E-text prepared by Al Haines
"Presently the whole company was moved by a gentle pity."
Drawn by S. W. Van Schaik.
THE WORKS OF EUGENE FIELD
Vol. V
THE WRITINGS IN PROSE AND VERSE OF EUGENE FIELD
THE HOLY CROSS AND OTHER TALES
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
NEW YORK
1911
Copyright, 1893, by
EUGENE FIELD.
Copyright, 1896, by
JULIA SUTHERLAND FIELD.
DEDICATED WITH LOVE
AND GRATITUDE TO
ROSWELL MARTIN FIELD
NOTE.
To this volume as it was originally issued have been added five Tales,beginning with "The Platonic Bassoon," which are characteristic of thevarious moods, serious, gay, or pathetic, out of which grew the bestwork of the author's later years.
INTRODUCTION
ALAS, POOR YORICK!
In paying a tribute to the mingled mirth and tenderness of EugeneField—the poet of whose going the West may say, "He took our daylightwith him"—one of his fellow journalists has written that he was ajester, but not of the kind that Shakespeare drew in Yorick. He wasnot only,—so the writer implied,—the maker of jibes and fantasticdevices, but the bard of friendship and affection, of melodious lyricalconceits; he was the laureate of children—dear for his "Wynken,Blynken and Nod" and "Little Boy Blue"; the scholarly book-lover,withal, who relished and paraphrased his Horace, who wrote with delighta quaint archaic English of his special devising; who collected rarebooks, and brought out his own "Little Books" of "Western Verse" and"Profitable Tales" in high-priced limited editions, with broad marginsof paper that moths and rust do not corrupt, but which temptsbibliomaniacs to break through and steal.
For my own part, I would select Yorick as the very forecast, inimaginative literature, of our various Eugene. Surely Shakespeareconceived the "mad rogue" of Elsinore as made up of grave and gay, ofwit and gentleness, and not as a mere clown or "jig maker." It is truethat when Field put on his cap and bells, he too was "wont to set thetable on a roar," as the feasters at a hundred tables, from "Casey'sTable d'Hôte" to the banquets of the opulent East, now rise to testify.But Shakespeare plainly reveals, concerning Yorick, that mirth was nothis sole attribute,—that his motley covered the sweetest nature andthe tenderest heart. It could be no otherwise with one who loved andcomprehended childhood and whom the children loved. And what doesHamlet say?—"He hath borne me upon his back a thousand times …Here hung those lips that I have kissed I know not how oft!" Of whatis he thinking but of his boyhood, before doubts and contemplationwrapped him in t