"
The following lines, from his second volume, will serve as a specimen of
the "homely beauty" of Mr. Fields' muse, though it hardly sets forth all
his powers:
She came among the gathering crowd
A maiden fair, without pretense,
And when they asked her humble name,
She whispered mildly, "Common Sense."
Her modest garb drew every eye,
Her ample cloak, her shoes of leather;
And when they sneered, she simply said,
"I dress according to the weather."
They argued long and reasoned loud,
In dubious Hindoo phrase mysterious;
While she, poor child, could not divine
Why girls so young should be so serious.
They knew the length of Plato's beard,
And how the scholars wrote in Laturn;
She studied authors not so deep,
And took the Bible for her pattern.
And so she said, "Excuse me, friends,
I feel all have their proper places,
And _Common Sense_ should stay at home
With cheerful hearts and smiling faces."
Mr. Fields has been a frequent contributor to his own periodicals, his
latest effort being a paper devoted to personal recollections of Charles
Dickens, which was published in the "Atlantic Monthly" soon after the
death of the great master.
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