J.G.K.

The echoes of Judge Cooley’s youthful verse were never permitted to die wholly out of Field’s column, but were frequently given renewed life by casual references.  Even the publication of “The Divine Lullaby” in his “Little Book of Western Verse” did not prevent Field from speaking of Judge Cooley’s poetical diversions.

On another occasion he spent his odd time for weeks in preparing a humorous hoax upon the critics of Chicago.  It consisted of a number of close imitations of the typical verses of Dr. Watts, in which he was a master.  The fruits of his congenial labor on this occasion are preserved in his collected works.  But the purpose for which they were prepared adds to their interest.  They were incorporated in a prose article which gave a plausible account of how they had been exhumed from the correspondence of a sentimental friend of Watts.  When the last strokes had been put upon the story, whose tone of genuineness was calculated to deceive the elect, it was mailed to Charles A. Dana, who was thoroughly in sympathy with Field in all such enterprises, and on the following Sunday it appeared in the New York Sun as an extract from a London paper.  As soon as the publication reached Chicago a number of the cleverest reporters on the News staff were sent out to interview the local literary authorities.  They were all carefully coached by Field what questions to ask and what points to avoid, and their reports were all turned over to him to prepare for publication.  Next morning the better part of a page of the News was surrendered to quotations from the fictitious article, with learned dissertations on the value of the discovery, coupled with careful comparisons of the style and sentiments of the verse with the acknowledged work of Watts.  In the whole city only one of those interviewed was saved, by a sceptical analysis, from falling into the pit so adroitly prepared by Field.

Loyal to Chicago, to a degree incomprehensible by those who judged his sentiments by his unsparing comments on its crudities in social and literary ways, he never ceased to get pleasure out of serio-comic confounding of its business activities and artistic aspirations.  Its business men and enterprises were constantly referred to in his column as equally strenuous in the pursuit of the almighty dollar and of the higher intellectual life.  In his view “Culture’s Garland,” from the Chicago stand-point, was, indeed, a string of sausages.  Of this spirit the following, printed in December, 1890, is a good example: 

  A DANGER THAT THREATENS

  The rivalry between the trade and the literary interests in Chicago
  has been wondrously keen this year.