The next day, though still feeling indisposed, he was at times up and about, always cheerful and full of that sweetness and sunshine which, in his last years, seem now to have been the preparation for the life beyond.  He spoke of the chapter he had written the day before, and it was then that he outlined his plan of completing the work.  One chapter only remained to be written, and it was to chronicle the death of the old bibliomaniac, but not until he had unexpectedly fallen heir to a very rare and almost priceless copy of Horace, which acquisition marked the pinnacle of the book-hunter’s conquest.  True to his love for the Sabine singer, the western poet characterized the immortal odes of twenty centuries gone the greatest happiness of bibliomania.

In the early morning of November 4 the soul of Eugene Field passed upward.  On the table, folded and sealed, were the memoirs of the old man upon whom the sentence of death had been pronounced.  On the bed in the corner of the room, with one arm thrown over his breast, and the smile of peace and rest on his tranquil face, the poet lay.  All around him, on the shelves and in the cases, were the books he loved so well.  Ah, who shall say that on that morning his fancy was not verified, and that as the gray light came reverently through the window, those cherished volumes did not bestir themselves, awaiting the cheery voice:  ``Good day to you, my sweet friends.  How lovingly they beam upon me, and how glad they are that my rest has been unbroken.’’

Could they beam upon you less lovingly, great heart, in the chamber warmed by your affection and now sanctified by death?  Were they less glad to know that the repose would be unbroken forevermore, since it came the glorious reward, my brother, of the friend who went gladly to it through his faith, having striven for it through his works?

Roswell Martin field
Buena Park, December, 1895.

 The Chapters in this Book

 My first love
 the birth of A new passion
 the luxury of reading in bed
 the mania of collecting seizes me
 baldness and intellectuality
 my romance with Fiammetta
 the delights of fender-fishing
 ballads and their makers
 booksellers and printers, old and new
 when Fanchonette bewitched me
 diagnosis of the bacillus librorum
 the pleasures of extra-illustration
 on the odors which my books exhale
 Elzevirs and divers other matters
 A book that brings solace and cheer
 the malady called catalogitis
 the Napoleonic renaissance
 my workshop and others
 our debt to monkish men