Produced by Charles Aldarondo, Keren Vergon, Charles Bidwell
and PG Distributed Proofreaders
Vol. IX
"It is about impossible for a man to get rid of his Puritan grandfathers,and nobody who has ever had one has ever escaped his Puritan grandmother;"so said Eugene Field to me one sweet April day, when we talked together ofthe things of the spirit. It is one of his own confessions that he wasfond of clergymen. Most preachers are supposed to be helplessly tied upwith such a set of limitations that there are but a few jokes which theymay tolerate, and a small number of delights into which they may enter.Doubtless many a cheerful soul likes to meet such of the clergy, in orderthat the worldling may feel the contrast of liberty with bondage, anddemonstrate by bombardment of wit and humor, how intellectually thin arethe walls against which certain forms of skepticism and fun offend. EugeneField did not belong to these. He called them "a tribe which do unseemlybeset the saints." Nobody has ever had a more numerous or loving clientageof friendship among the ministers of this city than the author of "TheHoly Cross" and "The Little Yaller Baby." Those of this number who wereclosest to the full-hearted singer know that beneath and within all hisexquisite wit and ludicrous raillery—so often directed against theshallow formalist, or the unctuous hypocrite—there were an aspirationtoward the divine, and a desire for what is often slightingly called"religious conversation," as sincere as it was resistless within him. Myown first remembrance of him brings back a conversation which ended in aprayer, and the last sight I had of him was when he said, only four daysbefore his death, "Well, then, we will set the day soon and you will comeout and baptize the children."
Some of the most humorous of his letters which have come under theobservation of his clerical friends, were addressed to the secretary ofone of them. Some little business matters with regard to his readings andthe like had acquainted him with a better kind of handwriting than he hadbeen accustomed to receive from his pastor, and, noting the finelyappended signature, "per —— ——," Field wrote a most effusivelycomplimentary letter to his ministerial friend, congratulating him uponthe fact that emanations from his office, or parochial study, were "nowreadable as far West as Buena Park." At length, nothing having appeared inwriting by which he might discover that —— —— was a lady of his ownacquaintance, she whose valuable services he desired to recognize was madethe recipient of a series of beautifully illuminated and daintily writtenletters, all of them quaintly begun, continued, and ended inecclesiastical terminology, most of them having to do with affairs inwhich the two gentlemen only were primarily interested, the larger numberof them addressed in English to "Brother ——," in care of the minister,and yet others directed in Latin:
Ad Fratrem —— ——
In curam, Sanctissimi patris ——, doctoris divinitatis,
Apud Institutionem Armouriensem,
CHICAGO,
ILLINOIS.
{Ab Eugenic Agro, peccatore misere}
Even the mail-carrier appeared to know what fragrant humor escaped fromthe envelope.
Here is a specimen inclosure:
BROTHER ——: I am to read some of my things before the senior class ofthe Chicago University next Mon