Eugene Field, a Study in Heredity and Contradictions Volume I Part 11

Up another long, narrow, dark stairway was the office of Mr. Ballantyne, the managing editor. He occupied what had been a rear hall bedroom, 7 x 10 feet. He was six feet two tall, and if he had not been of an orderly nature, there would not have been room in that back closet, with its one window and flat-topped desk, for his feet and the retriever, Snip-the only dog Field ever thoroughly detested. Ballantyne's room was evidently arranged to prevent any private conferences with the managing editor. It boasted a second chair, but when the visitor accepted the rare invitation to be seated, his knees prevented the closing of the door. The remainder of this floor of the centre building and the whole of the same floor of the next building south were taken up by the composing room. A door had been cut in the wall of the building to the north, just by Mr. Ballantyne's room, through which, and down three steps, was the s.p.a.ce devoted to the editorial and reportorial staff of the Morning News. The front end of this s.p.a.ce was part.i.tioned off into three rooms, 7 x 12 feet each. Field claimed one of these boxes, the dramatic critic and solitary artist of the establishment one, and Morgan Bates, the exchange editor, and I were sandwiched in between them. The rest of the floor was given up to the city staff. The telegraph editor had a s.p.a.ce railed off for his accommodation in the composing room. If a fire had broken out in the central building in those days, along about ten P.M., the subsequent proceedings of Eugene Field and of others then employed on the Morning News would probably not have been of further interest, except to the coroner.

Of the three rooms mentioned, Field's was the only one having any pretensions to decoration. Its floor and portions of the wall were stained and grained a rich brown with the juice of the tobacco plant. In one corner Field had a cupboard-shaped pigeon-file, alphabetically arranged, for the clippings he daily made-almost all relating some bit of personal gossip about people in the public eye. Scattered about the floor were dumb-bells, Indian clubs, and other gymnastic apparatus which Field never touched and which the janitor had orders not to disturb in their disorder. Above Field's desk for some time hung a sheet of tin, which he used as a call bell or to drown the noise of the office boy poking the big globe stove which was the primitive, but generally effective, way of heating the whole floor in winter. That it was not always effective, even after steam was introduced, may be inferred from the following importunate note written by Field to Collins Shackelford, the cashier, on one occasion when the former had been frozen almost numb:

DEAR MR. SHACKELFORD: There has been no steam in the third-floor editorial rooms this afternoon. Somebody must be responsible for this brutal neglect, which is of so frequent occurrence that forbearance has ceased to be a virtue. I appeal to you in the hope that you will be able to correct the outrage. Does it not seem an injustice that the writers of this paper should be put at the mercy of sub-cellar hands, who are continually demonstrating their incompetency for the work which they are supposed to do and for which they are paid?

Yours truly,

EUGENE FIELD.

January 11, 1887.

To those familiar with the internal economy of newspaper offices it will be no news to learn that death by freezing in the editorial rooms would be regarded as a matter of small moment compared to a temperature in the press room that chilled the printing ink in the fountains to the slow consistency of mola.s.ses in January.

To return to the furnishing of the room in which Field did the greater part of his work for the Morning News. Originally it did not boast a desk. A pine table with two drawers was considered good enough for the most brilliant paragrapher in the United States, and, for all he cared, so it was. He had no special use for a desk, for at that time he carried his library in his head and wrote on his lap. I am happy in being able to present in corroboration of this a study of Eugene Field at work, drawn from life by his friend, J.L. Sclanders, then artist for the News, and also the copy of a blue print photograph, on the back of which Field wrote, "And they call this art!"

In explanation of these pictures, both true to life when made, it should be said that, except when there was no steam on, Field almost invariably wrote in his shirt-sleeves, generally with his waistcoat unb.u.t.toned and his collar off, and always with his feet crossed across the corner of the desk or table. One of the first things he did on coming to the office was to take off his shoes and put on a pair of slippers with no counters around the heels, so that they slapped along the floor as he walked and hung from his toes as he wrote.

Why Field always rolled up the bottoms of his trousers on coming into the office and turned them down when he went out, I do not remember to have known. Probably it was partly on account of his contradictory nature, and partly to save the trousers from dragging, for the unloosening of his "vest" was always attended by the unb.u.t.toning of his suspenders to permit of his sitting with greater ease upon the curve of his spine. But why he should have rolled his trousers half way up to the knee pa.s.ses my comprehension, as the reason has pa.s.sed from my memory, if I ever knew it.

For a long time a rusty old carpenter's saw hung on the wall of his "boudoir." Beside it were some burglars' implements, and subsequently a convict's suit hanging to a peg excited the wonder of the curious and the sarcasm of the ribald.

The table in Field's room, besides serving as a resting place for his feet, was covered with the exchanges which were pa.s.sed along to him after they had pa.s.sed under the scrutiny and shears of the exchange editor. When Field had gone through them with his rusty scissors they were only fit for the floor, where he strewed them with a riotous hand.

If the reader has followed thus far he has a tolerably fair notion of the unpropitious and eccentric surroundings amid which Field worked immediately after coming to Chicago. Out of this strange environment came as variegated a column of satire, wit, and personal persiflage as ever attracted and fascinated the readers of a daily newspaper.

And now of the man himself as I first saw him. He was at that time in his thirty-third year, my junior by a year. If Eugene Field had ever stood up to his full height he would have measured slightly over six feet. But he never did and was content to shamble through life, appearing two inches shorter than he really was. Shamble is perhaps hardly the word to use. But neither glide nor shuffle fits his gait any more accurately. It was simply a walk with the least possible waste of energy. It fitted Dr. Holmes's definition of walking as forward motion to prevent falling. And yet Field never gave you the impression that he was about to topple over. His legs always acted as if they were weary and would like to lean their master up against something. As to what that something might be, he would probably have answered, "Pie."

Field's arms were long, ending in well-shaped hands, which were remarkably deft and would have been attractive had he not at some time spoiled the fingers by the nail-biting habit. His shoulders were broad and square, and not nearly as much rounded as might have been expected from his position in writing. It was not the stoop of his shoulders that detracted from his height, but a certain settling together, if I may so say, of the couplings of his backbone. He was large-boned throughout, but without the muscles that should have gone with such a frame. He would probably have described himself as tall, big, gangling. He had no personal taste or pride in clothing, and never to my knowledge came across a tailor who took enough interest in his clothes to give him the benefit of a good fit or to persuade him to choose a becoming color. For this reason he looked best-dressed in a dress suit, which he never wore when there was any possibility of avoiding it. His favorite coat was a sack, cut straight, and made from some cloth in which the various shades of yellow, green, and brown struggled for mastery.

But it was of little consequence how Field's body was clothed. He wore a 7 3-8 hat and there was a head and face under it that compelled a second glance and repaid scrutiny in any company. The photographs of Field are numerous, and some of them preserve a fair impression of his remarkable physiognomy. None of the paintings of him that I have seen do him justice, and the etchings are not much of an improvement on the paintings. The best photographs only fail because they cannot retain the peculiar deathlike pallor of the skin and the clear, innocent china blue of the large eyes. These eyes were deep set under two arching brows, and yet were so large that their deep setting was not at first apparent. Field's nose was a good size and well shaped, with an unusual curve of the nostrils strangely complementary to the curve of the arch above the eyes. There was a mole on one cheek, which Field always insisted on turning to the camera and which the photographer very generally insisted on retouching out in the finishing. Field was wont to say that no photograph of him was genuine unless that mole was "blown in on the negative." The photographs all give him a good chin, in which there was merely the suggestion of that cleft which he held marred the strength of George William Curtis's lower jaw.

The feature of his face, if such it can be called, where all portraits failed, was the hair. It was so fine that there would not have been much of it had it been thick, and as it was quite thin there was only a shadow between it and baldness. Even its color was elusive-a cross between brown and dove color. Only those who knew Field before he came to Chicago have any impression as to the color of the thatch upon that head which never during our acquaintance stooped to a slouch hat. This typical head gear of the West had no attraction for him. The formal black or brown derby for winter and the seasonable straw hat for summer seemed necessary to tone down the frivolity of his neckties, which were chosen with a cowboy's gaudy taste. To the day of his death Field delighted to present neckties, generally of the made-up variety, to his friends, which, it is needless to say, they never failed to accept and seldom wore. Often in the afternoon as it neared two o'clock he would stick his head above the part.i.tion between our rooms and say, "Come along, Nompy" (his familiar address for the writer). "Come along and I'll buy you a new necktie."

"The d.i.c.kens take your neckties!" or something like it, would be my reply.

Whereupon, with the philosophy of which he never wearied, Field would rejoin, "Very well, if you won't let me buy you a necktie, you must buy me a lunch," and off we would march to Henrici's coffee-house around the corner on Madison Street, generally gathering Ballantyne and Snip in our train as we pa.s.sed the kennel of the managing editor of what was to be the newspaper with the largest morning circulation in Chicago.

CHAPTER XIII

RELATIONS WITH STAGE FOLK

Reference has been made to Field's predilection for the theatrical profession and to his fondness for the companionship of those who had attained prominence in it. During his stay in Denver he had established friendly, and in some instances intimate, relations with the star actors who included that city in the circuit of their yearly pilgrimages. The story of how he ingratiated himself into the good graces of Christine Nilsson, at the expense of a rival newspaper, may be of interest before taking a final farewell of the episodes connected with his life in Colorado. When Madame Nilsson was journeying overland in her special drawing-room car with Henry Abbey, Marcus Meyer, and Charles Mathews, Field wrote to Omaha, antic.i.p.ating their arrival there, to make inquiry as to how the party employed the dull hours of travel so as to interest the erratic prima donna. It was his intention to prepare a newspaper sketch of the trip.

The reply was barren of incident, save a casual allusion to certain sittings at the American game of poker, in which the Swedish songstress had the advantage of the policy or the luck of her companions. Out of this inch of cloth Field manufactured something better than the proverbial ell of very interesting gossip. The reconstructed item reached San Francisco as soon as Madame Nilsson, and was copied from the Tribune into the coast papers on the eve of her opening concert. Now, the madame thought that the American world looked askance at a woman who gambled, and when the article was kindly brought to her attention she flew into one of those rages which, report has said, were the real tragedies of her life. When returning overland to Denver, Abbey telegraphed ahead to Field, and he, with Cowen, went up to Cheyenne to meet the party. On entering the drawing-room car the visitors were hurried into Abbey's compartment with an air of bewildering mystery, and were there informed in whispers that Madame Nilsson was furious against the Tribune and would never forgive anybody attached to it.

"Oh, I'll arrange that," said Field. "Don't announce us, but let us call on the madame and be introduced."

After some further parley this was done, and this is how he was greeted.

"Meestair Field-zee-T-r-ee-bune," Madame Nilsson exclaimed hotly. "I prefair not zee acquaintance of your joor-nal."

"Excuse me, madam," persisted Field, blandly and with grave earnestness, "I think from what Mr. Abbey has told us that you are bent on doing the Tribune and its staff a great injustice. It was not the Tribune that published the poker story that caused you so much just annoyance. It was our rival, the Republican, a very disreputable newspaper, which is edited by persons without the least instinct of gentlemen and with no consideration for the feelings of a lady of your refined sensibilities."

At this Madame Nilsson thawed visibly, and promptly appealed to Abbey, Mathews, and Mayer to learn if she had been misinformed. They, of course, fell in with Field's story, and upon being a.s.sured that she was in error the madame's anger relaxed, and she was soon holding her sides from laughter at Field's drolleries. The result was that the innocent Republican staff could not get within speaking distance of Madame Nilsson during her stay in Denver. The second night of her visit being Christmas eve, the madame held her Christmas tree in the Windsor Hotel, with Field acting the role of Santa Claus and the Tribune staff playing the parts of good little boys, while their envious rivals of the Republican were not invited to share in the crumbs that fell from that Christmas supper-table.

"I have been a great theatre-goer," says Field in his "Auto-a.n.a.lysis." And it may be doubted if any writer of our time repaid the stage as generously for the pleasure he received from those who walked its boards before and behind the footlights. No better a.n.a.lysis of his relations to the profession has been made than that from the pen of his friend Cowen:

"At the very outset of his newspaper career," says he, "Field's inclinations led him to the society of the green-room. Of western critics and reviewers he was the first favorite among dramatic people. Helpful, kind, and enthusiastic, he was rarely severe and never captious. Though in no sense an a.n.a.lyst, he was an amusing reviewer and a great advertiser. Once he conceived an attachment for an actor or actress, his generous mind set about bringing such fortunate person more conspicuously into public notice. Emma Abbott's baby, which she never had, and of whose invented existence he wrote at least a bookful of startling and funny adventures; Francis Wilson's legs; Sol Smith Russell's Yankee yarns; Billy Crane's droll stories; Modjeska's spicy witticisms-these and other jocular pufferies, quoted and read everywhere with relish for years-were among his hobby-horse performances begun at that time (1881) and continued long after he had settled down in the must and rust of bibliomania."

For a long time not a week went by that Field did not invent some marvellous tale respecting Emma Abbott, once the most popular light-opera prima donna of the American stage-every yarn calculated to widen the circle of her popularity. Upon an absolutely fict.i.tious autobiography of Miss Abbott he once exhausted the fertility of his fancy in the form of a review,[1] which went the rounds of the press and which, on her death, contributed many a sober paragraph to the newspaper reviews of her life.

To the fame of another opera singer of those days he contributed, by paragraphs of an entirely different flavor from those that extolled the Puritan virtues and domestic felicities of Miss Abbott (Mrs. Wetherell), as may be judged from the following "Love Plaint," written shortly after he came to Chicago:

The tiny birdlings in the tree Their tuneful tales of love relate- Alas, no lover comes to me- I flock alone, without a mate.

Mine eyes are hot with bitter tears, My soul disconsolately yearns- But, ah, no wooing knight appears- In vain my quenchless pa.s.sion burns.

Unheeded are my glowing charms- No heroes claim a moonlight tryst- All empty are my hungry arms- My virgin cheeks are all unkissed.

Oh, would some cavalier might haste To crown me with his manly love, And, with his arm about my waist, Feed on my cherry lips above.

Alas, my blush and bloom will fade, And I shall lose my dulcet notes- Then I shall die an old, old maid, And none will mourn Miss Alice Oates.

Of his friendship with Francis Wilson there is no need to write here, for is it not fully set forth in that charming little brochure, in which Mr. Wilson gives to the world a characteristic sketch of the Eugene Field and bibliomaniac he knew, and in whose work he was so deeply interested? But Mr. Wilson does not tell how he was pursued and plagued with the following genial invention which Field printed in his column in 1884, and which still occasionally turns up in country exchanges:

"Mr. Francis Wilson, the comedian, is a nephew of Pere Hyacinthe, the ancient divine. During his recent sojourn in Paris he was the pere's guest, and finally became deeply interested in the great work of reform in which the famous preacher is engaged. His intimate acquaintances say that Mr. Wilson is fully determined to retire from the stage at the expiration of five years and devote himself to theological pursuits. He gave Pere Hyacinthe his promise to this effect, and his sincerity is undoubted."

William Florence, the comedian, was an actor of whom, on and off the stage, Field never wearied. Night after night would we go to see "Billy," as he was familiarly and irreverently called, as Bardwell Slote in the "Mighty Dollar," or as Captain Cuttle in "Dombey and Son." Although originally an Irish comedian of rollicking and contagious humor, Florence had played "Bardwell Slote" so constantly and for so many years that his voice and manner in every-day life had the ingratiating tone of that typical Washington lobbyist. Before his death, while touring with Jefferson as Sir Lucius O'Trigger in "The Rivals," he renewed his earlier triumphs in Irish character, but, even here the accents of the oily Bardwell gave an additional touch of blarney to his brogue.

One of the stories that Field delighted to tell of Florence dates back to 1884, when Monseigneur Capel was in the United States. It related with the circ.u.mspection of verity how Florence and the Monseigneur had been friends for a number of years. Meeting on the street in Chicago, the story ran, after a general conversation Florence asked Capel whether he ever spent an evening at the theatre, intending, in case of an affirmative reply, to invite him to one of his performances. Capel shook his head. "No," said he, "it has been twenty-four years since I attended a theatre, and I cannot conscientiously bring myself to patronize a place where the devil is preached." Florence protested that the monseigneur placed a false estimate on the theatrical profession.

"Ah, no," replied Capel, with a sad smile; "you people are sincere enough; you don't know it, but you preach the devil all the same."

"Well, your grace," inquired Florence, with great urbanity, "which is worse, preaching the devil from the stage without knowing it, or preaching Christ crucified from the pulpit without believing it?"

"Both are reprehensible," replied Monseigneur Capel; and, bowing stiffly, he went his way, while Florence shrugged his shoulders a la his own fascinating creation of Jules Obenreizer in "No Thoroughfare," and walked off in the opposite direction, whistling to himself as he walked.

Florence delighted in companionship and in the good things and good stories of the table, whether at a noon breakfast which lasted well through the afternoon or at the midnight supper which knew no hour for breaking up, and he never came to Chicago that we did not accommodate our convenience to his late hours for breakfast or supper. Nothing short of a concealed stenographer could have done these gatherings justice. Mr. Stone footed the bills, and Field, Florence, Edward J. McPhelim of the Chicago Tribune, poet and dramatic critic, and three or four others of the Daily News staff did the rest. The eating was good, although the dishes were sometimes weird, the company was better, the stories, anecdotes, reminiscences, songs, and flow of soul beyond compare. Field, who ate sparingly and touched liquor not at all, unless it was to pa.s.s a connoisseurs judgment upon some novel, strange, and rare brand, divided the honors of the hour with the entire company.

In acknowledgment of such attentions, Florence always insisted that before the close of his engagements we should all be his guests at a regular Italian luncheon of spaghetti at Cap.r.o.ni's, down on Wabash Avenue. It is needless to say that the spaghetti was merely the central dish, around which revolved and was devoured every delicacy that Florence had ever heard of in his Italian itinerary, the whole washed down with strange wines from the same sunny land. Florence's fondness for this sort of thing gave zest to a story Field told of his friend's experience in London, in the summer of 1890. The epicurean actor had made an excursion up the Thames with a select party of English clubmen. Two days later Florence was still abed at Morley's, and, as he said, contemplated staying there forever. Sir Morell Mackenzie was called to see him. After sounding his lungs, listening to his heart, thumping his chest and back, looking at his tongue, and testing his breath with medicated paper, Sir Morell said:

"As near as I can get at it, you are a victim of misplaced confidence. You have been training with the young bucks when you should have been ploughing around with the old stags. You must quit it. Otherwise it will do you up."

"Well now," said Florence, as related by Field, "that was the saddest day of my life. Just think of shutting down on the boys, after being one of them for sixty years! But Sir Morell told the truth. The Garrick Club boys were terribly mad about it; they said Sir Morell was a quack, and they adopted resolutions declaring a lack of confidence in his medical skill. But my mind was made up. 'Billy,' says I to myself, 'you must let up, you've made a record; it's a long one and an honorable one. Now you must retire. Your life henceforth shall be reminiscent and its declining years shall be hallowed by the refulgent rays of retrospection.' To that resolution I have adhered steadily. People tell me that I am as young as ever; but no, they can't fool me, I know better."

Whereupon, according to Field, "Joe" Jefferson broke in incredulously: "Just to ill.u.s.trate the folly of all that talk, I'll tell you what I saw last night. When I returned to the hotel, after the play, I went up to Billy's room and found Billy and the President of the Philadelphia Catnip Club at supper. What do you suppose they had? Stewed terrapin and frapped champagne!"

"That's all right enough," exclaimed Mr. Florence. "Terrapin and champagne never hurt anybody; I have had 'em all my life. What I maintain is that people of my age should not and cannot indulge in extravagance of diet. The utmost simplicity must be the rule of their life. If Joe would only eat terrapin and drink champagne he wouldn't be grunting around with dyspepsia all the time. He lives on boiled mutton and graham bread, and the public call him 'the reverend veteran Joseph Jefferson.' I stick to terrapin, green turtle, canvasbacks, and the like, and every young chap in the land slaps me on the back, calls me Billy, and regards me as a contemporary. But I ain't; I'm getting old-not too old, but just old enough!"