A Little Book of Western Verse | Page 2

brother accepted it, although with each
recurring anniversary the controversy was gravely renewed, much to
the amusement of the family and always to his own perplexity. In

November, 1856, my mother died, and, at the breaking up of the family
in St. Louis, my brother and myself, the last of six children, were taken
to Amherst, Massachusetts, by our cousin, Miss Mary F. French, who
took upon herself the care and responsibility of our bringing up. How
nobly and self-sacrificingly she entered upon and discharged those
duties my brother gladly testified in the beautiful dedication of his first
published poems, "A Little Book of Western Verse," wherein he
honored the "gracious love" in which he grew, and bade her look as
kindly on the faults of his pen as she had always looked on his own.
For a few years my brother attended a private school for boys in
Amherst; then, at the age of fourteen, he was intrusted to the care of
Rev. James Tufts, of Monson, one of those noble instructors of the
blessed old school who are passing away from the arena of education in
America. By Mr. Tufts he was fitted for college, and from the
enthusiasm of this old scholar he caught perhaps the inspiration for the
love of the classics which he carried through life. In the fall of 1868 he
entered Williams College--the choice was largely accidental--and
remained there one year. My father died in the summer of 1869, and
my brother chose as his guardian Professor John William Burgess, now
of Columbia University, New York City. When Professor Burgess,
later in the summer, accepted a call to Knox College, Galesburg,
Illinois, my brother accompanied him and entered that institution, but
the restlessness which was so characteristic of him in youth asserted
itself after another year and he joined me, then in my junior year at the
University of Missouri, at Columbia. It was at this institution that he
finished his education so far as it related to prescribed study.
Shortly after attaining his majority he went to Europe, remaining six
months in France and Italy. From this European trip have sprung the
absurd stories which have represented him as squandering thousands of
dollars in the pursuit of pleasure. Unquestionably he had the not
unnatural extravagance which accompanies youth and a most generous
disposition, for he was lavish and open-handed all through life to an
unusual degree, but at no time was he particularly given to wild
excesses, and the fact that my father's estate, which was largely realty,
had shrunk perceptibly during the panic days of 1873 was enough to
make him soon reach the limit of even moderate extravagance. At the

same time many good stories have been told illustrative of his contempt
for money, and it is eminently characteristic of his lack of the Puritan
regard for small things that one day he approached my father's executor,
Hon. M. L. Gray, of St. Louis, with a request for seventy-five dollars.
"But," objected this cautious and excellent man, "I gave you
seventy-five dollars only yesterday, Eugene. What did you do with
that?"
"Oh," replied my brother, with an impatient and scornful toss of the
head, "I believe I bought some postage stamps."
Before going to Europe he had met Miss Julia Sutherland Comstock, of
St. Joseph, Missouri, the sister of a college friend, and the attachment
which was formed led to their marriage in October, 1873. Much of his
tenderest and sweetest verse was inspired by love for the woman who
became his wife, and the dedication to the "Second Book of Verse" is
hardly surpassed for depth of affection and daintiness of sentiment,
while "Lover's Lane, St. Jo.," is the very essence of loyalty, love, and
reminiscential ardor. At the time of his marriage my brother realized
the importance of going to work in earnest, and shortly before the
appointment of the wedding-day he entered upon the active duties of
journalism, which he never relinquished during life. These duties, with
the exception of the year he passed in Europe with his family in
1889-90, were confined to the West. He began as a paragrapher in St.
Louis, quickly achieving somewhat more than a merely local reputation.
For a time he was in St. Joseph, and for eighteen months following
January 1880 he lived in Kansas City, removing thence to Denver. In
1883 he came to Chicago at the solicitation of Melville E. Stone, then
editor of the Chicago Daily News, retaining his connection with the
News and its offspring, the Record, until his death. Thus hastily have
been skimmed over the bare outlines of his life.
The formative period of my brother's youth was passed in New
England, and to the influences which still prevail in and around her
peaceful hills and