It is Mr. Field's intention to produce a Horace at $20 a copy, the edition limited to fifty; printed on Japanese proof and pasted on Whatman hand-made paper; rubricated throughout, with etched vignettes and tail-pieces, and I want copy No. 1. Sometimes even the swift citizens of Chicago must get their information from slow-going Philadelphia. I do not know whether it is Mr. F.'s intention to have you get out his affectionate effort, but I should hope not—being guided, of course, by your expressed doubt and wonderment in the matter. However, I promise not to say anything about this to Mr. Field. I sent you the $20 so as to be in time for the copy I wish, and I know you'll not object to holding it until Mr. Field's return, which ought to be not later than May—as he writes. I shall also send you other subscriptions, which you may turn over to Mr. Hobart Taylor in the event of your discovering that gentleman has fewer qualms of conscience than yourself in the matter. If he has not, you must keep the money as a punishment for the uncomplimentary allusion you have made to Field's Horace.
Soit!
Very sincerely,
FRANCIS WILSON.
With the suspicious fervor of your hopeless collector of first editions, Mr. Wilson finally decided to publish Field's renditions from Horace himself, so as to be sure of having copy No. 1. And yet he had the almost unheard-of magnanimity to send that cherished copy to Field, who returned it with a prettily worded note, in which he acknowledged his obligation to Mr. Wilson and expressed the hope that the latter would live forever, provided he, Field, could "live one day longer to write his epitaph." Not until I came across the foregoing letter have I understood why Wilson thwarted all Field's efforts to present me with a copy of the precious edition of "The Sabine Farm." They profited by my advice, however, and postponed publication for two years, Field and his brother Roswell in the meantime working assiduously in making new paraphrases of Horace and in polishing the old ones.
The mutations of journalism which had sent Cowen scurrying over Europe when Field had counted on having his companionship in London carried the former back to Washington, where he joined with some other equally sanguine writers in the attempt to float a literary and political periodical named The Critic. On February 15th, 1890, Field wrote to his friend from No. 20 Alfred Square:
MY DEAR COWEN: The improvement which you boys have made in the Critic is very marked. If you can hold out long enough, you will win—you are bound to. You have youth, experience, and ambition upon your side, and they are potent factors. Of course you know that my earnest sympathies are, and will be, with you.
I am feeling quite well now. I have secured the Gladstone axe, with documents from the grand old man proving its identity. I also have Charles Kean's Hamlet chair, but I can't prove it. Meanwhile I bankrupt myself buying books, letters, and play-bills. Oh, for $200! How rich I should feel. Did you give Hawkins his two night-shirts and the tie? And did you send the sleeping-socks to Mrs. Ballantyne? I must send some little souvenir to Buskett. Do tell him to write to me and tell me how he happened to leave the mountains. By the way, I wish you would secure for me from the Postmaster-General or his assistant a set of proofs of government stamps. I have begun making a collection, and he will provide that much, if properly approached. The children are well. The boys dun me regularly. Pinny is more artful about it than the rest. He makes all sorts of promises, calls me "dearest papa," and sends me arithmetical problems he has solved and German stories he has pilfered from his reader. Still, I am very proud of those children; at any rate, I want to go first. Give my love to Hawkins and his wife and to Buskett; Julia joins me in affectionate remembrances to you all. God bless you, my beloved friend.
EUGENE FIELD.
There was no shadow in this letter of the sorrow which was then hovering over his home and family. Out of a cheerful heart he wrote, "I am feeling quite well now," although the mists and fogs of London were chilling him to the marrow, while the social attentions were tempting him to dietetic destruction. A few months after he wrote the words, "The children are well" and "At any rate, I want to go first," he was returning to America with the body of his eldest son, who died suddenly in Holland, and facing bravely the fact that his own vitality had been fatally impaired. "What exceeding folly," he wrote to a friend, "was it that tempted me to cross the sea in search of what I do not seem able to find here—a righteous stomach? I have been wallowing in the slough of despond for a week and my digestive apparatus has gone wrong again. I have suffered tortures that would have done credit to the inventive genius of a Dante, and the natural consequence is that I am as blue as a whetstone."