help me bear the responsibility thereof.  Later in the winter we will go up to San Francisco and visit Henry Field awhile.  I will let you know when we start, and if you can’t join us at Kansas City, suppose you come on as soon as you can and join me at San Diego.  We go to Los Angeles by the Santa Fe.  On receipt of this, telegraph me if you can leave Saturday or Sunday.  If you are cramped for finances, what sort of a fix do you suppose I’m in?  But we must all live; we cannot afford to die just yet.  I went down to dinner for the first time on Thursday; I am feeling pretty brisk.  Love to Miss Eva.

  Ever affectionately yours, with a sore finger,

  EUGENE FIELD.

Field did not find in California the “glorious climate” which the well-meant advice of his physicians had led him to expect.  His going up to San Francisco in winter to visit his cousin was a mistake, which he quickly regretted, as the following testifies: 

DEAR MR. GRAY:  I am very tired of freezing to death, and I have made up my mind to get into a country where I can at least keep warm.  Ever since I got to California I have shivered, and shivered, and shivered, and there seem to be no facilities for ameliorating this unpleasant condition here.  I am told that in six months or a year the new-comer becomes acclimated; I do not regard that as encouraging.  So I am heading for New Orleans.  But we drop off at Los Angeles to admit of my being with you long enough to write the memoir of dear Mrs. Gray—­a duty to which I shall apply myself with melancholy pleasure.  I think we shall arrive Thursday morning.  I hope you are all well, and that Miss Eva has not yet been carried off by any pirate or Philadelphia brewer.  I continue to gain in weight.

  Affectionately yours,

  EUGENE FIELD. 
  Alameda, Cal.,
  January 6th, 1894, Saturday evening.

Field kept the promise of this letter, and the memoir of Mrs. Gray then written is a genuine work of love, composed amid “environments,” as he wrote, “conducive to the sincerity and the enthusiasm which should characterize such a noble task.”  Here is his picture of the surroundings, redolent of the incense of sunshine and flowers that fills that favored clime: 

A glorious panorama is spread before me—­such a picture as the latitude of southern California presents at the time when elsewhere upon this continent of ours the resentment of winter is visited.  All around me is the mellow grace of sunshine, roses, lilies, heliotropes, carnations, marigolds, nasturtiums, marguerites, and geraniums are a-bloom; and as far as the eye can reach, the green velvet of billowing acres is blended with the passion of wild poppies; the olive, the orange, and the lemon abound; yonder a vineyard lies fast asleep in the glorious noonday; the giant rubber trees in all this remarkable fairy-land are close at hand; and the pepper, the eucalyptus,