The Holy Cross and Other Tales | Page 2

the true ruler of France? To come to
the jesters of history--which is so much less real than fiction--what
laurels are greener than those of Triboulet, and Will Somers, and John
Heywood--dramatist and master of the king's merry Interludes? Their
shafts were feathered with mirth and song, but pointed with wisdom,
and well might old John Trussell say "That it often happens that wise
counsel is more sweetly followed when it is tempered with folly, and
earnest is the less offensive if it be delivered in jest."
Yes, Field "caught on" to his time--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. Fortune had given him that unforgettable mummer's
face,--that clean-cut, mobile visage,--that animated natural mask! No
one else had so deep and rich a voice for the rendering of the music and
pathos of a poet's lines, and no actor ever managed both face and voice
better than he in delivering his own verses merry or sad. One night, he
was seen among the audience at "Uncut Leaves," and was instantly
requested to do something towards the evening's entertainment. As he

was not in evening dress, he refused to take the platform, but stood up
in the lank length of an ulster, from his corner seat, and recited
"Dibdin's Ghost" and "Two Opinions" in a manner which blighted the
chances of the readers that came after him. It is true that no clown ever
equalled the number and lawlessness of his practical jokes. Above all,
every friend that he had--except the Dean of his profession, for whom
he did exhibit unbounded and filial reverence--was soon or late a victim
of his whimsicality, or else justly distrusted the measure of Field's
regard for him. Nor was the friendship perfected until one bestirred
himself to pay Eugene back in kind. As to this, I am only one of scores
now speaking from personal experience. There seemed to be no doubt
in his mind that the victim of his fun, even when it outraged common
sensibilities, must enjoy it as much as he. Who but Eugene, after being
the welcome guest, at a European capital, of one of our most ambitious
and refined ambassadors, would have written a lyric, sounding the
praises of a German "onion pie," ending each stanza with
Ach, Liebe! Ach, mein Gott!
and would have printed it in America, with his host's initials affixed?
My own matriculation at Eugene's College of Unreason was in this
wise. In 1887, Mr. Ben Ticknor, the Boston publisher, was complaining
that he needed some new and promising authors to enlarge his book-list.
The New York "Sun" and "Tribune" had been copying Field's rhymes
and prose extravaganzas--the former often very charming, the latter the
broadest satire of Chicago life and people. I suggested to Mr. Ticknor
that he should ask the poet-humorist to collect, for publication in
book-form, the choicest of his writings thus far. To make the story brief,
Mr. Field did so, and the outcome--at which I was somewhat taken
aback--was the remarkable book, "Culture's Garland," with its title
imitated from the sentimental "Annuals" of long ago, and its cover
ornamented with sausages linked together as a coronal wreath! The
symbol certainly fitted the greater part of the contents, which
ludicrously scored the Chicago "culture" of that time, and made
Pullman, Armour, and other commercial magnates of the Lakeside City
special types in illustration. All this had its use, and many of the

sufferers long since became the farceur's devoted friends. The Fair
showed the country what Chicago really was and is. Certainly there is
no other American city where the richest class appear so enthusiastic
with respect to art and literature. "The practice of virtue makes men
virtuous," and even if there was some pretence and affectation in the
culture of ten years ago, it has resulted in as high standards of taste as
can elsewhere be found. Moreover, if our own "four hundred" had even
affected, or made it the fashion to be interested in, whatever makes for
real culture, the intellectual life of this metropolis would not now be so
far apart from the "social swim." There were scattered through
"Culture's Garland" not a few of Field's delicate bits of verse. In some
way he found that I had instigated Mr. Ticknor's request, and, although
I was thinking solely of the publisher's interests, he expressed unstinted
gratitude. Soon afterwards I was delighted to receive from him a quarto
parchment "breviary," containing a dozen ballads, long and short,
engrossed in his exquisitely fine handwriting, and illuminated with
colored borders and drawings by the poet