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Page 4
Toward the close of August of the present year my brother wrote
the first chapter of ``The Love Affairs of a Bibliomaniac.''
At that time he was in an exhausted physical condition and
apparently unfit for any protracted literary labor. But the
prospect of gratifying a long-cherished ambition, the delight of
beginning the story he had planned so hopefully, seemed to give
him new strength, and he threw himself into the work with an
enthusiasm that was, alas, misleading to those who had noted
fearfully his declining vigor of body. For years no literary
occupation had seemed to give him equal pleasure, and in the
discussion of the progress of his writing from day to day his eye
would brighten, all of his old animation would return, and
everything would betray the lively interest he felt in the
creature of his imagination in whom he was living over the
delights of the book-hunter's chase. It was his ardent wish that
this work, for the fulfilment of which he had been so long
preparing, should be, as he playfully expressed it, a monument of
apologetic compensation to a class of people he had so humorously
maligned, and those who knew him intimately will recognize in the
shortcomings of the bibliomaniac the humble confession of his own
weaknesses.
It is easy to understand from the very nature of the undertaking
that it was practically limitless; that a bibliomaniac of so many
years' experience could prattle on indefinitely concerning his
``love affairs,'' and at the same time be in no danger of
repetition. Indeed my brother's plans at the outset were not
definitely formed. He would say, when questioned or joked about
these amours, that he was in the easy position of Sam Weller when
he indited his famous valentine, and could ``pull up'' at any
moment. One week he would contend that a book-hunter ought to be
good for a year at least, and the next week he would argue as
strongly that it was time to send the old man into winter
quarters and go to press. But though the approach of cold
weather increased his physical indisposition, he was not the
less interested in his prescribed hours of labor, howbeit his
weakness warned him that he should say to his book, as his much-
loved Horace had written:
``Fuge quo descendere gestis:
Non erit emisso reditis tibi.''
Was it strange that his heart should relent, and that he should
write on, unwilling to give the word of dismissal to the book
whose preparation had been a work of such love and solace?
During the afternoon of Saturday, November 2, the nineteenth
instalment of ``The Love Affairs'' was written. It was the
conclusion of his literary life. The verses supposably
contributed by Judge Methuen's friend, with which the chapter
ends, were the last words written by Eugene Field. He was at
that time apparently quite as well as on any day during the fall
months, and neither he nor any member of his family had the
slightest premonition that death was hovering about the
household. The next day, though still feeling indisposed, he
was at times up and about, always cheerful and full of that
sweetness and sunshine which, in his last years, seem now to have
been the preparation for the life beyond. He spoke of the
chapter he had written the day before, and it was then that he
outlined his plan of completing the work. One chapter only
remained to be written, and it was to chronicle the death of the
old bibliomaniac, but not until he had unexpectedly fallen heir
to a very rare and almost priceless copy of Horace, which
acquisition marked the pinnacle of the book-hunter's conquest.
True to his love for the Sabine singer, the western poet
characterized the immortal odes of twenty centuries gone the
greatest happiness of bibliomania.
In the early morning of November 4 the soul of Eugene Field
passed upward. On the table, folded and sealed, were the memoirs
of the old man upon whom the sentence of death had been
pronounced. On the bed in the corner of the room, with one arm
thrown over his breast, and the smile of peace and rest on his
tranquil face, the poet lay. All around him, on the shelves and
in the cases, were the books he loved so well. Ah, who shall say
that on that morning his fancy was not verified, and that as the
gray light came reverently through the window, those cherished
volumes did not bestir themselves, awaiting the cheery voice:
``Good day to you, my sweet friends. How lovingly they beam upon
me, and how glad they are that my rest has been unbroken.''
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