter thought nothing of taking any liberty he pleased with his
name whenever it served to lend credibility to an otherwise
unconvincing narrative. In subsequent paragraphs Field answered
fictitious inquiries as to Mr. Norton's reality by giving his actual
address, with the result that Mr. Norton was pestered with
correspondence from all over the union offering opportunities to
invest Prince Alexander's funds.
But the success of this hoax was not confined to the American side of
the Atlantic, as the following paragraph from London Truth shortly
after proves:
I gave some particulars a few weeks ago of the large amount of
property which had been extracted from Bulgaria by Prince Alexander,
who arrived at Sofia penniless, except for a sum of money which was
advanced to him by the late Emperor of Russia. It is now asserted by
the American papers that Prince Alexander has made considerable
purchases under an assumed name (Alexander Marie Wilhelm Ludwig
Maraschkoff) of real estate in Chicago, Denver, Kansas City, and
Omaha, and that he is part owner of one of the largest sheep ranches
in New Mexico. The Prince's property in America is under the charge of
Colonel Norton, a well-known attorney of Chicago. Prince Alexander
must be possessed of a true Yankee cuteness if he managed to squeeze
the "pile" for these investments out of Bulgaria in addition to the
£70,000 to which I referred recently. The Russian papers have accused
him of dabbling in stock exchange speculations, and if disposed for
such business, his position must have given him some excellent
opportunities of making highly profitable bargains.
Thus was Prince Alexander convicted of having burglarized Bulgaria
upon an invention which should not have deceived Mr. Labouchere. How
that ostentatiously manufactured alias ever imposed on Truth passes
comprehension. Is it any wonder that at one of our numerous mid-day
lunches "Colonel" Norton fired the following rhyming retort at
Field?--
_TO EUGENE FIELD
Forgive, dear youth, the forwardness
Of her who blushing sends you this,
Because she must her love confess,
Alas! Alas! A lass she is.
Long, long, so long, her timid heart
Has held its joy in secrecy,
Being by nature's cunning art
So made, so made, so maidenly.
She knew you once, but as a pen
In humor dipt in wisdom's pool,
And gladly gave her homage then
To one, to one, too wonderful;
But having seen your face, so mild,
So pale, so full of animus,
She can but cry in accents wild,
Eugene! Eugene! You genius!_
The deep and abiding interest Field felt in the fortunes of Prince
Alexander may be inferred from his exclamation, "When Stofsky meets
Etrovitch, then comes the tug of Servo-Bulgarian war!"
He took no end of pleasure in starting discussions over the authorship
of verses and sayings by wilfully attributing them to persons whose
mere name in such connection conveyed the sense of humorous
impossibility, and he thoroughly enjoyed such suggestions being taken
seriously. Once having started the ball of doubt rolling he never let
it stop for want of some neat strokes of his cunning pen. Several
noteworthy instances of this form of literary diversion or perversion
occur to me. There never was any occasion to doubt the authorship of
"The Lost Sheep," which won for Sally Pratt McLean wide popular
recognition a decade and a half ago. Its first stanza will recall it
to the memory of all:
_De massa of de sheep fol'
Dat guard de sheep fol' bin,
Look out in de gloomerin' meadows
Whar de long night rain begin--
So he call to de hirelin' shepa'd,
"Is my sheep, is dey all come in?"
Oh, den says de hirelin' shepa'd,
"Dey's some, dey's black and thin,
And some, dey's po'ol' wedda's,
But de res' dey's all brung in--
But de res' dey's all brung in."_
The very notoriety of the authorship of these lines merely served as
an incentive for Field to print the following paragraph calling it in
question:
Miss Sally McLean, author of "Cape Cod Folks," claims to have written
the dialect poem, "Massa of de Sheep Fold," which the New York Sun
pronounces a poetic masterpiece. We dislike to contradict Miss
McLean, but candor compels us to say that we have reason to believe
that she is not the author of the stanzas in question. According to
the best of our recollection, this poem was dashed off in the
wine-room of the Gault House, at Louisville, Ky., by Colonel John A.
Joyce, from ten to twenty years ago. Joyce was in the midst of a
party of convivial friends. After several cases of champagne had been
tossed down, a member of the party said to Colonel Joyce, "Come, old
fellow, give us an extempore poem." As Colonel Joyce had not utilized
his muse for at least twenty minutes, he cordially assented to the
proposition, and while the waiter was bringing a fresh supply of wine
Colonel Joyce dashed off the dialect poem so highly praised by the
New York Sun. We are amazed that he has laid no claim to its
authorship since its revival. Unfortunately, all the gentlemen who
were present at the time he dashed off the poem are dead, or there
would be no trouble in substantiating his claims to its authorship.
We distinctly remember he wrote it the same evening he dashed off the
pretty poem so violently claimed by, and so generally accredited to,
Mrs. Ella Wheeler Wilcox.
This was written in February, 1885, and though it failed of its
ostensible aim of discrediting Miss McLean's authorship of "The Lost
Sheep," it succeeded in rekindling throughout the exchanges the
smouldering fires of the dispute Field had himself started over that
of Ella Wheeler Wilcox's "Solitude," the relevant verse of which runs:
_Laugh, and the world laughs with you;
Weep, and you weep alone,
For the sad old earth must borrow its mirth,
But has troubles enough of its own.
Sing, and the hills will answer;
Sigh, it is lost on the air,
The echoes bound to a joyful sound,
But shrink from voicing care._
From the day "Solitude" appeared in Miss Wheeler's "Poems of Passion"
in 1883, and so long as Field lived, he never ceased to fan this
controversy into renewed life, more often than not by assuming a tone
of indignation that there should be any question over it, as in the
following recurrence to the subject in July, 1885:
It is reported that Mrs. Ella Wheeler Wilcox is anxious to institute
against Colonel John A. Joyce such legal proceedings as will
determine beyond all doubt that she, and not Colonel Joyce, was the
author of the poem entitled "Love and Laughter," and beginning:
_"Laugh, and the world laughs with you; Weep, and you weep alone."_
Mrs. Wilcox is perhaps the most touchy person in American literature
at the present time. For a number of years she has been contributing
to the newspaper press of the country, and her verses have been
subjected to the harshest sort of criticism. The paragraphists of the
press have bastinadoed and gibbeted her in the most cruel manner; her
poems have been burlesqued, parodied, and travestied heartlessly--in
short, every variety of criticism has been heaped upon her work,
which, even the most prejudiced will admit, has evinced remarkable
boldness and an amazing facility of expression. Now we would suppose
that all this shower of criticism had tanned the fair author's
hide--we speak metaphorically--until it was impervious to every
unkindly influence. But so far from being bomb-proof, Mrs. Wilcox is
even more sensitive than when she bestrode her Pegasus for the first
time and soared into that dreamy realm where the lyric muse abides.
There is not a quip nor a quillet from the slangy pen of the daily
newspaper writers that she does not brood over and worry about as
heartily as if it were an overdue mortgage on her pianoforte. We
presume to say that the protests which she has made within the last
two years against the utterances of the press would fill a tome. Now
this Joyce affair is simply preposterous; we do not imagine that
there is in America at the present time an ordinarily intelligent
person who has ever believed for one moment that Colonel Joyce wrote
the poem in question--the poem entitled "Love and Laughter." Colonel
Joyce is an incorrigible practical joker, and his humor has been
marvellously tickled by the prodigious worry his jest has cost the
Wisconsin bard. The public understands the situation; there is no
good reason why Mrs. Wilcox should fume and fret and scurry around,
all on account of that poem, like a fidgety hen with one chicken. Her
claim is universally conceded; there is no shadow of doubt that she
wrote the poem in question, and by becoming involved in any further
complication on this subject she will simply make a laughing-stock of
herself; we would be sorry to see her do that.
And yet whenever his stock of subjects for comment or raillery ran low
he would write a letter to himself, asking the address of Colonel John
A. Joyce, the author of "Love and Laughter," and manage in his answer
to open up the whole controversy afresh. I suppose that to this day
there are thousands of good people in the United States whose
innocence has been abused by Field's superserviceable defence of Mrs.
Wilcox's title to "Laugh and the World Laughs with You." It was
delicious fooling to him and to those of us who were on the inside,
but I question if Mrs. Wilcox ever appreciated its humorous aspect.
Speaking of his practice of getting public attention for his own
compositions through a letter of his own "To the Editor," the following
affords a good example of his ingenious method, with his reply:
EVANSTON, ILL., Aug. 15, 1888.
_To the Editor_:
Several of us are very anxious to learn the authorship of the following
poem, which is to be found in so many scrap-books, and which ever and
anon appears as a newspaper waif:
_RESIGNATION
I have a dear canary bird,
That every morning sings
The sweetest songs I ever heard,
And flaps his yellow wings.
I love to sit the whole day long
Beside the window-sill,
And listen to the joyous song
That warbler loves to trill.
My mother says that in a year
The bird that I've adored
Will maybe, lay some eggs and rear
A callow, cooing horde.
But father says it's quite absurd
To think that bird can lay,
For though it is a wondrous bird,
It isn't built that way.
Now whether mother tells me true
Or father, bothers me;
There's nothing else for me to do
But just to wait and see.
Whate'er befalls this bird of mine,
I am resolved 'twill please--
Far be it from me to repine
At what the Lord decrees._
Mr. Slason Thompson, compiler of "The Humbler Poets," could decide this
matter for us if he were here now, but unhappily he is out of town just
at present. We have a suspicion that the poem was originally written by
Isaac Watts, but that suspicion is impaired somewhat by another
suspicion that there were no such things as canary birds in Isaac
Watts's time.
Yours truly,
MELISSA MAYFIELD.
We have shown this letter to Evanston's most distinguished citizen, the
Hon. Andrew Shuman, and that sapient poet-critic tells us that as
nearly as he can recollect the poem was written, not by Dr. Watts, but
by an American girl. But whether that girl was Lucretia Davidson or
Miss Ada C. Sweet he cannot recall.
Mr. Francis F. Browne, of The Dial, thinks it is one of Miss Wheeler's
earlier poems, since it is imbued with that sweet innocence, that
childish simplicity, and that meek piety which have ever characterized
the work of the famous Wisconsin lyrist. But as we can learn nothing
positive as to the authorship of the poem, we shall have to call upon
the public at large to help us out.
It is needless to say that the public at large could throw no light on
the composition of this imitation of Dr. Watts with which Field was
not already possessed, since both poem and "Melissa Mayfield" were
creations of Field's fancy.
One of the most characteristic examples of the pains he would take to
palm off a composition of his own upon some innocent and unsuspecting
public man appeared in the Morning News on January 22d, 1887. It was
nothing short of an attempt to father upon the late Judge Thomas M.
Cooley the authorship of half a dozen bits of verse of varying styles
and degrees of excellence. He professed to have received from Jasper
Eastman, a prominent citizen of Adrian, Mich., twenty-eight poems
written by Judge Cooley, "the venerable and learned jurist, recently
appointed receiver of the Wabash Railroad." These were said to have
appeared in the Ann Arbor Daily News when it was conducted by the
judge's most intimate friend, between the years 1853 and 1861. Field
anticipated public incredulity by saying that "people who knew him to
be a severe moralist and a profound scholar will laugh you to scorn if
you try to make them believe Cooley ever condescended to express his
fancies in verse." Then he went on to describe the judge, at the time
of writing the verse, as "a long, awkward boy, with big features,
moony eyes, a shock of coarse hair, and the merest shadow of a
mustache," in proof of which description he presented a picture of the
young man, declared to be from a daguerrotype in the possession of Mr.
Eastman. The first "specimen gem" was said to be a paraphrase from
Theocritus, entitled "Mortality":
_O Nicias, not for us alone
Was laughing Eros born,
Nor shines for us alone the moon,
Nor burns the ruddy morn.
Alas! to-morrow lies not in the ken
Of us who are, O Nicias, mortal men._
Next followed a bit, "in lighter vein, from the Simonides of Amorgas,"
entitled "A Fickle Woman":
_Her nature is the sea's, that smiles to-night
A radiant maiden in the moon's soft light;
The unsuspecting seaman sets his sails,
Forgetful of the fury of her gales;
To-morrow, mad with storms, the ocean roars,
And o'er his hapless wreck her flood she pours._
Field then went on to describe Judge Cooley as equally felicitous in
Latin verse, presenting in proof thereof the following, "sung at the
junior class supper at Ann Arbor, May 14th, 1854":
_Nicyllam bellis oculis--
(Videre est amare),
Carminibus et poculis,
Tra la la, tra la la,
Me placet propinare:
Tra la la, tra la la,--
Me placet propinare!_
Beside such grotesque literary horse-play as this, with a gravity
startling in its unexpected daring, Field proceeded to attribute to
the venerable jurist one of the simplest and purest lullabies that
ever came from his own pen, opening with:
_I hear Thy voice, dear Lord;
I hear it by the stormy sea
When winter nights are bleak and wild,
And when, affright, I call to Thee;
It calms my fears and whispers me,
"Sleep well, my child."_
Then follows "The Vision of the Holy Grail," one of those exercises in
archaic English in which Field took infinite pains as well as delight,
and to which, as a production of Judge Cooley's, he paid the passing
tribute of saying that it was "a graceful imitation of old English."
As an example of the judge's humorous vein Field printed the
conclusion of his lines "To a Blue Jay":
_When I had shooed the bird away
And plucked the plums--a quart or more--
I noted that the saucy jay,
Albeit he had naught to say,
Appeared much bluer than before._
After crediting the judge with a purposely awful parody on "Dixie," in
which "banner" is made to rhyme with "Savannah," and "holy" with
"Pensacola," Field concluded the whimsical fabrication with the
serious comment: "It seems a pity that such poetic talent as Judge
Cooley evinced was not suffered to develop. His increasing
professional duties and his political employments put a quietus to
those finer intellectual indulgences with which his earlier years were
fruitful."
Having launched this piece of literary drollery, over which he had
studied and we had talked for a week or more, Field proceeded to
clinch the verse-making on Judge Cooley by a series of letters to
himself, one or two of which will indicate the fertile cleverness and
humor he employed to cram his bald fabrication down the public gullet.
The first appeared on January 24th, in the following letter "to the
Editor":
I have read Judge Cooley's poems with a good deal of interest. I am
somewhat of a poet myself, having written sonnets and things now and
then for the last twenty years. My opinion is that Judge Cooley's
translations, paraphrases, and imitations, are much worthier than his
original work. I hold that no poet can be a true poet unless he is at
the same time somewhat of a naturalist. If Judge Cooley had been
anything of a naturalist he would never have made such a serious
blunder as he has made in his poem entitled "Lines to a Blue Jay." The
idea of putting a blue jay into a plum-tree is simply shocking! I don't
know when I've had anything grate so harshly upon my feelings as did
this mistake when I discovered it this morning. It is as awful as the
blunder made by one of the modern British poets (I forget his name) in
referring to the alligators paddling about in Lake Erie. The blue jay
_(Cyanurus cristatus)_ does not eat plums, and therefore does not
infest plum-trees.
Yours truly,
CADMON E. BATES.
Upon which Field, in his editorial plurality, commented:
To Professor Bates's criticism we shall venture no reply. We think,
however, that allowance should be made for the youth of the poet
when he committed the offence which so grievously torments our
correspondent. It might be argued, too, that the jay of which the
poet treats is no ordinary bird, but is one of those omnivorous
creatures which greedily pounce upon everything coming within
their predatory reach.
And two days later he made bold to crush the judge's critics with
letters from the same versatile pen that never failed to aid in the
furtherance of its master's hoaxes:
To the Editor: Prof. Bates may be a good taxidermist, but he knows
little of ornithology. Never before he spoke was it denied that the
_Cyanurus cristatus_ (blue jay) fed upon plums. All the insect-eating
birds also eat of the small fruits. It is plain that the poet knew
this, even though the taxidermist didn't.
Yours truly,
L.R. COWPERTHWAITE.
To the Editor: Isn't Prof. Bates too severe in his claim that genius
like that of the poetic Judge Cooley should be bound down by the
prosaic facts of ornithology? Milton scorned fidelity to nature,
especially when it came to ornithological details, and poets, as a
class, have been singularly wayward in this respect. My impression is
that Judge Cooley has simply made use of a poetic license which any
fair-minded person should be willing to concede the votaries of the
muse.
Yours truly,
J.G.K.
The echoes of Judge Cooley's youthful verse were never permitted to
die wholly out of Field's column, but were frequently given renewed
life by casual references. Even the publication of "The Divine
Lullaby" in his "Little Book of Western Verse" did not prevent Field
from speaking of Judge Cooley's poetical diversions.
On another occasion he spent his odd time for weeks in preparing a
humorous hoax upon the critics of Chicago. It consisted of a number of
close imitations of the typical verses of Dr. Watts, in which he was a
master. The fruits of his congenial labor on this occasion are
preserved in his collected works. But the purpose for which they were
prepared adds to their interest. They were incorporated in a prose
article which gave a plausible account of how they had been exhumed
from the correspondence of a sentimental friend of Watts. When the
last strokes had been put upon the story, whose tone of genuineness
was calculated to deceive the elect, it was mailed to Charles A. Dana,
who was thoroughly in sympathy with Field in all such enterprises, and
on the following Sunday it appeared in the New York Sun as an extract
from a London paper. As soon as the publication reached Chicago a
number of the cleverest reporters on the News staff were sent out to
interview the local literary authorities. They were all carefully
coached by Field what questions to ask and what points to avoid, and
their reports were all turned over to him to prepare for publication.
Next morning the better part of a page of the News was surrendered to
quotations from the fictitious article, with learned dissertations on
the value of the discovery, coupled with careful comparisons of the
style and sentiments of the verse with the acknowledged work of Watts.
In the whole city only one of those interviewed was saved, by a
sceptical analysis, from falling into the pit so adroitly prepared by
Field.
Loyal to Chicago, to a degree incomprehensible by those who judged his
sentiments by his unsparing comments on its crudities in social and
literary ways, he never ceased to get pleasure out of serio-comic
confounding of its business activities and artistic aspirations. Its
business men and enterprises were constantly referred to in his column
as equally strenuous in the pursuit of the almighty dollar and of the
higher intellectual life. In his view "Culture's Garland," from the
Chicago stand-point, was, indeed, a string of sausages. Of this spirit
the following, printed in December, 1890, is a good example:
A DANGER THAT THREATENS
The rivalry between the trade and the literary interests in Chicago
has been wondrously keen this year.
Prof. Potwins, the most eminent of our statisticians, figures that we
now have in the midst of us either a poet or an author to every
square yard within the corporate limits, and he estimates that in ten
years' time we shall have a literary output large enough to keep all
the rest of the world reading all the time.
Our trade has been increasing, too. Last September 382,098 cattle
were received, against 330,994 in September of 1889. So far this year
the increase over 1889 in the receipts of hogs is 2,000,000.
Last year not more than 2,700 young authors contributed stories to
the Christmas number of the Daily News: this year the number of
contributors reached 6,125.
Hitherto the rivalry between our trade and our literature has been
friendly to a degree. The packer has patronized the poet;
metaphorically speaking, the hog and the epic have lain down together
and wallowed in the same Parnassan pool. The censers that have swung
continually in the temple of the muses have been replenished with
lard oil, and to our grateful olfactories has the joyous Lake breezes
wafted the refreshing odors of sonnets and of slaughter pens
commingled.
But how long is this sort of thing going to last? It surely cannot be
the millennium. These twin giants will some day--alas, too
soon--learn their powers and be greedy to test them against one
another. A fatal jealousy seems to be inevitable; it may be fended
off, but how?
The world's fair will be likely to precipitate a conflict between the
interests of which we speak. Each interest is already claiming
precedence, and we hear with alarm that less than a week ago one of
our most respected packers threatened to withdraw his support of the
international copyright bill unless the Chicago Literary Society
united in an indorsement of his sugar-cured hams.
When we think of the horrors that will attend and follow a set-to
between Chicago trade and Chicago literature, we are prone to cry
out, in the words of the immortal Moore--not Tom--but Mrs. Julia A.,
of Michigan:
_An awful tremor quakes the soul!
And makes the heart to quiver,
While up and down the spine doth roll
A melancholy shiver._
In December, 1895, Edmund Clarence Stedman contributed to the "Souvenir
Book" of the New York Hebrew Fair a charmingly appreciative, yet justly
critical, tribute to Eugene Field, whom he likened to Shakespeare's
Yorick, whose "motley covered the sweetest nature and tenderest heart."
Mr. Stedman there speaks of Field as a "complex American with the
obstreperous _bizarrerie_ of the frontier and the artistic delicacy of
our oldest culture always at odds within him--but he was above all a
child of nature, a frolic incarnate, and just as he would have been in
any time or country." He also tells how Field put their friendship to
one of those tests which sooner or later he applied to all--the test of
linking their names with something utterly ludicrous and impossible,
but published with all the solemn earmarks of verity. It was on the
occasion of Mr. Stedman's visit to Chicago on its invitation to lecture
before the Twentieth Century Club. This gave Field the cue to announce
the coming event in a way to fill the visitor with consternation. About
two weeks before the poet-critic was expected, Field's column contained
the following innocent paragraph:
Mr. Edmund Clarence Stedman, the poet, and the foremost of American
critics, is about to visit Chicago. He comes as the guest of the
Twentieth Century Club, and on the evening of Tuesday, the 28th
inst., he will deliver before that discriminating body an address
upon the subject of "Poetry," this address being one of the notable
series which Mr. Stedman prepared for and read before the
undergraduates of Johns Hopkins University last winter. These
discourses are, as we judge from epitomes published in the New York
Tribune, marvels of scholarship and of criticism.
Twenty years have elapsed, as we understand, since Mr. Stedman last
visited Chicago. He will find amazing changes, all in the nature of
improvements. He will be delighted with the beauty of our city and
with the appreciation, the intelligence, and the culture of our
society. But what should and will please him most will be the
cordiality of that reception which Chicago will give him, and the
enthusiasm with which she will entertain this charming prince of
American letters, this eminent poet, this mighty good fellow!
I doubt if Mr. Stedman ever saw this item, which Field merely
inserted, as was his wont, as a prelude to the whimsical announcement
which followed in two days, and which was eagerly copied in the New
York papers in time to make Mr. Stedman cast about for some excuse for
being somewhere else than in Chicago on the 29th of April, 1891. This
second notice is too good an instance of the liberty Field took with
the name of a friend in his delectable vocation of laying "the knotted
lash of sarcasm" about the shoulders of wealth and fashion of Chicago,
not to be quoted in full. It was given with all the precision of
typographical arrangement that is considered proper in printing a
veritable programme of some public procession, in the following terms:
Chicago literary circles are all agog over the prospective visit of
Mr. Edmund Clarence Stedman, the eminent poet-critic. At the regular
monthly conclave of the Robert Browning Benevolent and Patriotical
Association of Cook County, night before last, it was resolved to
invite Mr. Stedman to a grand complimentary banquet at the Kinsley's
on Wednesday evening, the 29th. Prof. William Morton Payne, grand
marshal of the parade which is to conduct the famous guest from the
railway station the morning he arrives, tells us that the procession
will be in this order:
Twenty police officers afoot.
The grand marshal, horseback, accompanied by ten male members of the
Twentieth Century Club, also horseback.
Mr. Stedman in a landau drawn by four horses, two black and two white.
The Twentieth Century Club in carriages.
A brass band afoot.
The Robert Browning Club in Frank Parmelee's 'buses.
The Homer Clubs afoot, preceded by a fife-and-drum corps and a real
Greek philosopher attired in a tunic.
Another brass band.
A beautiful young woman playing the guitar, symbolizing Apollo and his
lute in a car drawn by nine milk-white stallions, impersonating the
muses.
Two Hundred Chicago poets afoot.
The Chicago Literary Club in carriages.
A splendid gilded chariot bearing Gunther's Shakespeare autograph and
Mr. Ellsworth's first printed book.
Another brass band.
Magnificent advertising car of Armour and Co., illustrating the
progress of civilization.
The Fishbladder Brigade and the Blue Island Avenue Shelley Club.
The fire department.
Another brass band.
Citizens in carriages, afoot and horseback.
Advertising cars and wagons.
The line of march will be an extensive one, taking in the
packing-houses and other notable points. At Mr. Armour's interesting
professional establishment the process of slaughtering will be
illustrated for the delectation of the honored guest, after which an
appropriate poem will be read by Decatur Jones, President of the Lake
View Elite Club. Then Mr. Armour will entertain a select few at a
champagne luncheon in the scalding-room.
In high literary circles it is rumored that the Rev. F.M. Bristol has
got an option on all autographs that Mr. Stedman may write during his
stay in Chicago. Much excitement has been caused by this, and there is
talk of an indignation meeting in Battery D, to be addressed by the
Rev. Flavius Gunsaulus, the Rev. Frank W. Brobst, and other eminent
speakers.
Small wonder that Mr. Stedman's soul was filled with trepidation as
his train approached Chicago, and that he was greatly relieved as it
rolled into the station to find only a few friends awaiting him; and
among them he quickly singled out Eugene Field, "his sardonic face
agrin like a school-boy's."
Enough has been written and quoted to give the reader a fair idea of
the general character of Eugene Field's daily work and of the spirit
that inspired it. As Mr. Stedman has said, the work of the journeyman
and the real literary artist appeared cheek by jowl in his column. The
best of it has been preserved in his collected works. That given in
this chapter is merely intended to show how he illuminated the
lightest and most ephemeral topics of the day with a literary touch at
once acute and humorous, and certainly unconventional. In the Appendix
to these volumes the reader will find a review of the fictitious
biography of Miss Emma Abbott, the once noted opera singer. It is an
ingenious piece of work and will repay reading as a satire on current
reviewing, besides illustrating the daring liberty Field could take
with anyone whom he reckoned a friend.
The following paragraph, which will serve as a tail-piece to this
chapter, printed May 31st, 1894, shows how the playful raillery which
marked his earlier work in and about Chicago survived to the end:
The oldest house in Chicago stands on the West Side, and was built
in 1839 A.D. The oldest horse in Chicago works for the Lake View
Street-Car Company, and was present at the battle of Marathon 490 B.C.
END OF VOL. I.