Not that Field had any deep design to betray anyone lurking behind the fictitious and facetious candor of this apparent self-revelation.  This “Auto-Analysis” was written in response to the almost innumerable questions which, about that time, were being propounded in the newspapers and on the leaves of sentiment autograph albums.  Hence the forms of Field’s replies.  For instance, to “What is your favorite flower?” he answered, “My favorite flower is the carnation;”—­and with utter irrelevancy, added—­“and I adore dolls!” Now Field was not particularly fond of flowers, and if he had a favorite, it was the rose, the pansy, or the violet.

Of his three favorites in fiction “Don Quixote” is the only one to which he gave a second thought, although early familiarity with “Pilgrim’s Progress” undoubtedly left its impression on his retentive memory.  A more truthful answer would have been “The New England Primer,” “The Complete Angler,” and Father Prout.  To another inquirer he said, “My favorite authors of prose are Cervantes, Hawthorne, Andersen, Sir Thomas Mallory,” a very much more accurate statement.  His love for the fairy-tales of Andersen and Grimm survived from the knee of his little Mormon nurse to the last tale he wrote; but his belief in ghosts, witches, and fairies was all in his literary mind’s eye.  He took the same delight in employing them in his works as he did flim-flams, flub-dubs, and catamarans.  They were a part of his stock in trade, just as wooden animals were of Caleb Plummer’s toy-shop.  I think Field cherished a genuine admiration for Abraham Lincoln, whose whole life, nature, personal appearance, unaffected greatness, manner of speech, and fate appealed to his idea of what “the first American” should be.  But strike the names of Newman, Horace, old man Poggio, Walter Scott, and Hans Andersen from the list of his favorites that follow the name of Lincoln, and it gains in truth as it shrinks in length.

Upon the question of extending the right to vote to women, Field wasted no more thought than he did on “Politics,” whether so called or not.  This was a springe to catch the “wimmen folks, God bless them.”  He seldom took the trouble to vote himself, and ridiculed the idea of women demeaning themselves to enter the dirty strife for public office—­as he regarded the beginning, middle, and end of all politics.

Field had the strongest possible aversion to violence or brutality of any kind.  He considered capital punishment as barbarous.  He was not opposed to it because he regarded it as inaffective as a punishment or a deterrent of crime, but simply because taking life, and especially human life, was abhorrent to him.  Hence his “hatred” of wars, armies, soldiers, and guns.

Something more than a paragraph is needed to explain that word “limited” after Field’s declaration “I like music.”  “Like” is a feeble word in this connection, and “limited” by his sense of the absurdity of reducing its enjoyment to an intellectual pursuit.  He loved the music that appealed to the heart, the mind, the emotions through the ear.  But for years he scoffed at and ridiculed the attempt to convey by the “harmony of sweet sounds” or alternating discords impressions or sentiments of things than can only be comprehended through the eye.  He loved both vocal and instrumental music, and was a constant attendant on opera and concert.