The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, February 28, 1897, Page 19

THE SAN FRANCISCO CALL, SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 28 1897 Here the Poet Reveled in His Glor P San Francisco Bookstall, With a Favorite Ghair, Held Sacred ' to the Memory of Eugene Field y) NE Field ‘was an insatiable | Yo b.bliomaniac. Rare books to him N were a fad, and a revel in a library where first editions awaited his caressing touch was the poet-humorist's wildest dis- sipation. Field had few idiosyncrasies for a genius, but his love of extraordinary | books was an absorbing passion with him, and dufing the time he spent in Califor- nia, when he came to the coast three rears 2go in pursnit of health, just prior to his | death, he would come to San Francisco | almost daily from his home in Oakland | and spend hours nosing sbout the old bookstores of the City, Poring overan anci pation Lo *Gene Field. There wasno at- traction_ for him in modern Bobemia. | There was no enjoyment for him in the wine ciip, nor in association with revelers | who found surcease from sorrow around the festal board. And yet that dissipated | genius, *Edgar Allan Poe, was Field's | greatest favorite among authors. In his artistic proclivities the humorist | was always hampered by his lack of | wealth, His inability to purchase every | treasure from a bibliomaniac’s point of | view was the bane of his life. Field never | acquired riches, notwithstanding the fact | that .he was an indefatigable worker, and | his comparative poverty caused him here | n San Francisco to lay aside, with a olumes that had thrilled his biblio- ac soul, and which he longed to pos- nt tome was dissi- 1d told of his tribulations in this re- | d in a humorous skit which he wrote r his return from Europe in 1590, The 5 of the effusion read as | follows: ‘ When 1 was broke In 1 ondon 1n the fali of '89 1 chanced Lo spy inOxford street this tantalizing sign: splendid Horace, cheap for cash,” of course T had to look he vaunted bargaln, and It was a noble “A book. A tiner one I've never seen. nor can I hope to see, The firs ion, richly bound, aud c.ean as clean cau be; And just to thiuk, for toree pound ten I might have bad that Pine, When I was broke in London in the fall of '89. When in the course of natural things I go to my reward, Let no imposing epitaphs my cord ther in Hebrew, tongue Let' my ten martyrdoms re- N Latin, Greek or any classic thousand triumphs over human agonizing pangs I've had while on the | feaks), upon the siab that marks my is line | ceased was broke i London in the fall of '89." | ‘three pound many pan, ; In'San nd a peculiarly | ripe field for thé gratification of his pas- n for rare books. More rare and inter- | ng books are probably to be found | itpon the shelves of the old bookstores in | San_ Francisco than in any similar con- | cernson thi. nent with the excep- | tion ‘of New Yc Many families who camte’ 16 California in the palmy days ‘ol ’49" have been. forced through re- verse circamstances to dispose of much | G toeir personal yroperty, and be- cause of this unfortunate condition of | aif:irs many rare and valuable books have found their way into the “old bookstores.” Volumes that, because of their rarity and | antiquity, were really worth much, have been allowed to go into the hands of sec- ond:band-book sellers for & trifle. Many a *first- edition”” has baen sold to these dealers for so little as 25 cents by people who had no realization of their true v from anartistic point of view. It wasin poring over these that’'Gene Field found | Foregoing that Horace for | ten” probably cost him once he was seated | surroundings. younz woman who came into the place, and, while she chewed assiduou | ue | a piece of gum, looked over the volumes | of ant hours durin three yearsago. Any one of artistic tem- perament can appreciate the manner in which the soul of ’Gene Field was charmed by its atmosphere. The place mells’’ of books. It has about it that indescribable odor that old books send fortn. In it books are omnipresent. The line the walls, and high-shelved cas have been erected for their accommoda- tion in the middle of tae room, and upon all these are books and books and books ! Nearly everything printed in the English language can be found in the place, and it was from this source 'Gene F.eld derived his greatest pleasure so soon before he went back to Chicago to die. The Western poet loved the place, and | in the bard of the mountains ungrammat- | an edition of Longfeilow’s *Hiawatha e would enter the old-book store with |icaliy stated— h EUGENE FIELD’S CORNER g bisstay in California | until he reached it. This was before the shelves that contained the old books. “After we found out who he was,” said Miss Daly, who presides over the place, “we never used to pay sny attention to fr. Field. He would come and go when he pleased and would move his chair | |about when he liked. Sometimes he would pore for hours over one books.” As the poet-humorist could not buy all the rare editions he desired, his chiefest delight was in visiting bookstores and libraries where he could secure access to them. Early editions of American authors af- forded him his greatest pleasure. A first edition of Joaquin Miller's poems, where- airof sorrow and, with a sigh, murmaur | | *“Too much,” and that was the end of it. | | After Joaquin Miller's first erratic | poems an American edition of Carlyle’s 'Past and Present,” published by Charles | C. Littie and James Brown in Boston in | 1843, was one of 'Gene Field's favorites in this old bookstore. “Calyanos: a Tragedy,” by George H. Boker, published by E. H. Butler & Co. in Philadeiphia in 1848, was another book | in which Field found particular detight, | The only comment that the Western | genius was ever known to make in regard | toa volume was a remark he made de- | rogatory to some one who, in this volume, | marked the paragraph which reads: In the creation of the earth and man I oft have wondered how omnisclent God | Could take delight In forming things like men. | «“Why should such lines as those be em- | phasized ?” said Field. Irvine's Agapida’s “Conquest of Gran- | aaa,” published by Carey, Lee & Carey in Philadelphis 1n 1827, was another volume in this home of aged tomes in which | Field found particular delight. Into this | he would delve for hours. Next to it was | published by Ticknor & Fields in New nostrils distended, like a racehorse ready | to run a race. here was one nook in the place that Field always sought. It was the place where the first editions were kept, and before those musty tomes the poet became oblivious to ail He paid no heed tothe y upon Bertha M. Duchess.” *Ouida” or “The no time to devote to Clay, He had IN THE POWELL-S T seen the sun o'er Shasta's helghts leased him particularly, but when the price of the volume was quoted to him the poet refased to buy it on the ground of economy. So it was with a firet edition of the poems of Edgar Aflan Poe, which was of- | fered to Field for $10. “Too much,” ssid the poet, as he laid the book down with a sigh, According to Miss Daly, Field never auibbled over prices. After ‘*poking about”” among the books in the store he his chiefeat pleasure when he came to this | one who was looking for ‘‘something | would generally select two or three vol- coast in the hope that the hand of disease | then upon him might bs stayed There is an old-book store on Powell stfeet where the poet spent many pleas- | made for one place and was not saticfied | he would ls new,” nor to the cranks who affected more recent authors than he. Field in coming into this bookstore umes that h the price much for h thought he wantea; but if ed forany of these seemed too economic and domestic ideas the volume aside with am n 1 description Portrait of a Lone Miner in His Cabin Olive Heyden Weaves a Story About a Species of Gold-Hunter That Is Nearly Extinct BOUT forty years ago there was streaming into the newly discove ered goldfieids of Caiifornia & steady current of immigration. Nearly all the new-comers were men, and young men too. with habits not yet firmly fixed. They were “going home,” you know, as soon as they had filled their respectable Eastern carpetbags with nuggets — yes, “as soon.” They didn’t go. Western air get into their blood and never again would the effete civilization of the East satisfy. They wouldn’t have gone with a whole regiment of carpetbags full of nuggets. If California was a great place to make money how doubly great and glorious a place it was to sperd it! And their habits were soon ‘‘fixed” too. | A sad fix sometimes, and always a fix | that never could be unfixed, and that never was so well fixed as in California the glorious, the golden, the flowery. Mohammed came to the mountain,as was | nevitable; and Mohammed, in the shape of wives, sisters and mothers, found the mountain quite a bearable place, inso- much that they, too, became totally unfit to live outside its shadow. Before the advent of womankind there Dbad sprung up, like some widespread vari. ety of toadstool, the miner's cabin. Men ived in companies, in pairs, or all by | their lonelys, and *‘batched.” tion of models of the cabins of would bea unique and interesting fad; | | educational, too, for soon | miner in California will have joined the dodo, the ichthyosaurus and the girl who | @oesn’t bike; the place thereo! shall krow him no more. the '5.)'s the solitary They—the cabins—ranged from spotless to very spotty indeed, and from handy to | way up on the top note of the scale of un- handir s; from picturesquely pretty to picturesquely hideous. Aimost the same | themselves, who have been drawn—and TREET BOOKSTALL. E | York in 1855, in whose contempiation | | Field spent many hours. | Probably the most unique book that | | attracted Field’sattention during his visit to San Francisco just prior to his death was a nondescript volume entitled **Phu- ri-bus-fah, & song witbout an author and & deed without u name,” written under | the nom de plume of Philander Doesticks, | P.B., and published by Livermore & Rudd in New York in 185, | Over these rare books "Gene Field would | dwell for hours. To him, during those | last days of his life, they were a source of | daily pleasure; except for his wife and his children they were the greatest source | of pleasure 1o the Western poet who | wrote the lullabies of a nation and sung ! children to sleep. (P jn a big oak tree, where 1] . have established a snuggery, my | y privacy was invaded to-day by a | flick of titmic. I wish Icould do any- thing like justice to these morsels of birds, butno words at my command can do it. | There is no feathered creature except the | bumming-bird so fearless and free in the | presence of humankind as the ‘*least tit- mouse,” and except the hummor we have no other bird so small. But the hum- | ming-bird, dear though he is to every lover of mature, never scems to me to come quite s0 closs to the heart asdoes | the sober-hued, round-eyed, little scrap of quick hife we call the titmouse. He has a bigger name, a portentous title, quite as long as himself, but no one ever thinks of cal.ing him by it. He is just the tit mouse, as in the Eastern States, hi cousin, the black-capved titmouse (Parus stracapillus) is just the chickadee, dear to every one who really sees him, ! The titmouse is the friendliest of all the small birds. You may cail him close to you by the simple process of answering bis lisping twitter as he hops among the | foliage seeking insects, and us an insect- | destroyer every one of them is worth many times his tiny weight in gold. I bave caid he is sober-hued. As a mat. ter of fact he is a most absurd appearing nittle bird, with his wee body, his large | head and big, round, astonished-looking eves. But he is exceedingly lovable; so frank and confiding, 8o perfectly certain that you are his friend ana glad of his so- cleiy as he seems 10 be of yours. He em- bodies in his funpy little self many of the | very best of those traits we are wont to call human. You may bring a whole flock of the birds within reach of your hand by imitating the cry of one of them in dis- tress. They will gather about with anx- jous, solicitous chirps of inquiry, eagerly peering at you with their big eyes, seek- ing, plainly as day, for their troubled comrade. Ioncesaw two titmice nover- ing about a dead bird, not of their own species at all, chirping and calling, with | every appearance of. distress, now flying toalittle distance and calling, then re- turning to investigate again the strange sleep from which their friend would not awaken at their bidling; and let any mis- fortune befall one of their own kind and | the whole flock is in mourning. The little fellows congregated in the oak tree this morning were as joyous as the sunbesms sifting down among the leaves. One small hunter explored a single twig within a yard of my hand for full five minutes. He saw me apparently for the first time as he came around from behind aleaf and ave a great start, Then, | with the air of one who would say, “Don’t be afraid; I won’t hurt yon,” he resumed | his search for insects. In this he was very thorough and systematic, clinging to a single leaf ora little twig, sometimes on the upper sice, now below, sometimes up- right, regarding the bark with eager scru- tiny. with intent gaze for the tinest midge to show itself. sharp little bill wounid make a dash, and if alter movements count foranything he se- curea his prey every time. The titmice were not the only people I met in my travels through the treetop. Away on an outermost bough a thrush perched, silent and watehful, so littie afraid that he merely sprang to another branch upon my approach. A silent bird always seems to me the em bodiment of mystery. I think John Burroughs some- where expresses the same thought. The little titmice chirped incessantly. The goldfinches, flitting every where, made the air musical with their pretty calls, and the chattering sparrows and juncos frankly revealed themselves in their Again, head downward, watching | At frequent intervals his | voices; but none of them had the fascinat” ing interest for me that the thrush pos- sessed, sitting silent in the treetop. I could have aispensed for the time with the whole feathered chorus could I but have heard his voice. From my treetop I witnessed an amus- | ing bit of character display on the part of B a couple of goldfinches below. When a goldfinch goes a-wooing he usually makes a point of having one or two eligible home-sites in his mind’s eye, and when other arguments fail with the lady of bis | choice he will show her there, apparently as a last1esort. Beneath the oak tree, in a tangle of alder and greasewood, over- grown with poison oak and the climbing, spreading megarrhiza, a jolly finch was spying about In a very business-like | way. rapidiy as be flew back and forth, and throuch the field-glass 1 could ses his throat quiver, but if he made any sound I could not hear it. He hopped along the grouna beneath the bushes and looked eritically upward, first with one eye, then with the other. Then he flew to an over- hanging bough of the oak .and looked down upon the mass of foliage. Next be perched upon the fence, some litile dis- tance away, and took a careful survey. After that he dived into the bushes, and I could trace his progress from twig to twig by movements of the leaves. At last he flew back to the fence and began to sfng. Presently another goldfinch came flut- tering along in a preity waved line, as this bird always flies. He, too, was evi dently house-hunting, and the bushy tangle caught his eye as it had that of his fellow-birdling. But no sooner had he alightea upon an outer branch than down upon him the first goldfinch swooped, knocking him from bis perch, andthe two His little bill kept opening and closing | | disappeared, msking feints at each other | in the air as they flew. | Pedazogia took me to task the other | day. ““There are so many practical issues | | to be considered by thoughtful minds,” | *he «aid, seriously. 1 wonder you can | spend so much time over dickey-birds and | | weeds.” | Tam in perfect agreement with Peda- | rogia, who is learned beyond my widest | ken. Thisisa time and an hour of prac- tical issues, creat problems to be solved, | but 1 question whether there is any | greater problem than that of our relation | to the lowly things about us; any issue more vital, more practical than that from nature up fo nature’s God. It isgood to come to know the hife of the small crea- tures that live beside vs. Their very ex- sience is in its way a comment upon, an | interpretation of, pur own life, with its further reach, its wider needs and possi- bilities. Tnere 1s, more is the pity, a deal of false sentiment indulged in about the | things of nature. We who love shawm bring it to her, as we carry it elsewhere. | Nevertheless, what there is of us that is | simple and true may find its best help | among the dickey-birds and the weeds, if | | we come to them witn true, wholesome | appreciaiion. The good old New England | primer expressed a psychological prin ciple, as well as literal truth and the al- | phabet, when it langht in questionable verse how | Zebedes Climbed a tree Tue Lord to see. The treetop does not pierce the sky (nothing really pierces the sky but weather vanes and church steeples. The vanes, { perforce, to show which way the wind blows, to such as have not yet learned | that no wind blows ill; the others for the impaling, perhaps, of any spiritual aspi- ration that may succeed in getting above them), but it grows skyward, which is better than being reared in that direction, and its growth is unhindered by *pride and vainglory and all the other burdens of life.”” We may learn a lesson in good- ness from it; in taking what comes in the order of life, not striving after more, or otlier, or different things, for good cometh mot of strife. But while nature will surely help us to clearer ana simpler seeing if we turn to her in loving honesty, her lesson is one'of first principles rather than of polity. They maske a mistake who reason from the life of the brutes to the life human beings should live. The analogies are only ap- parent. The dumb creatures have for us no real lesson in the ordering of our lives, for we have their life plus humanity, with its wider range; 1ts greater freedom; its power of choice. Perhaps, after all, the only lesson nature has to teach us is that of love, which we learn as we bring to her the perception of beauty, but this lesson is a supreme one, for love is, in fact, the ‘problem of life and its solution. quartered—so variously in novels written | by Eastern tourists who have passed a few days, weeks or months in some corner of this not very limited State. Tke phrase, “A California Novel,” al. | i Apeuse Kxare, THE LONE Let the magic of tne | A collec- | would apply to the miners | ways amuses me. It reminds me of the habit country folk have of consulting Ayer's Almanac for to-morrow’s weather. They have firm faith the *‘cloudy” fits the whole face of the earth like a garment, and that the prophecy “rain” opens tiood- | gates upon all the world. ‘We have been assured that Bret Harte’s | miners are like Cooper's Indians, “an ex- | tinet race that never existed’’; butwe! can’t help thinking them fine fellows, and 50 they are, or were, and S0 were the | “truly” miners. They wereof sundry and | | divers kinds those real ers I grew | | | among, but they were men whose like is | not looked upon every day. When the feminine element came it was | wonderful how the cabins bloomed. Some broke out into tumor-like wings and lean- tos and some disappeared entirely, fright- ened at the array of white curtains and polished teakettles, overalls ceased to be | adorned with patches of sacking, and flan- | | nel shirts had buttons on. Evolution had | begun. The stately palaces and disease- | breeding tenements were in active | | embryo. | There are always a few of a species that | refuse to evolve. They are doomed to ex- | tinction, but even with that certainty | they keep out of the current of evolution, | content to have their own way, and die. Thus some of the lone dwellers in cabins. | Their habits had, indeed, become fixed, | petrified, fossilated; and as the of 49 saw them live they live now. Time never forgets. No hiding in the hills will foo! | him. The miners are old, feeble, few and failing tast. As I look upon those I have known all | my life and think upon those more num- erous whom I have seen laid in lonely | and unwept graves, I think what sn un- explained,unappreciated, inexorable thing habit s. How can men, gregarious animals as | they are, grow so to love solitude that they labor on alone—such a drear word, | alone—for years aud years almost within sound of the voices of their fellows. It is all very well to call the world bad and well | lost, bat the hermit takes a part, and an | uncomfortable part, of the world with him when he takes himself. And, be- sides, the lone miner doesn't hate the worid; he has just become used to being | alone. He pans out his little hoard, cuts | his wood, fries his bacon and smokes. When he goes to town he goes and comes with no unnecessary delay. Silence and the cabin have become incispensable. Some of him come out at stated | veriods and get drunk. Some of him walk each day 1o the offica to get papers, | to keep in touch with the world they | never touch. Some ot him live in pairs and exchangs reminiscences. Some of him | never see the face of man except twice a year. Butthe stamp of the old miner is | on the brow of all. One of the genus—dead now—lived | | alone except when some friend of long | ago climbed the hill. This old man, in blue shirt and rubber boots, could take nis pipe out of his mouth and roll forth Greek verse, pure and true, like martial "music. | He knew what it meant, too. All the| classics were stored in his bottomless memory, and I believe he dreamed in | Latin. He lovea the admiration of his | | friends, but he died up there alone and his dog came down io tell it. nother sat in his hovel after his work was done, a poor, bent, twisted old fellow, and saw spirits. His wife of ysars agone— the wife who never came to him in life— spoke tender words from the spirit world and he was happy. We all see spirits of the past sometimes. Perhaps if we livea | alone and thougnt constantly of the loved ones we would shape for ourselves a few homemade angels, too. Ikpvew one, and know him yet, whom Bret Harte might have immortalized for { his balf-drunken speech. (Then could | the critics have proved he never existed? Even £0.) When be tells me he saw “the time previous before the next to the last’” | be was in town, and goes on tangling him- self in verbiage thus I would not be su: prised to hear him say *‘which the same. | There is anather who loves only his | |dog. Iwonder what sad twist came in | | bis life to make him hate a woman and | idolize a crop-eared cur. It sleeps in his | bed, eats at his table, rides on the wagon- seatand is out of place generally. The | manis cruel and sour to his fellow-man. | Something did it; something makes him say his dog, spoiled, snarly and tyrann: = = | the Rev. | osprey | bitherto to see anie of these foules cal, is a better friend than o wife. he dies I wonder will his dog care. Tolrealize the loneliness of death, stand by the grave of one of these anachron- isms. No one to care, no one even to pre- When tend to care, no gap in any one’s lile, no nt in the worid. ess he wouldn't be any deader if he ed like folks,” a boy remarked of one. The boy was puzzled and felt, with- out understanding, the difference between that funeral and others. The absence of grief was sadder than its presence would have been. 0, he wouldn’t be any deader—he | wouldn’t be so dead if he lived in any one’s neart. Traveling among the mountains over the seldom used trails one meets the an-, cient miner plodding to or from his orcoming with his toad of ‘‘grub” f the store. Heis getting old ever.so fast and totters beneath his pack, but vou will find his ideas young enough if you like to dismount and walk with him a mile or two. He lives only in the past, so his heart never grows old. You will find hima sociable fellow, especially if in that pres- ent-past of his. He ‘‘knew your fath-r.” By the I'never knew my father my~ elt until his old comrades bezan to tell tales on him. Ten years from now a specimen of the genus will be a curiosity indeed, and many, many a tale of romance, of pathos, of tragedy will bury itself in an un- marked grave. In a far-away home there may be 3 tale, a tradition of a young man who went west to conquer fortune, and may be there will be a lingering hope of the return of a rich relative some day; and in the solitude of the hills the be a rude stone and mud tireplace ing in the midst of & moldering hean of | boards. A Quaint Bird L The Medical Press, in a recent reference to a work on some old legends in connec- tion with drugs, said: It would be inter- esting to know if the bird which the author calls ‘aster’ 1s known by modern ornithologists. Speaking of it'he remarks that its scent is said to be so strong that fishes are drawn by it as he is flying over the river, and so taken up by him, having one leg like a hawk, the other Like a duck.” It is not difficult, however, to identify the | bird in question, says the Westminste: | Gazette. It is the osprey (Pandion ha tus), which, although not to-day classi under the genus astur, is related to it. C. Swainson’s British Birds” there from Shakespeare. four, scene three: d In “Foik-Lore of is a reference to it “Coriolanus,” act Aufidius, 10q.: As in the osprey of the fish, Who takes it By sovereignty of nature. And in Peele’s play called ““The Battle of | Alcazar” (1594), act ii, scene 1: I will provide thee with a princely osprey, ‘That, as she flieth over fish In pools, The fish shall turn their giistening bellies up, And thou shalt take thy fiberal choice o al. ‘We learn also from Mr. Swainson’s book that “'an old belief’ 1s mentioned by Har- | rison in his “Description of Britain,” pra- fixed to Holinshed’s “‘Chronicle” (vol, I, page 832), who writes respecting “It hath not been my the hap ana partiie through mine owne negligence; but I heare that it hath one foot like a hawke to catch withall, and another re- sembling a goose, wherewith to swim; but whether it be o or not I refer the further search and trial thereof to some other.” Giraldus Cambrensis (*Topog- raphy of Ireland,” page 33, ed. Wright) improves on this morelizing as follows: “In like manner the old enemy of man. | kind fixes his keen eyes on us, however we may try to conceal ourselves in the troublesome waves of the present world, and ingratiating himself with us by tem- poral prosperity, which may be compared to the peaceable foot, the cruel spoiler then puts forth his ravenous claws to clutch miserable souls and drag them to perai- tion.” . ——— The food of the swallow 1s composed of insects alone, and the number these birds destroy in a single summer is incalcula- ble. They are in summer on the wing for fully sixteen hours during the day, and the greater part of the time making havoe among the millions of insects which infest the air. MINER IN. HIS CABIN MAKING BREAD.