Beholds and smiles that bagatelles so small
Should seek to devastate the slumbering earth—
Then smiling still he pours on one and all
The warmth and sunshine of his grateful mirth;
So he who rules in humor's vast domain,
Borne far away by some Ohio train,
Returns again, like some recurring sun,
And shining, God-like, on the furrowed plain
Repairs the ills that envious hands have done.
But the daring violation of Field's confidence effected its purpose. Never again did he employ the type-worn expressions of country journalism, except with set prepense and self-evident satire. He shunned them as he did an English solecism, which he never committed, save as a decoy to draw the fire of the ever-watchful and hopeless grammatical purist.