Eugene Field, a Study in Heredity and Contradictions Volume II Part 22

And it concluded with a loyal defence of his old friend and a.s.sociate, "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 Sat.u.r.day that he did not leave his bed. That, however, did not prevent his finis.h.i.+ng 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 a.s.sured 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 wis.h.i.+ng 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 pa.s.sed 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 pa.s.sage 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 s.h.i.+eld, 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 s.h.i.+eld; 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 s.h.i.+eld, 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 G.o.d'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 st.u.r.dy 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 G.o.d, 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 cla.s.ses 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 a.s.sisted 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 pa.s.sed 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 s.h.i.+ning 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 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 ma.n.u.script 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 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 brow Looks down where lies "Three-fingered Hoover."

5.

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 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 heart Shall live till life and language perish.

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, s.h.i.+elding 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 THRUSH A bird voice comes from the maple Across the green of the sod, Breaking the silence of evening That rests on this "acre of G.o.d."

'Tis the note of the bird of the woodland, Of thickets and sunless retreats; Yet the plas.h.i.+ng 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 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 ill.u.s.trate 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 compa.s.s a fair sketch of the tale and the argument which Mr. Head has presented so entertainingly, so elegantly, and so persuasively.

Before his courts.h.i.+p 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 amus.e.m.e.nt 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 coa.r.s.e, 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 Devons.h.i.+re 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.