INTRODUCTION.


From whatever point of view the character of Eugene Field is seen,
genius--rare and quaint presents itself is childlike simplicity. That he
was a poet of keen perception, of rare discrimination, all will admit.
He was a humorist as delicate and fanciful as Artemus Ward, Mark Twain,
Bill Nye, James Whitcomb Riley, Opie Read, or Bret Harte in their
happiest moods. Within him ran a poetic vein, capable of being worked in
any direction, and from which he could, at will, extract that which
his imagination saw and felt most. That he occasionally left the
child-world, in which he longed to linger, to wander among the older
children of men, where intuitively the hungry listener follows him into
his Temple of Mirth, all should rejoice, for those who knew him not, can
while away the moments imbibing the genius of his imagination in the
poetry and prose here presented.

Though never possessing an intimate acquaintanceship with Field, owing
largely to the disparity in our ages, still there existed a bond
of friendliness that renders my good opinion of him in a measure
trustworthy. Born in the same city, both students in the same college,
engaged at various times in newspaper work both in St. Louis and
Chicago, residents of the same ward, with many mutual friends, it is not
surprising that I am able to say of him that "the world is better off
that he lived, not in gold and silver or precious jewels, but in the
bestowal of priceless truths, of which the possessor of this book
becomes a benefactor of no mean share of his estate."

Every lover of Field, whether of the songs of childhood or the poems
that lend mirth to the out-pouring of his poetic nature, will welcome