The Holy Cross and Other Tales

In paying a tribute to the mingled mirth and tenderness of Eugene Field-the poet of whose going the West may say, "He took our daylight with him"-one of his fellow journalists has written that he was a jester, but not of the kind that Shakespeare drew in Yorick. He was not only, -so the writer implied, -the maker of jibes and fantastic devices, but the bard of friendship and affection, of melodious lyrical conceits; 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 delight a quaint archaic English of his special devising; who collected rare books, and brought out his own "Little Books" of "Western Verse" and "Profitable Tales" in high-priced limited editions, with broad margins of paper that moths and rust do not corrupt, but which tempts bibliomaniacs to break through and steal.