mpany. The photographs of
Field are numerous, and some of them preserve a fair impression of his
remarkable physiognomy. None of the paintings of him that I have seen
do him justice, and the etchings are not much of an improvement on the
paintings. The best photographs only fail because they cannot retain
the peculiar deathlike pallor of the skin and the clear, innocent china
blue of the large eyes. These eyes were deep set under two arching
brows, and yet were so large that their deep setting was not at first
apparent. Field's nose was a good size and well shaped, with an unusual
curve of the nostrils strangely complementary to the curve of the arch
above the eyes. There was a mole on one cheek, which Field always
insisted on turning to the camera and which the photographer very
generally insisted on retouching out in the finishing. Field was wont
to say that no photograph of him was genuine unless that mole was
"blown in on the negative." The photographs all give him a good chin,
in which there was merely the suggestion of that cleft which he held
marred the strength of George William Curtis's lower jaw.

The feature of his face, if such it can be called, where all portraits
failed, was the hair. It was so fine that there would not have been
much of it had it been thick, and as it was quite thin there was only a
shadow between it and baldness. Even its color was elusive--a cross
between brown and dove color. Only those who knew Field before he came
to Chicago have any impression as to the color of the thatch upon that
head which never during our acquaintance stooped to a slouch hat. This
typical head gear of the West had no attraction for him. The formal
black or brown derby for winter and the seasonable straw hat for summer
seemed necessary to tone down the frivolity of his neckties, which were
chosen with a cowboy's gaudy taste. To the day of his death Field
delighted to present neckties, generally of the made-up variety, to his
friends, which, it is needless to say, they never failed to accept and
seldom wore. Often in the afternoon as it neared two o'clock he would
stick his head above the partition between our rooms and say, "Come
along, Nompy" (his familiar address for the writer). "Come along and
I'll buy you a new necktie."

"The dickens take your neckties!" or something like it, would be my
reply.

Whereupon, with the philosophy of which he never wearied, Field would
rejoin, "Very well, if you won't let me