Chicago In August

When Cynthia's father homeward brought An India mull for her to wear, How were her handsome features fraught With radiant smiles beyond compare! And to her bosom Cynthia strained Her pa with many a fond caress-- And ere another week had waned That mull was made into a dress.

And Cynthia blooming like a rose Which any swain might joy to cull, Cried "How I'll paralyze the beaux When I put on my India mull!" Now let the heat of August day Be what it may--I'll not complain-- I'll wear the mull, and put away This old and faded-out delaine!

Despite her prayers the heated spell Descended not on mead and wold-- Instead of turning hot as--well, The weather turned severely cold, The Lake dashed up its icy spray And breathed its chill o'er all the plain-- Cynthia stays at home all day And wears the faded-out delaine!

So is Chicago at this time-- She stands where icy billows roll-- She wears her beauteous head sublime, While cooling zephyrs thrill her soul. But were she tempted to complain, Methinks she'd bid the zephyrs lull, That she might doff her old delaine And don her charming India mull!_

But there was another feature of Chicago that from the day of his arrival to the day of his departure to that land where dust troubleth not and soot and filth are unknown, filled his New England soul and nostrils with ineffable disgust. He never became reconciled to a condition in which the motto _in hoc signo vinces_ on a bar of soap had no power to inspire a ray of hope. He had not been here a month before his muse began to wield the "knotted lash of sarcasm" above the strenuous but dirty back of Chicago after this fashion:

_Brown, a Chicago youth, did woo A beauteous Detroit belle, And for a month--or, maybe, two-- He wooed the lovely lady well.

But, oh! one day--one fatal day-- As mused the belle with naught to do, A local paper came her way And, drat the luck! she read it through.

She read of alleys black with mire-- A river with a putrid breath-- Streets reeking with malarial ire-- Inviting foul disease and death.

Then, with a livid snort she called Her trembling lover to her side-- "How dare you, wretched youth," she bawled, "Ask me to be your blushing bride?

Go back unto your filthy town, And never by my side be seen, Nor hope to make me Mrs. Brown, Until you've got your city clean!"_

Eugene Field made his first appearance in the column of the Morning News August 15th, 1883, in the most modest way, with a scant column of paragraphs such as he had contributed to the Denver Tribune, headed "Current Gossip" instead of "Odds and Ends." The heading was only a makeshift until a more distinctive one could be chosen in its stead. On August 31st, 1883, the title "Sharps and Flats" was hoisted to the top of Field's column, and there it remained over everything he wrote for more than a dozen years.

There have been many versions of how Field came to hit upon this title, so appropriate to what appeared under it. The most ingenious of these was that evolved by John B. Livingstone in "An Appreciation" of Eugene Field, published in the Interior shortly after his death. In what, on the whole, is probably the best analysis of Field's genius and work extant, Mr. Livingstone goes on to say:

"What Virgil was to Tennyson, Horace was to Field in one aspect at least of the Venusian's character. He could say of his affection for the protegé of Mæcenas, as the laureate said of his for the 'poet of the happy Tityrus,' 'I that loved thee since my day began.' It has been suggested that he owed to a clever farce-comedy of the early eighties the caption of the widely-read column of journalistic epigram and persiflage, which he filled with machine-like regularity and the versatility of the brightest French journalism for ten years. I prefer to think that he took it, or his cue for it, from a line of Dr. Phillips Francis's translation of the eighth of the first book of Horatian Satires:

_Not to be tedious or repeat How Flats and Sharps in concert meet._

"Field's knowledge of Horace and of his translators was complete, probably not equalled by that of any other member of his craft. He made a specialty of the study, a hobby of it. And it is more likely, as it is more gratifying, to believe that he caught his famous caption (Sharps and Flats) from a paraphrase of his favorite classic poet than from the play bill of a modern and ephemeral farce."

Unfortunately for this pretty bit of speculation, which Field would have enjoyed as another evidence of his skill in imposing upon the elect of criticism, it has no foundation in fact, and its premises of Field's intimate knowledge and devotion to Horace anticipates the period of his Horatian "hobby," as Mr. Livingstone so well styles it, by at least five years. It was not until the winter of 1888-89 that paraphrases of Horace began to stud his column with the first-fruits of his tardy wandering and philandering with Dr. Frank W. Reilly through the groves and meadows of the Sabine farm. But that is another story.

According to M.E. Stone, the title of the column which Field established when he came to the Chicago Morning News was borrowed from the name of a play, "Sharps and Flats," written by Clay M. Greene and myself, and played with considerable success throughout the United States by Messrs. Robson and Crane.