Eugene Field, a Study in Heredity and Contradictions — Volume 1

Not as other memoirs are written would Eugene Field, were he alive, have this study of his life. He would think more of making it reflect the odd personality of the man than rehearse the birth, development, daily life, and works of the author. If he had undertaken to write his own life, as was once his intention, it would probably have been the most remarkable work of fiction by an American author that ever masqueraded in the quaker garments of fact. From title-page to colophon on which he would have insisted the book would have been one studied effort to quiz and queer (a favorite word of his) the innocent and willing-to-be-deluded reader. Tell your sister for me, I recall his saying, what a kind, good, and deserving man I am. How I love little children and [with a dry chuckle] elderly spinsters. Relate how I was born of rich yet honest parents, was reared in the 'nurture and admonition of the Lord', and, according to the bent of a froward youth, have stumbled along to become the cynosure of a ribald age.