s in this wise.
In 1887, Mr. Ben Ticknor, the Boston publisher, was complaining that he
needed some new and promising authors to enlarge his book-list. The
New York "Sun" and "Tribune" had been copying Field's rhymes and prose
extravaganzas--the former often very charming, the latter the broadest
satire of Chicago life and people. I suggested to Mr. Ticknor that he
should ask the poet-humorist to collect, for publication in book-form,
the choicest of his writings thus far. To make the story brief, Mr.
Field did so, and the outcome--at which I was somewhat taken aback--was
the remarkable book, "Culture's Garland," with its title imitated from
the sentimental "Annuals" of long ago, and its cover ornamented with
sausages linked together as a coronal wreath! The symbol certainly
fitted the greater part of the contents, which ludicrously scored the
Chicago "culture" of that time, and made Pullman, Armour, and other
commercial magnates of the Lakeside City special types in illustration.
All this had its use, and many of the sufferers long since became the
_farceur's_ devoted friends. The Fair showed the country what Chicago
really was and is. Certainly there is no other American city where the
richest class appear so enthusiastic with respect to art and
literature. "The practice of virtue makes men virtuous," and even if
there was some pretence and affectation in the culture of ten years
ago, it has resulted in as high standards of taste as can elsewhere be
found. Moreover, if our own "four hundred" had even affected, or made
it the fashion to be interested in, whatever makes for real culture,
the intellectual life of this metropolis would not now be so far apart
from the "social swim." There were scattered through "Culture's
Garland" not a few of Field's delicate bits of verse. In some way he
found that I had instigated Mr. Ticknor's request, and, although I was
thinking solely of the publisher's interests, he expressed unstinted
gratitude. Soon afterwards I was delighted to receive from him a
quarto parchment "breviary," containing a dozen ballads, long and
short, engrossed in his exquisitely fine handwriting, and illuminated
with colored borders and drawings by the poet himself. It must have
required days for the mechanical execution, and certainly I would not
now exchange it for its weight in diamonds. This was the way our
friendship began. It was soon strengthened by meetings and
correspondence, and never af