The poems and stories of Fitz-James O'Brien

Front matter

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THE POEMS AND STORIES

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Preface

nnHE work that is here performed — imperfectly^ hut as thoroughly as is now possible — should have been done a long time ago, and would have been done, but for several serious obstacles interposed by what, seemingly, was an almost malign fate. ' Brien on his death-bed appointed two friends to be his literary executors. One of them, Mr. Frank Wood, speedily followed him '''into the silent land."

The other, Mr. Thomas E. Davis, found neither opportunity, encouragement, nor an auspicious time for the fidfilment of the work. O^BrierHs writings were scattered far and wide. In some instances the use of them was thought to he impeded by the claim of copyright. The facts of his brief career were hut obscurely known. His character and his ivay of life had made him a difficult subject to treat. It was natural that a gentleman, not by profession a man of letters, and embarrassed by such untoward circumstances, shoidd hesitate at such a task. About six years ago, the intimation was given that O'Brien's writings would be collected and published by one of his relatives in Ireland. Nothing, however, came of that ; and it seemed more than likely that justice to the memory of this brilliant writer would never he attempted. lam almost the last survivor of the literary comrades with whom he was associated more than twenty years ago ; and perhaps it is not altogether inappropriate that the work so long left untouched by others should at last be accomplished by me.

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The writings here collected have heen drawn from many sources, and they have been thoughtfully chosen, carefully arranged, and, in soine instances, revised. It has heen found essential to search many old files and to confer with many persons. Messrs. Harper S^ Brothers, with ready kindness, have permitted me to use all of O'Brien's works that were originally published in their periodicals, and also the cuts which illustrate the satire of " The Finishing School." The Harpers were among his stanchest, most practical, and most faithful friends. Articles of his have ' been taken also from the Atlantic Monthly, the Knickerbocker, Putnam's Magazine, the United States Review, Vanity Fair, the Lantern, the Home Journal, and other sources. He contributed to many periodicals, — to the New York Times, the Evening Post, Leslie's Story Paper, Leslie's Stars and Stripes, the Democratic Review, and the American Whig Review ; and. it is said that, in 1851, he edited, in London, a publication devoted to the World's / y^Fair, and that he also wrote for the Leisure Hour. Like t/y^lc dl author slwho are obliged, habitually and constantly, to ^ ^ ^work under the stress and strain of writing for bread, he produced things that had no value beyond the moment, and some that were below the level of his own standard of taste. In preparing this volume, the endeavor has been made to present a selection of his chief and characteristic works, rather than to mass together all that he wrote. The material thus far collected would fill more than a thousand pages, and much of what is now necessarily omitted is equally worthy with the works here given of republication in a permanent form.

Among O'Brien'' s writings which it has not been found possible to include in this collection, but which may hereafter be presented to the public, are essays entitled " Your

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Health'' ''^ Bird Gossip" and "^ Paper of All Sorts" and seven miscellaneous poems, — all published in Harper; his " Fragments from an Unpublished Magazine^'' which appeared in the Democratic Review, in September^ October^ and December^ 1852; his series of sketches^ called '•'The Man about Town," begun in Harpers Weekly, and continued in Frank H. Bellew's Picayune ; his dramatic reviews, contributed to the Saturday Press in 1858-59 ; a number of papers in the old series of Putnam ; many miscellaneous articles in the Home Journal, the Lantern, Vanity Fair, and other papers ; more than twenty stories; and six plays. It is said that he began, and partly composed, a tragedy on the subject of Samson ; but I have not been able to find it. He undertook to write, for Leslie's Stars and Stripes, — a paper published, during about six mofiths, in 1859, — a romance entitled " The Scarlet Petticoat"; but this has not been found. He began, in Bellew's Picayune, March 27th, 1858, a story called " From Hand to Mouth"; but he left it incomplete, and it was finished either by Bellew ('^Triangle"), or by Pool, his sub-editor. He wrote discursive articles on many subjects. He loas surprisingly apt at jest, and squib, and song. With a rare aptitude for literature, he possessed also an extraordinary faculty for journalism. I have traced his busy pen in many places. He was the most industrious idle man that ever I have known.

It is more than eighteen years since O'Brien died. Many men who knew him and could have given information concerning him have, within that time, passed away. In making a memoir of him I have endeavored to augment my own imperfect tribute by adding to it the testimony of other writers. Mr. Thomas E. Davis, O'Brien's surviving executor, Mr. Louis H. Stephens, the principal artist of

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Vanity Fair^ and Mr. Stephen Fishe, whose name in journalism is a synonyme of sprightliness and dash, have generously enriched with their recollections the memorial pages which follow, I reprint, beside, a sketch of him by the beloved and lamented George Arnold, and an account of his military career that was written by Frank Wood, in the New York Leader, April 12th, 1862; and in this, as Wood was appointed one of his executors, there is a sort of fulfilment of the wishes of the dead. I have received encouragement in my task from Bellew, one of O'Brien's best friends and earliest associates in America ; from Aldrich, the poet, once his close companion ; from the learned, gracious, and kindly veteran of letters, Dr. R. Shelton Mackenzie ; from Mr. Thomas Powell, whose green old age delights in genial remembrance of the literary past ; from Dr. A. L. Carroll, who knew him well; and from Mr. J. W. Harper, Jr., whose friendship for the poet when he was living is now a fresh and tender memory, surviving all the years that have passed since he died. Mr. Stephens, furthermore, has been persuaded to paint, from memory, a portrait of O'Brien to embellish this volume ; and I preserve here a Dirge for O'Brien by the late Charles Dawson Shanly, — his friend and mine. Tenderly loved and deeply deplored, he too sleeps the long sleep of death. How deep had been his joy, if only he coidd have lived to take a personal part in this commemoration of his brilliant countryman and cherished comrade! His dirge — as full of tears as of music — is a fitting ritual for the soldier poet. '^In death they are not divided.''

W. W, Fort Hill, New Brighton, Staten Island, October 12th, 1880.

Contents

PAGE

Sketch of O'Brien, by William Winter xiii

Dirge for O'Brien, by C. D. Shanly xiv

I. Toll, hell

With solemn knell,

For him who fell

In the gallojnng fight !

Trumpets, ring To the dirge we sing vj"

In our hearts that cling rv)

Round the sjnrit so bright !

Roll, drum.

As the vaulted tomb For his early doom

Is gaping drearily !

Cold and dead.

In his stony bed

Lay him, who lately sang so cheerily !