ose." He mingles fact with his fiction even as

_The instruments of darkness tell us truths;
Win us with honest trifles, to betray's
In deepest consequence._

Not that Field had any deep design to betray anyone lurking behind the
fictitious and facetious candor of this apparent self-revelation. This
"Auto-Analysis" was written in response to the almost innumerable
questions which, about that time, were being propounded in the
newspapers and on the leaves of sentiment autograph albums. Hence the
forms of Field's replies. For instance, to "What is your favorite
flower?" he answered, "My favorite flower is the carnation;"--and with
utter irrelevancy, added--"and I adore dolls!" Now Field was not
particularly fond of flowers, and if he had a favorite, it was the
rose, the pansy, or the violet.

Of his three favorites in fiction "Don Quixote" is the only one to
which he gave a second thought, although early familiarity with
"Pilgrim's Progress" undoubtedly left its impression on his retentive
memory. A more truthful answer would have been "The New England
Primer," "The Complete Angler," and Father Prout. To another inquirer
he said, "My favorite authors of prose are Cervantes, Hawthorne,
Andersen, Sir Thomas Mallory," a very much more accurate statement.
His love for the fairy-tales of Andersen and Grimm survived from the
knee of his little Mormon nurse to the last tale he wrote; but his
belief in ghosts, witches, and fairies was all in his literary mind's
eye. He took the same delight in employing them in his works as he did
flim-flams, flub-dubs, and catamarans. They were a part of his stock
in trade, just as wooden animals were of Caleb Plummer's toy-shop. I
think Field cherished a genuine admiration for Abraham Lincoln, whose
whole life, nature, personal appearance, unaffected greatness, manner
of speech, and fate appealed to his idea of what "the first American"
should be. But strike the names of Newman, Horace, old man Poggio,
Walter Scott, and Hans Andersen from the list of his favorites that
follow the name of Lincoln, and it gains in truth as it shrinks in
length.

Upon the question of extending the right to vote to women, Field
wasted no more thought than he did on "Politics," whether so called or
not. This was a springe to catch the "wimmen folks, God bless them."
He seldom took the trouble to vote himself, and ridiculed the idea of
women demeaning themselves to enter the dirty strife for public
office