The August days are very hot, the vengeance of the skyHas sapped the groves' vitality and browned the meadows dry;Creation droops, and languishes, one cannot sleep or eat—Dead is the city market-place, and dead the city street!It is the noontime of the year, when men should seek reposeWhere rustic lakes go rippling and the water-lily grows;Come, let us swerve a season from the dusty urban track,And off with Louis Auer to his Lake Pewaukee shack!Upon a slight declivity that quiet refuge lies,Where stately forest-trees observe the hot of cloudy skies!The shack is back a goodly distance from the mighty lakeWhose waters on the pebbly beach with pretty music break;Boats go a-sailing to and fro, and fishermen are thereWith schemes to tempt the pike or bass or pickerel from their lair—Oh with sailing, shooting, fishing, you can fancy there's no lackOf fun with Louis Auer at his Lake Pewaukee shack.The shack is wide and rangey, with bunks built up around,While on the walls the trophies of the flood and field abound;The horns of elk and moose, the skins of foxes, beavers, mink,Keep glossy guard above the horde that gaily eat and drink;It's oh, the famous yarns we tell and famous yarns we hear,And we taste the grateful viands or we quaff the foaming beer;And many a lively song we sing and many a joke we crackWhen we're guests of Louis Auer at his Lake Pewaukee shack.No wonder that too swiftly speed the happy hours awayIn the company of Silverman and Underwood and Shea;Of Yenowine, McNaughten, Kipp, Peck, Lush, and General Falk—Eight noble men in action, but nobler yet in talk!These are the genial spirits to be met with in that spot.Where are winters never chilly and summers never hot!And a fellow having been there always hankers to get backWith those friends of Louis Auer's in that Lake Pewaukee shack.To this o'ercrowded city for the nonce let's say goodby,And northward to the lake of Pewaukee let us hie!To-night we'll lay us down to dreams of calm and cool delight,Where owls and dogs and Kipp make solemn music all the night;But with our fill of satisfying, big voluptuous cakes,Such only as that prince of cooks friend Louis Auer makes,We'll sleep and dream sweet dreams despite that roaring pack,So come, let's off with Auer to his Lake Pewaukee shack.
The August days are very hot, the vengeance of the skyHas sapped the groves' vitality and browned the meadows dry;Creation droops, and languishes, one cannot sleep or eat—Dead is the city market-place, and dead the city street!It is the noontime of the year, when men should seek reposeWhere rustic lakes go rippling and the water-lily grows;Come, let us swerve a season from the dusty urban track,And off with Louis Auer to his Lake Pewaukee shack!
The August days are very hot, the vengeance of the sky
Has sapped the groves' vitality and browned the meadows dry;
Creation droops, and languishes, one cannot sleep or eat—
Dead is the city market-place, and dead the city street!
It is the noontime of the year, when men should seek repose
Where rustic lakes go rippling and the water-lily grows;
Come, let us swerve a season from the dusty urban track,
And off with Louis Auer to his Lake Pewaukee shack!
Upon a slight declivity that quiet refuge lies,Where stately forest-trees observe the hot of cloudy skies!The shack is back a goodly distance from the mighty lakeWhose waters on the pebbly beach with pretty music break;Boats go a-sailing to and fro, and fishermen are thereWith schemes to tempt the pike or bass or pickerel from their lair—Oh with sailing, shooting, fishing, you can fancy there's no lackOf fun with Louis Auer at his Lake Pewaukee shack.
Upon a slight declivity that quiet refuge lies,
Where stately forest-trees observe the hot of cloudy skies!
The shack is back a goodly distance from the mighty lake
Whose waters on the pebbly beach with pretty music break;
Boats go a-sailing to and fro, and fishermen are there
With schemes to tempt the pike or bass or pickerel from their lair—
Oh with sailing, shooting, fishing, you can fancy there's no lack
Of fun with Louis Auer at his Lake Pewaukee shack.
The shack is wide and rangey, with bunks built up around,While on the walls the trophies of the flood and field abound;The horns of elk and moose, the skins of foxes, beavers, mink,Keep glossy guard above the horde that gaily eat and drink;It's oh, the famous yarns we tell and famous yarns we hear,And we taste the grateful viands or we quaff the foaming beer;And many a lively song we sing and many a joke we crackWhen we're guests of Louis Auer at his Lake Pewaukee shack.
The shack is wide and rangey, with bunks built up around,
While on the walls the trophies of the flood and field abound;
The horns of elk and moose, the skins of foxes, beavers, mink,
Keep glossy guard above the horde that gaily eat and drink;
It's oh, the famous yarns we tell and famous yarns we hear,
And we taste the grateful viands or we quaff the foaming beer;
And many a lively song we sing and many a joke we crack
When we're guests of Louis Auer at his Lake Pewaukee shack.
No wonder that too swiftly speed the happy hours awayIn the company of Silverman and Underwood and Shea;Of Yenowine, McNaughten, Kipp, Peck, Lush, and General Falk—Eight noble men in action, but nobler yet in talk!These are the genial spirits to be met with in that spot.Where are winters never chilly and summers never hot!And a fellow having been there always hankers to get backWith those friends of Louis Auer's in that Lake Pewaukee shack.
No wonder that too swiftly speed the happy hours away
In the company of Silverman and Underwood and Shea;
Of Yenowine, McNaughten, Kipp, Peck, Lush, and General Falk—
Eight noble men in action, but nobler yet in talk!
These are the genial spirits to be met with in that spot.
Where are winters never chilly and summers never hot!
And a fellow having been there always hankers to get back
With those friends of Louis Auer's in that Lake Pewaukee shack.
To this o'ercrowded city for the nonce let's say goodby,And northward to the lake of Pewaukee let us hie!To-night we'll lay us down to dreams of calm and cool delight,Where owls and dogs and Kipp make solemn music all the night;But with our fill of satisfying, big voluptuous cakes,Such only as that prince of cooks friend Louis Auer makes,We'll sleep and dream sweet dreams despite that roaring pack,So come, let's off with Auer to his Lake Pewaukee shack.
To this o'ercrowded city for the nonce let's say goodby,
And northward to the lake of Pewaukee let us hie!
To-night we'll lay us down to dreams of calm and cool delight,
Where owls and dogs and Kipp make solemn music all the night;
But with our fill of satisfying, big voluptuous cakes,
Such only as that prince of cooks friend Louis Auer makes,
We'll sleep and dream sweet dreams despite that roaring pack,
So come, let's off with Auer to his Lake Pewaukee shack.
CHAPTER XI
LAST DAYS
At last (July, 1895) Field was in his own house, provided, as he said, with all the modern conveniences, including an ample veranda and a genial mortgage. About it were the oaks, in whose branches the birds had built their nests before Chicago was a frontier post. He could sit upon the "front stoop" and look across vacant lots to where Lake Michigan beat upon the sandy shore with ceaseless rhythm. Inside, the house was roomy and cheery with God's own sunlight pouring in through generous windows. Reversing the usual order of things in this climate of the southwest wind, the porch was on the northeast exposure of the house. The best room in it was the library, and here, for the first time in his career, Field had the opportunity to provide shelf-room for his books and cabinets for his curios. An artist would have said that their arrangement was crude and ineffective; but from the collector's point of view the arrangement could scarcely have been bettered. Everything seemed to have settled in its appropriate niche, according to its value in the collector's eye, irrespective of its value in the dealer's catalogue. Of his collection before it was moved from the house on Evanston Avenue, adjoining the Waller lot, his friend Julian Ralph wrote:
"He had cabinets and closets filled with the wreckage of England, New England, Holland, and Louisiana; walls littered with mugs, and prints, and pictures, plates, and warming-pans; shelves crowded with such things, and mantel-pieces likewise loaded, through two stories of his house. All were curios of value, or else beauty, for he was no ignoramus in his madness. His den above stairs, where he sat surrounded by a great and valuable collection of first editions and other prized books, was part of the museum. There hung the axe Mr. Gladstone gave him at Hawarden, and the shears that Charles A. Dana used during a quarter of a century. These two prizes he cherished most. He had been to Mr. Dana and begged the shears, receiving the promise that he should have them left to him in Mr. Dana's will. He waited five years, grew impatient, past endurance, and then came on to New York and got the shears from Paul Dana."
To his new home, which he christened "The Sabine Farm," were moved all the accumulated treasures of his mania for curiosities and antiques. "I do not think he thought much of art," wrote Edward Everett Hale in his introduction to "A Little Book of Profitable Tales"; and the motley, albeit fascinating, aggregation of rare and outlandish chattels in Eugene Field's house justified that conclusion. Of what the world calls art, whether the creation of the brush, the chisel, the loom, or the potter's oven, he had the most rudimentary conception. His eye was ever alert for things queer, rare, and "out of print." Of these he was a connoisseur beyond compare, a collector without a peer. He valued prints, not for their beauty or the art of the engraver, but for some peculiarity in the plate, or because of the difficulties overcome in their "comprehension." He knew all that was to be known of the delightful art of the binder, but his most cherished specimen would always be one where a master had made some slip in tooling. For oddities and rarities in all the range of the collector's fever, from books and prints to pewter mugs and rag dolls, his mania was omnivorous and catholic. And strange as it may seem, with his mania was mingled a shrewd appreciation of the commercial side of it all. This is what Mr. Ralph means when he says Field was no ignoramus in his madness.
Therefore it is not to be wondered at that his collection of strange and fantastic, odd and curious, things filled his library and overflowed and clustered every nook and corner of the Sabine Farm. Here was a "thumb" Bible, there the smallest dictionary in the world. In one corner was stacked a freakish lot of canes—some bought because they were freaks, some with a story behind their acquisition, and more presented to him because Field let it be known that he had a penchant for canes—which, by the way, he never carried. In one room there was a shelf of empty bottles of every conceivable shape, size, and "previous condition of servitude"; in another was a perfect menagerie of mechanical toy animals. As he could not decide which he liked best, hideous pewter mugs or delicate china dishes, he "annexed" them indiscriminately, and stored them cheek by jowl, much to the annoyance of his more orderly wife. The old New England pie-plate was a dearer article of vertu to him than the most fragile vase, unless the latter was a rare specimen of a forgotten art. He had a genuine affection for clocks of high and low degree. He loved them for their friendly faces, and endowed them with personal idiosyncrasies, according to their tickings, by which he distinguished them. And so the Sabine Farm had old-fashioned clocks and new-fangled clocks in the halls and bedrooms, on the stairs and mantels, in the cellars beneath and in the garret above—all ticking merrily or sedately, as became their respective makes and natures. But keeping time? Never!
Of books there was no end. Books he had inherited, books he had bought with money pinched from household expenses, and presentation books by the score. All were jumbled together in a confusion that delighted him, but which would have been the despair of an orderly mind. His rare and well-nigh complete collection of books on Horace and of editions of the poet had the place of honor in his library, with the rest nowhere in particular and everywhere in general. Hundreds of his books bear the autographs of their respective authors, while the walls of the house were covered with autograph letters from many of the celebrities and not a few of the notorieties of the world. Even the nonentities found lodgement there. Such another collection as Field's is not to be met with under any roof in this country; nor could its like be duplicated anywhere, because it reflects the man in all his personal contradictions and predispositions. It is queer andsui generis—but mostly "queer"—which word to him always conveyed a sense of inimitable incongruity.
When Field returned from Holland he wore on his third finger a hideous silver ring, that looked like pewter, in which shone, but did not sparkle, a huge green crystal. It was a gorgeous travesty on an emerald. Beauty it had none, nor even quaintness of design. It was just plain ugly; but he had become attached to it because it was conspicuous and had some association with Dutch life connected with it. From this it may be inferred that Field's taste in jewelry was barbaric; but, happily for Mrs. Field, it was a taste he seldom indulged.
EUGENE FIELD WITH HIS DUTCH RING.
Besides the pleasure of sitting down amid the spoils of two continents and of two decades of collecting, Field fairly revelled in the, to him, novel sensation of land proprietorship. He did not miss or feel the drain of the weekly deductions from his salary that went to the reduction of his building debt. When that had been arranged for between the Record office and Mr. Gray, Field took no more account of it. It came out of Mrs. Field's allowance. What was that to him? He only recognized the fact that he was his own landlord, and paid taxes, and was exempt from the payment of rent.
So enamoured was he of these novel sensations of the Sabine Farm that he found it hard to tear himself away from the communion with the trees, and birds, and bees, out of doors, and with books, and curios, and visitors indoors. Dearly did he love to show his treasures to his friends, who came, not single spies, but in troops, to warm his chairs and congratulate him upon the attainment of his heart's desire. Never did he appear to better advantage than here, except when outside under the trees, surrounded by groups of little children, to whom he discoursed on wonders in natural history more wonderful than all the amazing works of nature set down in their nature study-books. All the animals, and birds, and creeping things in his natural history could talk and sing, could romp and play, could eat and drink—not infrequently too much—and in every way were superior to their kind to be met with among the dry leaves of their school-books. He peopled the world with the trolls, elves, and nixies of fairy-land for his own and his neighbors' babes of all ages.
Is it any wonder that his trips down town became less frequent, that he preferred to do his work at home, and subsidized one of his sons to be his regular messenger to bear his copy to the office? Is it surprising that, along in August, 1895, we find him writing:
Yes, there is no doubt that these rains which we have had in such plenty for the last three days have interrupted and otherwise interfered with the sports of many people. Yet none of us should sulk or complain when he comes to consider how badly we needed the rain, and what a vast amount of good these refreshing down-pourings have done. Vegetation was in a bad, sad way; the trees had begun to have a withered look, and the grass was turning brown. What a change has been wrought by the grace of the rain! Nature smiles once more; the lawns are green, the trees are reviving; the roadsides are beautiful with the grasses, the ferns, and the wild flowers, among which insectivorous life makes cheery music. The rain has arrayed old Mother Earth in a bright new garb.The month of September is close at hand; the conditions of its coming are favorable. There is fun ahead for all us sentimental people. A beautiful moon is waiting rather impatiently for the clouds to roll by; the moon is always at her best in the full summer-time.How good it is to live in this beautiful world of ours; how varied and countless are the blessings bestowed upon us; how sweet is the beneficence of Nature; how dear is the companionship of humanity!
Yes, there is no doubt that these rains which we have had in such plenty for the last three days have interrupted and otherwise interfered with the sports of many people. Yet none of us should sulk or complain when he comes to consider how badly we needed the rain, and what a vast amount of good these refreshing down-pourings have done. Vegetation was in a bad, sad way; the trees had begun to have a withered look, and the grass was turning brown. What a change has been wrought by the grace of the rain! Nature smiles once more; the lawns are green, the trees are reviving; the roadsides are beautiful with the grasses, the ferns, and the wild flowers, among which insectivorous life makes cheery music. The rain has arrayed old Mother Earth in a bright new garb.
The month of September is close at hand; the conditions of its coming are favorable. There is fun ahead for all us sentimental people. A beautiful moon is waiting rather impatiently for the clouds to roll by; the moon is always at her best in the full summer-time.
How good it is to live in this beautiful world of ours; how varied and countless are the blessings bestowed upon us; how sweet is the beneficence of Nature; how dear is the companionship of humanity!
"The companionship of humanity!" Nothing could make up to him any narrowing of that. His friends became dearer to him than ever. He could send his copy down to the printer, but when his friends did not come out in sufficient numbers to Buena Park he made the long trip to town to meet them at luncheon or in the Saints' and Sinners' Corner at McClurg's. Here he held almost daily court, and mulled over the materials for "The Love Affairs of a Bibliomaniac"—the opening chapter of which appeared in his "Sharps and Flats" on August 30th. Here he confided to a few that the grasshopper had "become a burden," by reason of the weariness of his long convalescence. Here he had those meetings with the Rev. Frank W. Gunsaulus which resulted in the frequent transfer of poems from the latter's pocket to the "Sharps and Flats" column, without initial or sign to intimate that they were other than Field's own vintage, only from a new press. Here, too, his whole bearing and conversation were so uniformly hopeful, hearty, and light-hearted, that they deceived all his associates into confidence that the new home had instilled new life into our friend's gaunt frame.
His column, too, reflected the genial, mellow spirit that played through all his speech and ways during the early autumn days of 1895. No other work that he had done so completely satisfied him as "The Love Affairs of a Bibliomaniac." He was steeped in the lore of the cult. He had yielded to its fascinations while preserving the keenest appreciation of its whims and weaknesses. And so the story meandered on through September and October with an ever-increasing charm of mingled sentiment and sweet satire; and so it seemed as if it might meander on forever.
But he did not attempt to write a chapter of this exquisite reminiscing every day. It was sandwiched in between columns of paragraphs and verse such as had earned for him his great vogue with the readers of the Record. He could still surprise and pain the "first literary circles of Chicago" with such literary notes as:
It is officially announced by the official board of managers of the National Federation of Realists that Hamlin Garland put on his light-weight flannels last week.In the north branch recently was found a turtle having upon its back the letters P.B.S.—the initials of the revered name of the immortal Percy Bysshe Shelley.
It is officially announced by the official board of managers of the National Federation of Realists that Hamlin Garland put on his light-weight flannels last week.
In the north branch recently was found a turtle having upon its back the letters P.B.S.—the initials of the revered name of the immortal Percy Bysshe Shelley.
And he did not fail to keep Chicago informed of the latest Buena Park news in such rural journal notes as these:
Among the many improvements to be noticed in the Park this spring is the handsome new collar with which the ever-enterprising William Clow, Esq., has provided his St. Bernard dog.A dessert of sliced bananas and oranges is all the rage in the Park this season. Tapioca pudding is a thing of the past. How true it is that humanity is ever variable and fickle!
Among the many improvements to be noticed in the Park this spring is the handsome new collar with which the ever-enterprising William Clow, Esq., has provided his St. Bernard dog.
A dessert of sliced bananas and oranges is all the rage in the Park this season. Tapioca pudding is a thing of the past. How true it is that humanity is ever variable and fickle!
But there was very much less of this sort of thing and of the daily badinage of the paragrapher than in the days of Field's primacy in that line. He was reserving all that was freshest, and sweetest, and most delicate in his fancy for the "Love Affairs."
I spent the summer of 1895 in Evanston, and one night in October, just as the family was thinking of retiring, I was called to the telephone by Field, who asked if we had any pie in the house, for he was coming up to get a slice from the pantry of my Vermont mother-in-law. He was gladly bidden to come along. In a few minutes in he walked, and was made welcome to whatever the pantry afforded—whether it was pie, pickles, or plain cheese and crackers, I do not now recall. It appeared that he had been in Evanston that night, giving a reading for the benefit of a social and literary club such as were always drawing drafts upon his good-nature and powers of entertaining. I never knew Field in better spirits than he was that night. He told of several humorous incidents that happened at the reading, and then recited one or two of the things he had read there. He sat at the piano and crooned songs and caressed the ivory keys as he told stories and we talked of the "Love Affairs" and of his prospects, which were never brighter. None who were present that memorable night will forget his reading of "The Night Wind." We turned the lights down low and listened, while with that wonderful voice he brought "the night that broods outside" into the darkened room, with that weird and ghostly:
Yoooooooo!Yoooooooo!Yoooooooo!
Not until there was barely time to catch the last electric-car for Buena Park did Field tear himself away from that appreciative company; and then he insisted that I should go with him to the cars. And so we "walked and talked," as of old, until the last south-bound car came. And as he boarded it, it seemed as if ten years had been wiped off the record, and I should see him at the office next morning. And that was the last time I ever saw Eugene Field alive.
For a few mornings after that I read his column in the Record. A few more chapters were added to the "Love Affairs," and then:
On Saturday morning, November 2d, Field spoke to the readers of the Record, through his accustomed column and in his accustomed spirit of human sympathy and genial humor. It led off with the little shot at his native city:
No matter what else it did, if the earthquake shock waked up St. Louis, there should be no complaint.
No matter what else it did, if the earthquake shock waked up St. Louis, there should be no complaint.
And it concluded with a loyal defence of his old friend and associate, "Bill" Nye, who, having aroused the ire of an audience at Paterson, N.J., had been roughly set upon and egged by a turbulent crowd of men while on his way to the railroad station. Field indignantly repelled the suggestion that Nye's indiscretion was due to inebriety, but traced it to his bad health. "Only the utmost caution," he wrote, "and the most scrupulous observance of the rules laid down by his physician have enabled Nye to go ahead with his work. This work in itself has been arduous. If there is anything more vexatious or more wearing than travelling about the country in all kinds of weather and at the mercy of railroads, and lecture-bureaus, and hotel-keepers, we do not know it."
And yet, at the very moment Field wrote this he, a more delicately organized invalid than "Bill" Nye, had his ticket bought, his state-room engaged, and his trunk packed to leave for Kansas City, where he was to give a reading on the evening of Monday, November 4th. He felt so indisposed on Saturday that he did not leave his bed. That, however, did not prevent his finishing Chapter XIX of the "Love Affairs." As it was no unusual thing for him to write, as well as read, in bed, this occasioned no alarm in the family circle. But that evening he decided to give up the Kansas City trip, and asked his brother Roswell to wire the management of the affair to that effect. On Sunday he was still indisposed, but received numerous visitors. To one of them, who remarked that it was a perfect November day, Field said: "Yes, it is a lovely day, but this is the season of the year when things die, and this fine weather may mean death to a thousand people. We may hear of many deaths to-morrow."
In the evening he complained of a pain in his head; and as he was feeling a little feverish, Dr. Hedges, who lived near by, was called in. He came about half-past ten o'clock; and after taking Field's temperature, which was only slightly above normal, said it was due to weakness, and probably resulted from the excitement of seeing so many visitors. Field joked with the doctor, told him several stories, and was assured that he was getting on all right. Before leaving, the doctor said that if it was fine on Monday it would do Field good to get out and take some exercise. Shortly before midnight a message came from Kansas City, asking when he would be able to appear there. He dictated an answer, saying that he would come November 16th. Then wishing everybody goodnight, he turned over and went to sleep as peacefully as any little child in one of his stories.
An hour before daylight the sleeper turned in his bed and groaned. His second son, "Daisy," who always slept with his father, spoke to him, but got no answer. Then he reached over and touched him; but there was not the usual response of a word or a caress. In terror-stricken recognition of the awful presence, Daisy alarmed the whole household with his cry, "Come quick! I believe papa is dead!"
And so it was. Death had stolen upon Eugene Field as he slept. And so they found him, lying in a natural position, his hands clasped over his heart, his head turned to one side, and his lips half parted, as if about to speak.
It was just such a death as he had often said would be his choice. Just a dropping to sleep here and an awakening yonder. The doctor said it was heart-failure, resulting from a sudden spasm of pain. But the face bore no trace of pain. The moan that wakened Daisy was probably that sigh with which mortal parts with mortality—the parting breath between life and death, which will scarcely stir a feather and yet will awaken the soundest sleeper. To my mind Eugene Field died as his father, "of physical exhaustion, a deterioration of the bodily organs, and an incapacity on their part to discharge the vital functions—a wearing out of the machine before the end of the term for which its duration was designed."
And thus there passed from the midst of us as gentle and genial a spirit as ever walked the earth. I know not why his death should recall that memorable scene of Mallory's, the death of Launcelot, unless it be that Field considered it the most beautiful passage in English literature:
So when sir Bors and his fellowes came to his bed, they found him starke dead, and hee lay as hee had smiled, and the sweetest savour about him that ever they smelled. Then was there weeping and wringing of hands, and the greatest dole they made that ever made men....
Then went sir Bors unto sir Ector, and told him how there lay his brother sir Launcelot dead. And then sir Ector threw his shield, his sword, and his helme from him; and when hee beheld sir Launcelot's visage hee fell down in a sowne, and when hee awaked it were hard for any tongue to tell the dolefull complaints that hee made for his brother. "Ah, sir Launcelot," said hee, "thou were head of all Christian knights! And now, I dare say," said sir Ector, "that, sir Launcelot there thou liest, thou were never matched of none earthly knights hands; and thou were the curtiest that ever beare shield; and thou were the truest friend to thy lover that ever bestrood horse, and thou were the truest lover of a sinful man that ever loved woman; and thou were the kindest man that ever strooke with sword; and thou were the goodliest person that ever came among presse of knights; and thou were the meekest man and the gentlest that ever eate in hall among ladies; and thou were the sternest knight to thy mortall foe that ever put speare in the rest."
Then there was weeping and dolour out of measure.
If I have interpreted the story of "The Good Knight's" life aright, the reader will comprehend the relation there is in my mind between the scene at the death of the knightliest knight of romance and that of him who moved in our modern life, steeped and imbued with the thoughts, fancies, and speech of the age of chivalry. For the age of shield, and spear, and tourney, he would have been the unlikeliest man ever born of woman; but with his "sweet pen" he waged unceasing battle for all things beautiful, and true, and pure in this modern world. That is why his best songs sing of mother's love and childhood and of the eternal bond between them. He hated sham, and humbug, and false pretence, and that is why his daily paragraphs gleam and sparkle with the relentless satire and ridicule; he detested the solemn dulness of conventional life, and that is why he scourged society with the "knotted lash of sarcasm" and dissipated melancholy with the unchecked effrontery of his mirth. And so his songs were full of sweetness, and his words were words of strength; and his last message to the children of his pen was:
Go forth, little lyrics, and sing to the hearts of men. This beautiful world is full of song, and thy voices may not be heard of all—but sing on, children of ours; sing to the hearts of men, and thy song shall at least swell the universal harmony that bespeaketh God's love and the sweetness of humanity.
Go forth, little lyrics, and sing to the hearts of men. This beautiful world is full of song, and thy voices may not be heard of all—but sing on, children of ours; sing to the hearts of men, and thy song shall at least swell the universal harmony that bespeaketh God's love and the sweetness of humanity.
And so is it any wonder that when the tidings of his death was borne throughout the land "there was weeping and dolour out of measure," and that a wave of sympathy swept over the country for the bereft family of the silent singer?
I have often been asked what was Eugene Field's religious belief—a question I cannot answer better than in the language of the Rev. Frank M. Bristol in his funeral address:
I have said of my dear friend that he had a creed. His creed was love. He had a religion. His religion was kindness. He belonged to the church—the church of the common brotherhood of man. With all the changes that came to his definitions and formulas, he never lost from his heart of hearts the reverence for sacred things learned in childhood, and inherited from a sturdy Puritan ancestry. From that deep store of love and faith and reverence sprang the streams of his happy songs, and ever was he putting into his tender verses those ideas of the living God, the blessed Christ, the ministering angels of immortal love, the happiness of heaven, which were instilled into his-heart when but a boy.
Those who gathered at his house on the day of the funeral and looked upon the form of the "Good Knight" in his last sleep saw a large white rose in one of his hands. There was a touching story connected with that rose: On the preceding afternoon a lady, who was a friend of Field's, went to a florist's to order some flowers for the grave. A poorly clad little girl was looking wistfully in at the window and followed the lady into the store.
"Are those flowers for Mr. Field?" she asked. "Oh, I wish I could send him just one. Won't you, please, give me one flower?"
The florist placed a beautiful white rose in her little hand. Then she turned and gave it to the lady, with the request: "Please put it near Mr. Field with your flowers." And the little girl's single rose—the gift of love without money and without price—was given the place of honor that day beyond the wealth of flowers that filled house and church with the incense of affection for the dead.
The funeral was a memorable demonstration of the common regard in which Field was held by all classes of citizens. The services took place in the Fourth Presbyterian Church, from which hundreds turned sorrowfully away, because they could not gain admission. The Rev. Thomas C. Hall, who had recently succeeded Dr. Stryker, one of Field's intimate friends, who had been called to the presidency of Hamilton College, conducted the formal ceremonies, in which he was assisted by the Rev. Frank M. Bristol, who delivered the address, and the Rev. Frank W. Gunsaulus, who embodied his tribute to his friend in a poem remarkable for the felicity with which it passed in review many of the more noteworthy of Field's lyrics. Its opening stanzas read:
'Midst rustling of leaves in the rich autumn air,At eve when man's life is an unuttered prayer,There came through the dusk, each with torch shining bright,From far and from near, in his sorrow bedight,The old earth's lone pilgrim o'er land and o'er wave.Who gathered around their dear poet's loved grave.With trumpet and drum, but in silence, they came—Their paths were illumed by their torches' mild flame,Whose soft lambent streams by love's glory were lit;And where fairy knights and bright elves used to flitAcross the wan world when the lights quivered dim,These watched at the grave, and were mourning for him.
'Midst rustling of leaves in the rich autumn air,At eve when man's life is an unuttered prayer,There came through the dusk, each with torch shining bright,From far and from near, in his sorrow bedight,The old earth's lone pilgrim o'er land and o'er wave.Who gathered around their dear poet's loved grave.
'Midst rustling of leaves in the rich autumn air,
At eve when man's life is an unuttered prayer,
There came through the dusk, each with torch shining bright,
From far and from near, in his sorrow bedight,
The old earth's lone pilgrim o'er land and o'er wave.
Who gathered around their dear poet's loved grave.
With trumpet and drum, but in silence, they came—Their paths were illumed by their torches' mild flame,Whose soft lambent streams by love's glory were lit;And where fairy knights and bright elves used to flitAcross the wan world when the lights quivered dim,These watched at the grave, and were mourning for him.
With trumpet and drum, but in silence, they came—
Their paths were illumed by their torches' mild flame,
Whose soft lambent streams by love's glory were lit;
And where fairy knights and bright elves used to flit
Across the wan world when the lights quivered dim,
These watched at the grave, and were mourning for him.
That the spirit of those funeral services was neither local nor ephemeral is proved by the following poem, which, by a strange coincidence, came in a round-about way to my desk in the Record-Herald office from their author in Texarkana, Texas, the very day I transcribed the above lines from Dr. Gunsaulus's "Songs of Night and Morning" into the manuscript of this book:
EUGENE FIELD
1.
Sleep well, dear poet of the heart!In dreamless rest by cares unbroken;Thy mission filled, in peace depart.Thy message to the world is spoken.2.Thy song the weary heart beguiles;Like generous wine it soothes and cheers,Yet oftentimes, amid our smiles,Thy pathos melts a soul to tears.3.In "Casey's Tabble-Dote" no moreThy kindly humor will be heard;In silence now we must deploreThe horrors of that "small hot bird."4.The "Restauraw" is silent now,The "Conversazzhyony's" over;And "Red Hoss Mountain's" gloomy browLooks down where lies "Three-fingered Hoover."5.Our friend "Perfesser Vere de Blaw"No longer on the "Steenway" prancesWith "Mizzer-Reery" "Opry-Boof,"And old familiar songs and dances.6.Old "Red floss Mountain's" wrapped in gloom,And "Silas Pettibone's shef-doover"Has long since vanished from the roomWith "Casey" and "Three-fingered Hoover."7.Yet will they live! Though Field depart;Thousands his memory will cherish;The gentle poet of the heartShall live till life and language perish.C.S.T.
Sleep well, dear poet of the heart!In dreamless rest by cares unbroken;Thy mission filled, in peace depart.Thy message to the world is spoken.
Sleep well, dear poet of the heart!
In dreamless rest by cares unbroken;
Thy mission filled, in peace depart.
Thy message to the world is spoken.
2.
Thy song the weary heart beguiles;Like generous wine it soothes and cheers,Yet oftentimes, amid our smiles,Thy pathos melts a soul to tears.
Thy song the weary heart beguiles;
Like generous wine it soothes and cheers,
Yet oftentimes, amid our smiles,
Thy pathos melts a soul to tears.
3.
In "Casey's Tabble-Dote" no moreThy kindly humor will be heard;In silence now we must deploreThe horrors of that "small hot bird."
In "Casey's Tabble-Dote" no more
Thy kindly humor will be heard;
In silence now we must deplore
The horrors of that "small hot bird."
4.
The "Restauraw" is silent now,The "Conversazzhyony's" over;And "Red Hoss Mountain's" gloomy browLooks down where lies "Three-fingered Hoover."
The "Restauraw" is silent now,
The "Conversazzhyony's" over;
And "Red Hoss Mountain's" gloomy brow
Looks down where lies "Three-fingered Hoover."
5.
Our friend "Perfesser Vere de Blaw"No longer on the "Steenway" prancesWith "Mizzer-Reery" "Opry-Boof,"And old familiar songs and dances.
Our friend "Perfesser Vere de Blaw"
No longer on the "Steenway" prances
With "Mizzer-Reery" "Opry-Boof,"
And old familiar songs and dances.
6.
Old "Red floss Mountain's" wrapped in gloom,And "Silas Pettibone's shef-doover"Has long since vanished from the roomWith "Casey" and "Three-fingered Hoover."
Old "Red floss Mountain's" wrapped in gloom,
And "Silas Pettibone's shef-doover"
Has long since vanished from the room
With "Casey" and "Three-fingered Hoover."
7.
Yet will they live! Though Field depart;Thousands his memory will cherish;The gentle poet of the heartShall live till life and language perish.
Yet will they live! Though Field depart;
Thousands his memory will cherish;
The gentle poet of the heart
Shall live till life and language perish.
C.S.T.
C.S.T.
The initials are those of Mr. Charles S. Todd, of Texarkana, Texas; and the poem, besides testifying to the wide-spread sorrow over Field's death, bears witness to the fact that his western dialect verse had a hold on the popular heart only second to his lullabies and poems of childhood.
From the Fourth Presbyterian Church Field's body was borne to its last resting-place, in Graceland cemetery. It is a quiet spot where the poet is interred, in a lovely little glade, away from the sorrowful processions of the main driveways. Leafy branches wave above his grave, shielding it from the glare of the sun in summer and the rude sweep of the winds in winter. The birds flit across it from tree to tree, casting "strange, flutterin' shadders" over the grave of him who loved them so well. And there, one day in the early summer, another bird-lover, Edward B. Clark, heard a wood-thrush, the sweetest of American songsters, singing its vesper hymn, and was moved out of his wont himself to sing:
THE TRIBUTE OF THE THRUSHA bird voice comes from the mapleAcross the green of the sod,Breaking the silence of eveningThat rests on this "acre of God."'Tis the note of the bird of the woodland,Of thickets and sunless retreats;Yet the plashing of sunlit watersIs the sound of the song it repeats.Why sing you here in the open,O gold-tongued bird of the shade;What spirit moves you to echoThis hymn from the angels strayed?And then as the shadows lengthened,The thrush made its answer clear:"There was void in the world of music,A singer lies voiceless here."
THE TRIBUTE OF THE THRUSH
THE TRIBUTE OF THE THRUSH
A bird voice comes from the mapleAcross the green of the sod,Breaking the silence of eveningThat rests on this "acre of God."'Tis the note of the bird of the woodland,Of thickets and sunless retreats;Yet the plashing of sunlit watersIs the sound of the song it repeats.
A bird voice comes from the maple
Across the green of the sod,
Breaking the silence of evening
That rests on this "acre of God."
'Tis the note of the bird of the woodland,
Of thickets and sunless retreats;
Yet the plashing of sunlit waters
Is the sound of the song it repeats.
Why sing you here in the open,O gold-tongued bird of the shade;What spirit moves you to echoThis hymn from the angels strayed?And then as the shadows lengthened,The thrush made its answer clear:"There was void in the world of music,A singer lies voiceless here."
Why sing you here in the open,
O gold-tongued bird of the shade;
What spirit moves you to echo
This hymn from the angels strayed?
And then as the shadows lengthened,
The thrush made its answer clear:
"There was void in the world of music,
A singer lies voiceless here."
Thus endeth this inadequate study of my gentle and joyous friend, "the good knight,sans peur et sans monnaie."
APPENDIX
The two articles by Eugene Field which follow here are not to be taken as particularly illuminating examples of his literary art or style. For those the reader is referred to his collected works; especially those tales and poems published during his lifetime and to "The Love Affairs of a Bibliomaniac." These are given to illustrate the liberties Field took with his living friends and with the verities of literary history. There was no such book as the "Ten Years of a Song Bird: Memoirs of a Busy Life," by Emma Abbott; and "The Discoverer of Shakespeare," by Franklin H. Head, was equally a creation of Field's lively fancy. I reproduce the latter review from the copy which Field cut from the Record and sent in pamphlet form to Mr. Head with the following note:
DEAR MR. HEAD: The printers jumbled my review of your essay so fearfully to-day that I make bold to send you the review straightened out in seemly wise. Now, I shall expect you to send me a copy of the book when it is printed, and then I shall feel amply compensated for the worry which the hotch-potch in the Daily News of this morning has given me.Ever sincerely yours,EUGENE FIELD.May 21st, 1891.WHO DISCOVERED SHAKESPEARE?Mr. Franklin H. Head is about to publish his scholarly and ingenious essay upon "The Discoverer of Shakespeare." Mr. Head is as enthusiastic a Shakespeare student as we have in the West, and his enthusiasm is tempered by a certain reverence which has led him to view with dismay, if not with horror, the exploits of latter-day iconoclasts, who would fain convince the credulous that what has been was not and that he who once wrought never existed. It was Mr. Head who gave to the world several years ago the charming brochure wherein Shakespeare's relations and experience with insomnia were so pleasantly set forth, and now the public is to be favored with a second essay, one of greater value to the Shakespearian student, in that it deals directly and intimately and explicitly with the earlier years of the poet's life. This essay was read before the Chicago Literary Club several weeks ago, and would doubtless not have been published but for the earnest solicitations of General McClurg, the Rev. Dr. Herrick Johnson, Colonel J.S. Norton, and other local literary patrons, who recognized Mr. Head's work as a distinctly valuable contribution to Shakespeariana. Answering the importunities of these sagacious critics, the author will publish the essay, supplementing it with notes and appendices.Of the interesting narrative given by Mr. Head, it is our present purpose to make as complete a review as the limits afforded us this morning will allow, and we enter into the task with genuine timidity, for it is no easy thing to give in so small a compass a fair sketch of the tale and the argument which Mr. Head has presented so entertainingly, so elegantly, and so persuasively.Before his courtship of, and marriage with, Anne Hathaway, Shakespeare was comparatively unknown. By a few boon companions he was recognized as a gay and talented young fellow, not wholly averse to hazardous adventure, as his famous connection with a certain poaching affair demonstrated. Shakespeare's father was a pious man, who was properly revered by his neighbors. The son was not held in such high estimation by these simple folk. "Willie, thee beest a merry fellow," quoth the parson to the young player when he first came back from London, "but thee shall never be soche a man as thy father."Down in London his friends were of the rollicking, happy-go-lucky kind; they divided their time between the play-houses and the pot-houses; they lived by their wits, and they were not the first to demonstrate that he who would enjoy immortality must first have learned to live by his wits among mortals. It was while he led this irresponsible bachelor life in London that Shakespeare met one Elizabeth Frum, or Thrum, and with this young woman he appears to have fallen in love. The affair did not last very long, but it was fierce while it was on. Anne Hathaway was temporarily forgotten, and Mistress Frum (whose father kept the Bell and Canister) engaged—aye, absorbed—the attentions of the frisky young poet. At that time Shakespeare was spare of figure, melancholy of visage, but lively of demeanor; an inclination to baldness had already begun to exhibit itself, a predisposition hastened and encouraged doubtless by that disordered digestion to which the poet at an early age became a prey by reason of his excesses. Elizabeth Frum was deeply enamoured of Willie, but the young man soon wearied of the girl and returned to his first love. Curiously enough, Elizabeth subsequently was married to Andrew Wilwhite of Stratford-on-Avon, and lived up to the day of her death (1636) in the house next to the cottage occupied by Anne Hathaway Shakespeare and her children! Wilwhite was two years younger than Shakespeare; he was the son of a farmer, was fairly well-to-do, and had been properly educated. Perhaps more for the amusement than for the glory or for the financial remuneration there was in it, he printed a modest weekly paper which he named "The Tidings"—"an Instrument for the Spreading of Proper New Arts and Philosophies, and for the Indication and Diffusion of What Haps and Hearsays Soever Are Meet for Chronicling Withal." This journal was of unpretentious appearance, and its editorial tone was modest to a degree. The size of the paper was eight by twelve inches, four pages, with two columns to the page. The type used in the printing was large and coarse, but the paper and ink seem to have been of the best quality. A complete file of The Tidings does not survive. The British Museum has all but the third, eleventh, twelfth, and seventeenth volumes; the Newberry Library of Chicago has secured the first, seventh, sixteenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth volumes, and the Duke of Devonshire has half-a-dozen volumes. Aside from these copies none other is known to be in existence.Wilwhite was an ardent and life-long admirer of Shakespeare. It is not improbable that after her marriage Elizabeth Frum, proud of her former relations with the poet, encouraged her husband in those cordial offices which helped to promote Shakespeare's contemporaneous fame. At any rate, The Tidings was the first public print to recognize Shakespeare's genius, and Andrew Wilwhite was the first of Shakespeare's contemporaries to give public expression to his admiration and abiding faith in the talents of the poet."We print in our supplement to-day a sonnet from the pen of Willie Shakespeare, son of our esteemed townsman, Squire John Shakespeare. Willie is now located in London, and is recognized as one of the brightest constellations in the literary galaxy of the metropolis."—The Tidings, May 18th, 1587."Mistress Shakespeare laid an egg on our table yesterday measuring eleven inches in circumference. The amiable and accomplished wench informs us that her husband, whose poetic genius frequently illuminates these columns, will visit our midst next month. William, here is our [hand pointing to the right]."—The Tidings, June 13th, 1587."The gifted W. Shaxpur honored this office with a call last Thursday. He was smiling all over. It is a boy, and weighs ten pounds. Thanks, Willie, for the cigar; it was a daisy."—The Tidings, July 9th, 1587."The fireworks on Squire Shakespere's lawn last Fourth of July night were the finest ever witnessed in the county. They were brought up from London by the Squire's son William, the famous poet."—Ibid."If you want to make Bill Shaxpeare hopping mad, just ask him how much venison is a pound. All joking aside, Willie is the leading poet of the age."—The Tidings, July 16th, 1587.Two years later the following references were made by Wilwhite to the dramatic prodigy:"We would acknowledge the receipt (from Isaac Jaggard and Edward Blount, the well-known publishers) of a volume entitled, 'The First Part of King Henry the Sixt,' the same being a dramatic poem by Willie Shaxper, formerly of this town. Critique of the work is deferred."—April 23d, 1589."Our London exchanges agree that Willie Shaksper's new play is the greatest thing of the season. We knew that Willie would get there sooner or later. There are no flies on him."—April 23d, 1589."The Thespian Amateur association of the Congregational church will give a performance of 'King Henry Sixt' in the town hall next Thursday evening. Reuben Bobbin, our talented tinsmith, enacting the rôle of his majesty. This play, being written by one of our townsmen and the greatest poet of the age; should be patronized by all. Ice-cream will be served inter actes."—November 6th, 1589."We print elsewhere to-day an excerpt from the Sadler's Wells Daily Blowpipe, critically examining into the literary work of W. Shakspeyr, late of this village. The conclusion reached by our discriminating and able exchange is that Mr. Shackspeere is without question a mighty genius. We have said so all along, and we have known him ten years. Now that the Metropolitan press indorses us, we wonder what will the doddering dotard of the Avon Palladium have to say for his festering and flyblown self."—December 14th, 1589.In 1592 the Palladium reprinted an opinion given by Robert Greene: "Here is an upstart crow," said Greene of Shakespeare, "beautified with our feathers, that supposes he is as well able to bombast out a blank verse as the rest of you, and, being an absolute Johannes factotum, is, in his own conceit, the only shake-scene in the country." Another contemporaneous critic said of the scene between Brutus and Cassius in "Julius Caesar": "They are put there to play the bully and the buffoon, to show their activity of face and muscles. They are to play a prize, a trial of skill and hugging and swaggering, like two drunken Hectors, for a two-penny reckoning." Shakespeare's contemporaries—or, at least, many of them—sought to belittle his work in this wise. Why, even in later years so acute a critic as John Dennis declared that "his lines are utterly void of celestial fire," and Shaftesbury spoke of his "rude, unpolished style and antiquated phrase and wit."In the year 1600, having written hischef d'oeuvre, the poet retired to Stratford for a brief period of rest."Our distinguished poet-townsman, Shakespyr, accompanied us on an angling last Thursday, and ye editor returned well-laden with spoils. Two-score trouts and a multitude of dace and chubs were taken. Spending the night at the Rose and Crown, we were hospitably entertained by Jerry Sellars and his estimable lady, who have recently added a buttery to their hostelry, and otherwise adorned the premises. Over our brew in the evening the poet regaled us with reminiscences of life in London, and recited certain passages from his melancholy history of Hamlet, prince of Denmark, the same being a new and full mournful tragedic of mightie excellence."—The Tidings, May 13th, 1600.In the London News-Letter, September 6th, 1600, there occurred this personal notice: "At the Sweet Briar coffee-house Mr. A. Wilwhite, from Stratford-on-Avon, sojourneth as the guest of William Shack-speyr, player." About the same time Ben Jonson wrote to Dick Craven at Canterbury: "Andrew Wilwhite hath been with us amid great cheer and merriment, the same being that he saith he was the one that discovered our master, Will Shackpur, and that I do for a verity believe, for that Shakspur is vastly beholden unto him, and speaketh of him as he were a twin-brother or one by some great office bounden unto him."Wilwhite went on Shakespeare's bond in 1604, in certain property transfers involving what was then regarded as a considerable sum of money. The same year an infant Shakespeare was named after Wilwhite, the second daughter in the family having already been christened Elizabeth Wilwhite. From 1605 up to the time of the poet's death, eleven years later, nearly every issue of The Tidings bristled with friendly notices of "our eminent townsman," "our world-famed Shakespeare," and "our immortal poet." Shakespeare lived in Stratford those last years; he was well-to-do; he had prospered, and his last days were passed serenely. The musty files of that rurally candid little paper bear pleasing testimony to the Arcadian simplicity of the noble bard's declining years. They tell us with severe brevity of the trifling duties and recreations that engaged the poet. We learn that "a new and handsome front gate has been put up on the premises of our famous Shakspear"; that "our honored townsman-poet hath graciously contributed three-and-sixpence toward the mending of the town pump"; that "a gloom hath been cast over the entire community by the bone-felon upon Mr. Shaikspur's left thumb"; that "our immortal Shakespeere hath well discharged the onerous offices of road-overseer for the year past"; that "our sweete friend, Will Shakespear, will go fishing for trouts to-morrow with his good gossip, Ben Jonson, that hath come to be his guest a little season"; that "Master W. Shackspur hath a barrow that upon the slaughtering did weigh 400 weight"; that "the laylocks in the Shaxpur yard being now in bloom filleth the air with delectable smells, whereby the poet is mightily joyed in that he did plant and nurture the same," etc., etc."Sweet were those declining years," writes the essayist; "sweet in their homely moderate delights, sweet in their wholesome employments, sweet in their peacefulness and repose. But sweeter and holier yet were they in the loyalty of a friendship that, covering a long period of endeavor, of struggle and adversity, survived to illumine and to glorify, as it has been a quenchless flame, the evening of the poet's life. An o'erturned stone, upon which the ivy seeks to hide the ravages which time has made, marks the spot where Wilwhite sleeps the last gracious sleep of humanity. Now and again wayfarers, straying thence, wonder whose dust it is that mingles with the warmth of Mother Earth beneath that broken tablet. And while they wonder there amid the hush, which only the music of the birds profanes, and with the fragrance of wild flowers all around, love is fulfilled and loyalty perfected; for beyond the compass of years they that wrought together and were true abide in sweet companionship eternally."EUGENE FIELD.May 20th, 1891.
DEAR MR. HEAD: The printers jumbled my review of your essay so fearfully to-day that I make bold to send you the review straightened out in seemly wise. Now, I shall expect you to send me a copy of the book when it is printed, and then I shall feel amply compensated for the worry which the hotch-potch in the Daily News of this morning has given me.
Ever sincerely yours,
EUGENE FIELD.May 21st, 1891.
WHO DISCOVERED SHAKESPEARE?
Mr. Franklin H. Head is about to publish his scholarly and ingenious essay upon "The Discoverer of Shakespeare." Mr. Head is as enthusiastic a Shakespeare student as we have in the West, and his enthusiasm is tempered by a certain reverence which has led him to view with dismay, if not with horror, the exploits of latter-day iconoclasts, who would fain convince the credulous that what has been was not and that he who once wrought never existed. It was Mr. Head who gave to the world several years ago the charming brochure wherein Shakespeare's relations and experience with insomnia were so pleasantly set forth, and now the public is to be favored with a second essay, one of greater value to the Shakespearian student, in that it deals directly and intimately and explicitly with the earlier years of the poet's life. This essay was read before the Chicago Literary Club several weeks ago, and would doubtless not have been published but for the earnest solicitations of General McClurg, the Rev. Dr. Herrick Johnson, Colonel J.S. Norton, and other local literary patrons, who recognized Mr. Head's work as a distinctly valuable contribution to Shakespeariana. Answering the importunities of these sagacious critics, the author will publish the essay, supplementing it with notes and appendices.
Of the interesting narrative given by Mr. Head, it is our present purpose to make as complete a review as the limits afforded us this morning will allow, and we enter into the task with genuine timidity, for it is no easy thing to give in so small a compass a fair sketch of the tale and the argument which Mr. Head has presented so entertainingly, so elegantly, and so persuasively.
Before his courtship of, and marriage with, Anne Hathaway, Shakespeare was comparatively unknown. By a few boon companions he was recognized as a gay and talented young fellow, not wholly averse to hazardous adventure, as his famous connection with a certain poaching affair demonstrated. Shakespeare's father was a pious man, who was properly revered by his neighbors. The son was not held in such high estimation by these simple folk. "Willie, thee beest a merry fellow," quoth the parson to the young player when he first came back from London, "but thee shall never be soche a man as thy father."
Down in London his friends were of the rollicking, happy-go-lucky kind; they divided their time between the play-houses and the pot-houses; they lived by their wits, and they were not the first to demonstrate that he who would enjoy immortality must first have learned to live by his wits among mortals. It was while he led this irresponsible bachelor life in London that Shakespeare met one Elizabeth Frum, or Thrum, and with this young woman he appears to have fallen in love. The affair did not last very long, but it was fierce while it was on. Anne Hathaway was temporarily forgotten, and Mistress Frum (whose father kept the Bell and Canister) engaged—aye, absorbed—the attentions of the frisky young poet. At that time Shakespeare was spare of figure, melancholy of visage, but lively of demeanor; an inclination to baldness had already begun to exhibit itself, a predisposition hastened and encouraged doubtless by that disordered digestion to which the poet at an early age became a prey by reason of his excesses. Elizabeth Frum was deeply enamoured of Willie, but the young man soon wearied of the girl and returned to his first love. Curiously enough, Elizabeth subsequently was married to Andrew Wilwhite of Stratford-on-Avon, and lived up to the day of her death (1636) in the house next to the cottage occupied by Anne Hathaway Shakespeare and her children! Wilwhite was two years younger than Shakespeare; he was the son of a farmer, was fairly well-to-do, and had been properly educated. Perhaps more for the amusement than for the glory or for the financial remuneration there was in it, he printed a modest weekly paper which he named "The Tidings"—"an Instrument for the Spreading of Proper New Arts and Philosophies, and for the Indication and Diffusion of What Haps and Hearsays Soever Are Meet for Chronicling Withal." This journal was of unpretentious appearance, and its editorial tone was modest to a degree. The size of the paper was eight by twelve inches, four pages, with two columns to the page. The type used in the printing was large and coarse, but the paper and ink seem to have been of the best quality. A complete file of The Tidings does not survive. The British Museum has all but the third, eleventh, twelfth, and seventeenth volumes; the Newberry Library of Chicago has secured the first, seventh, sixteenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth volumes, and the Duke of Devonshire has half-a-dozen volumes. Aside from these copies none other is known to be in existence.
Wilwhite was an ardent and life-long admirer of Shakespeare. It is not improbable that after her marriage Elizabeth Frum, proud of her former relations with the poet, encouraged her husband in those cordial offices which helped to promote Shakespeare's contemporaneous fame. At any rate, The Tidings was the first public print to recognize Shakespeare's genius, and Andrew Wilwhite was the first of Shakespeare's contemporaries to give public expression to his admiration and abiding faith in the talents of the poet.
"We print in our supplement to-day a sonnet from the pen of Willie Shakespeare, son of our esteemed townsman, Squire John Shakespeare. Willie is now located in London, and is recognized as one of the brightest constellations in the literary galaxy of the metropolis."—The Tidings, May 18th, 1587.
"Mistress Shakespeare laid an egg on our table yesterday measuring eleven inches in circumference. The amiable and accomplished wench informs us that her husband, whose poetic genius frequently illuminates these columns, will visit our midst next month. William, here is our [hand pointing to the right]."—The Tidings, June 13th, 1587.
"The gifted W. Shaxpur honored this office with a call last Thursday. He was smiling all over. It is a boy, and weighs ten pounds. Thanks, Willie, for the cigar; it was a daisy."—The Tidings, July 9th, 1587.
"The fireworks on Squire Shakespere's lawn last Fourth of July night were the finest ever witnessed in the county. They were brought up from London by the Squire's son William, the famous poet."—Ibid.
"If you want to make Bill Shaxpeare hopping mad, just ask him how much venison is a pound. All joking aside, Willie is the leading poet of the age."—The Tidings, July 16th, 1587.
Two years later the following references were made by Wilwhite to the dramatic prodigy:
"We would acknowledge the receipt (from Isaac Jaggard and Edward Blount, the well-known publishers) of a volume entitled, 'The First Part of King Henry the Sixt,' the same being a dramatic poem by Willie Shaxper, formerly of this town. Critique of the work is deferred."—April 23d, 1589.
"Our London exchanges agree that Willie Shaksper's new play is the greatest thing of the season. We knew that Willie would get there sooner or later. There are no flies on him."—April 23d, 1589.
"The Thespian Amateur association of the Congregational church will give a performance of 'King Henry Sixt' in the town hall next Thursday evening. Reuben Bobbin, our talented tinsmith, enacting the rôle of his majesty. This play, being written by one of our townsmen and the greatest poet of the age; should be patronized by all. Ice-cream will be served inter actes."—November 6th, 1589.
"We print elsewhere to-day an excerpt from the Sadler's Wells Daily Blowpipe, critically examining into the literary work of W. Shakspeyr, late of this village. The conclusion reached by our discriminating and able exchange is that Mr. Shackspeere is without question a mighty genius. We have said so all along, and we have known him ten years. Now that the Metropolitan press indorses us, we wonder what will the doddering dotard of the Avon Palladium have to say for his festering and flyblown self."—December 14th, 1589.
In 1592 the Palladium reprinted an opinion given by Robert Greene: "Here is an upstart crow," said Greene of Shakespeare, "beautified with our feathers, that supposes he is as well able to bombast out a blank verse as the rest of you, and, being an absolute Johannes factotum, is, in his own conceit, the only shake-scene in the country." Another contemporaneous critic said of the scene between Brutus and Cassius in "Julius Caesar": "They are put there to play the bully and the buffoon, to show their activity of face and muscles. They are to play a prize, a trial of skill and hugging and swaggering, like two drunken Hectors, for a two-penny reckoning." Shakespeare's contemporaries—or, at least, many of them—sought to belittle his work in this wise. Why, even in later years so acute a critic as John Dennis declared that "his lines are utterly void of celestial fire," and Shaftesbury spoke of his "rude, unpolished style and antiquated phrase and wit."
In the year 1600, having written hischef d'oeuvre, the poet retired to Stratford for a brief period of rest.
"Our distinguished poet-townsman, Shakespyr, accompanied us on an angling last Thursday, and ye editor returned well-laden with spoils. Two-score trouts and a multitude of dace and chubs were taken. Spending the night at the Rose and Crown, we were hospitably entertained by Jerry Sellars and his estimable lady, who have recently added a buttery to their hostelry, and otherwise adorned the premises. Over our brew in the evening the poet regaled us with reminiscences of life in London, and recited certain passages from his melancholy history of Hamlet, prince of Denmark, the same being a new and full mournful tragedic of mightie excellence."—The Tidings, May 13th, 1600.
In the London News-Letter, September 6th, 1600, there occurred this personal notice: "At the Sweet Briar coffee-house Mr. A. Wilwhite, from Stratford-on-Avon, sojourneth as the guest of William Shack-speyr, player." About the same time Ben Jonson wrote to Dick Craven at Canterbury: "Andrew Wilwhite hath been with us amid great cheer and merriment, the same being that he saith he was the one that discovered our master, Will Shackpur, and that I do for a verity believe, for that Shakspur is vastly beholden unto him, and speaketh of him as he were a twin-brother or one by some great office bounden unto him."
Wilwhite went on Shakespeare's bond in 1604, in certain property transfers involving what was then regarded as a considerable sum of money. The same year an infant Shakespeare was named after Wilwhite, the second daughter in the family having already been christened Elizabeth Wilwhite. From 1605 up to the time of the poet's death, eleven years later, nearly every issue of The Tidings bristled with friendly notices of "our eminent townsman," "our world-famed Shakespeare," and "our immortal poet." Shakespeare lived in Stratford those last years; he was well-to-do; he had prospered, and his last days were passed serenely. The musty files of that rurally candid little paper bear pleasing testimony to the Arcadian simplicity of the noble bard's declining years. They tell us with severe brevity of the trifling duties and recreations that engaged the poet. We learn that "a new and handsome front gate has been put up on the premises of our famous Shakspear"; that "our honored townsman-poet hath graciously contributed three-and-sixpence toward the mending of the town pump"; that "a gloom hath been cast over the entire community by the bone-felon upon Mr. Shaikspur's left thumb"; that "our immortal Shakespeere hath well discharged the onerous offices of road-overseer for the year past"; that "our sweete friend, Will Shakespear, will go fishing for trouts to-morrow with his good gossip, Ben Jonson, that hath come to be his guest a little season"; that "Master W. Shackspur hath a barrow that upon the slaughtering did weigh 400 weight"; that "the laylocks in the Shaxpur yard being now in bloom filleth the air with delectable smells, whereby the poet is mightily joyed in that he did plant and nurture the same," etc., etc.
"Sweet were those declining years," writes the essayist; "sweet in their homely moderate delights, sweet in their wholesome employments, sweet in their peacefulness and repose. But sweeter and holier yet were they in the loyalty of a friendship that, covering a long period of endeavor, of struggle and adversity, survived to illumine and to glorify, as it has been a quenchless flame, the evening of the poet's life. An o'erturned stone, upon which the ivy seeks to hide the ravages which time has made, marks the spot where Wilwhite sleeps the last gracious sleep of humanity. Now and again wayfarers, straying thence, wonder whose dust it is that mingles with the warmth of Mother Earth beneath that broken tablet. And while they wonder there amid the hush, which only the music of the birds profanes, and with the fragrance of wild flowers all around, love is fulfilled and loyalty perfected; for beyond the compass of years they that wrought together and were true abide in sweet companionship eternally."
EUGENE FIELD.May 20th, 1891.
The review of Miss Abbott's fictitious autobiography needs no further introduction, save the statement that the only parts of it that are based on fact are those which refer to the high esteem in which its subject—or shall I say its victim?—was held by Field and the names and relations of the parties mentioned. If the reader cares to compare some of the phrases used in this autobiography with others quoted from the proceedings in the Vermont litigation in the early chapters of this book, he will find striking evidence of the persistence of literary expression in the Field family: