A Little Book of Western Verse | Page 8

in
Amsterdam, or on the "Schnellest Zug" from Hanover to Leipzig.
At the time of my brother's arrival in Chicago, in 1883--he was then in
his thirty-fourth year--he had performed an immense amount of
newspaper work, but had done little or nothing of permanent value or
with any real literary significance. But despite the fact that he had lived
up to that time in the smaller cities he had a large number of
acquaintances and a certain following in the journalistic and artistic
world, of which from the very moment of his entrance into journalism
he never had been deprived. His immense fund of good humor, his
powers as a story-teller, his admirable equipment as an entertainer, and
the wholehearted way with which he threw himself into life and the
pleasures of living attracted men to him and kept him the centre of the
multitude that prized his fascinating companionship. His fellows in
journalism furthermore had been quick to recognize his talents, and no
man was more widely "copied," as the technical expression goes. His
early years in Chicago did not differ materially from those of the
previous decade, but the enlarged scope gave greater play to his fancy
and more opportunity for his talents as a master of satire. The
publication of "The Denver Primer" and "Culture's Garland," while
adding to his reputation as a humorist, happily did not satisfy him. He

was now past the age of thirty-five, and a great psychical revolution
was coming on. Though still on the sunny side of middle life, he was
wearying of the cup of pleasure he had drunk so joyously, and was
drawing away from the multitude and toward the companionship of
those who loved books and bookish things, and who could sympathize
with him in the aspirations for the better work, the consciousness of
which had dawned. It was now that he began to apply himself
diligently to the preparation for higher effort, and it is to the credit of
journalism, which has so many sins to answer for, that in this he was
encouraged beyond the usual fate of men who become slaves to that
calling. And yet, though from this time he was privileged to be
regarded one of the sweetest singers in American literature, and
incomparably the noblest bard of childhood, though the grind of
journalism was measurably taken from him, he chafed under the
conviction that he was condemned to mingle the prosaic and the
practical with the fanciful and the ideal, and that, having given hostages
to fortune, he must conform even in a measure to the requirements of a
position too lucrative to be cast aside. From this time also his physical
condition, which never had been robust, began to show the effects of
sedentary life, but the warning of a long siege of nervous dyspepsia was
suffered to pass unheeded, and for five or six years he labored
prodigiously, his mind expanding and his intellect growing more
brilliant as the vital powers decayed.
It would seem that with the awakening of the consciousness of the
better powers within him, with the realization that he was destined for a
place in literature, my brother felt a quasi remorse for the years he
fancied he had wasted. He was too severe with himself to understand
that his comparative tardiness in arriving at the earnest, thoughtful
stage of lifework was the inexorable law of gradual development which
must govern the career of a man of his temperament, with his exuberant
vitality and his showy talents. It was a serious mistake, but it was not
the less a noble one. And now also the influences of home crept a little
closer into his heart. His family life had not been without its tragedies
of bereavement, and the death of his oldest boy in Germany had drawn
him even nearer to the children who were growing up around him.

Much of his tenderest verse was inspired by affection for his family,
and as some great shock is often essential to the revolution in a buoyant
nature, so it seemed to require the oft-recurring tragedies of life to draw
from him all that was noblest and sweetest in his sympathetic soul. Had
the angel of death never hovered over the crib in my brother's home,
had he never known the pangs and the heart-hunger which come when
the little voice is stilled and the little chair is empty, he could not have
written the lines which voice the great cry of humanity and the hope of
reunion in immortality beyond the grave.
The flood of appeals for platform readings from cities and towns in all
parts of the United States came too late for his physical strength and his
ambition. Earlier in life he would have delighted in this form