human existence in thought of those who journeyed awhile with us, a
part of all our hopes and joyousness, the sharers of all our ambitions
and our pleasures, whose mission has been fulfilled and who have left
us with the mile-stones of years still seeming to stretch out on the
path ahead. It is then that memory comes with its soothing influence,
telling us of the happiness that was ours and comforting us with the
ever recurring thought of the pleasures of that travelled road. For it
is happiness to walk and talk with a brother for forty years, and it is
happiness to know that the surety of that brother's affection, the
knowledge of the greatness of his heart and the nobility of his mind,
are not for one memory alone but may be publicly attested for
admiration and emulation. That it has fallen to me to speak to the
world of my brother as I knew him I rejoice. I do not fear that,
speaking as a brother, I shall crowd the laurel wreaths upon him, for
to this extent he lies in peace already honored; but if I can show him
to the world, not as a poet but as a man,--if I may lead men to see
more of that goodness, sweetness, and gentleness that were in him, I
shall the more bless the memory that has survived.

My brother was born in St. Louis in 1850. Whether the exact day was
September 2 or September 3 was a question over which he was given to
speculation, more particularly in later years, when he was accustomed to
discuss it frequently and with much earnest ness. In his youth the
anniversary was generally held to be September 2, perhaps the result of
a half-humorous remark by my father that Oliver Cromwell had died
September 3, and he could not reconcile this date to the thought that it
was an important anniversary to one of his children. Many years after,
when my uncle, Charles Kellogg Field, of Vermont, published the
genealogy of the Field family, the original date, September 3, was
restored, and from that time my brother accepted it, although with each