Field's use of the colored
inks, with which he not only embellished his correspondence and
presentation copies of his verse, but with which he was wont to
illuminate his copy for the printer. It came about in this way:

In the winter of 1885 Walter Cranston Larned, author of the "Churches
and Castles of Mediaeval France," then the art critic for the News,
contributed to it a series of papers on the Walters gallery in
Baltimore. These attracted no small attention at the time, and were the
subject of animated discussion in art circles in Chicago. They were
twelve in number, and ran along on the editorial page of the News from
February 23d till March 10th. At first we of the editorial staff took
only a passing interest in Mr. Larned's contributions. But one day
Field, Ballantyne, and I, from a discussion of the general value of art
criticism in a daily newspaper, were led to question whether it
conveyed an intelligible impression of the subject, and more
particularly of the paintings commented on, to the ordinary reader. The
point was raised as to the practicability of artists themselves
reproducing any recognizable approach to the original paintings by
following Mr. Larned's verbal descriptions. Thereupon we deliberately
set about, in a spirit of frolic to be sure, to attempt what we each
and all considered a highly improbable feat.

Armed with the best water colors we could find in Abbott's art store,
we converted my bachelor quarters in the Sherman House into an amateur
studio, where we daily labored for an hour or so in producing most
remarkable counterfeits of the masterpieces in Mr. Walters's gallery
as seen through Mr. Larned's text. We were innocent of the first
principles of drawing and knew absolutely nothing about the most
rudimentary use of water colors. Somehow, Field made a worse botch in
mixing and applying the colors than did either Ballantyne or I. They
would never produce the effects intended. He made the most whimsical
drawings, only to obliterate every semblance to his original conception
in the coloring. To prevent his going on a strike, I ransacked Chicago
for colored inks to match those required in the pictures that had been
assigned to him. This inspired him with renewed enthusiasm, and he
devoted himself to the task of realizing Mr. Larned's descriptions in
colored inks with the zest that produces the masterpieces over which
artists and critics rave.

His first work in this line was a reproducti