THE MERCIFUL LAD

  Through all my life the poor shall find
    In me a constant friend,
  And on the weak of every kind
    My mercy shall attend.

  The dumb shall never call on me
    In vain for kindly aid,
  And in my hands the blind shall see
    A bounteous alms display’d.

  In all their walks the lame shall know
    And feel my goodness near,
  And on the deaf will I bestow
    My gentlest words of cheer.

  ’Tis by such pious works as these—­
    Which I delight to do—­
  That men their fellow-creatures please,
    And please their Maker, too._

Field was immensely tickled with the British gravity of one of his critics, who ridiculed this imitation of Dr. Watts, because, forsooth, he could not comprehend how the dumb could call, the blind see, or the lame walk, while he wanted to know what gracious effect the gentlest words could produce on the ears of the deaf.

Throughout “Culture’s Garland” Field is the unsparing satirist of contemporary humbug and pretence—­social, political, and literary—­and that perhaps accounts for its failure to achieve an immediate popular success.  I, for one, am glad that so late as December, 1893, and after he had tasted the sweets of popular applause, with its attendant royalties, he had the courage to write of it to a friend in Boston, “I am not ashamed of this little book, but, like the boy with the measles, I am sorry for it in spots.”

“Culture’s Garland” really cleared the way for Field’s subsequent literary success.  It taught him the lesson that his average daily newspaper work had not body enough to fill out the covers of a book.  With grim determination he set himself the task to master the art of telling stories in prose.  He was absolutely confident of himself in verse, but to his dying day he was never quite satisfied with anything he wrote in prose.  His poems went to the printer almost exactly as they were originally composed.  Nearly all of his tales were written over and over again with fastidious pains before they were committed to type.  Every word and sentence of such stories as “The Robin and the Violet,” “The First Christmas Tree,” “Margaret, a Pearl,” and “The Mountain and the Sea” was scrutinized and weighed by his keen literary sense and discriminating ear before it was permitted to pass final muster.  In only one instance do I remember that this extreme care failed to improve the original story.  “The Werewolf” ("Second Book of Tales”) was a more powerful and moving fancy as first written than as eventually printed.  He consulted with me during four revisions of “The Werewolf,” and told me that he had written the whole thing over seven times.  I never knew him so finicky and beset with doubts as to the use of words and phrases as he was in this instance.  The result is a marvellous piece of technicality perfect archaic old English mosaic, with the soul—­the fascinating shudder—­refined, out of a weird and fearful tale.