Preface.

A hasty memorandum, not particularly for
Preface to the following tales but to put on
record my respect and affection for as sane,
beautiful, cute, tolerant, loving, candid and free
and fair-intentioned a native as ever was
our race.

In Boston, 1860, I first met WILLIAM DOUGLAS O'CONNOR.* As I saw and knew him then, in his 29th year, and for twenty-five further years, he was a gallant, handsome, gay-hearted, fine-voiced, glowing-eyed man; lithemoving on his feet, of healthy and magnetic atmosphere and presence, and the most welcome company in the world. He was a thorough-going anti-slavery believer, speaker and writer, (doctrinaire,) and though I took a fancy to him from the first, I remember I feared his ardent abolitionism — was afraid it would probably keep us apart. (I was a decided and out-spoken anti-slavery believer myself, then aud always; but shy'd from the extremists, the red-hot fellows of those times.) N. O'C. was then correcting the proofs of Harrington, an eloquent and fiery novel he had written, and which was written before the commencement of the Secession War. He was already married, the father of two fine little children, and was personally and intellectually the most attractive man I had ever met. I list of '62 found myself lel towards the war-field—went to Washington City — (to become absorb'd in the armies, and in the big hospitals, and to get work in one of the Departments),—and there I met and resumed friendship, and found warm hospitality from O'C. and his noble New England wife. They had just lost by death their little child-boy Philip; and O'C. was yet feeling serious about it. The youngster had been vaccinated against the threatening of small-pox which alarmed the city; but somehow it led to worse results than it was intended to ward off—or at any rate O'C. thought that proved the cause of the boy's death. He had one child left, a fine bright little daughter, and a great comfort to her parents. (Dear Jeannie! She grew up a most accomplished and superior young woman—declined in health, and died about 1881.)

* Born Jan. 2d, 1832. When grown, lived several years in Boston, and edited journals and magazines there—went about 1867 to Washington, D. C., and became a U. S. Clerk, first in the Light-House Bureau in the U. S. Life-Saving Service, in which branch he was Assistant Superintendent for many years—sickened in 1867—died there at Washington May 9th, 1889.

On through to '74 I saw and talk'd with O'C. almost daily. I had soon got employment, first for a short time in the Indian Bureau (in the Interior Department,) and then for a long while in the Attorney General's Office. The Secession War, with its tide of varying fortunes, excitements — President Lincoln and the daily sight of him — the doings in Congress and at the State Capitals — the news from the fields and campaigns, and from foreign governments — with a hundred matters, occurrences, personalities, — (Greely, Woudell Philips, the parties, the Abolitionists, &c.) were the subjects of our talk and discussion. I am not sure from what I heard then, O'C. was cut out for a first-class orator or public speaker or forensic advocate. No audience or jury could have stood out against him. He had a power and sharp-cut faculty of statement and persuasiveness beyond any man's else. I know it well, for I have felt it many a time. If not as orator, his forte was as critic, newer, deeper than any: also, as literary author, one of his traits was that while he knew all, and welcomed all sorts of great genre literature, all lands and times, from all writers and artists, and not only tolerated each, and defended every attacked literary person with a skill and heart-catholicism that I never saw equal'd — invariably advocated or excused them — he kept an idiosyncrasy, and identity of his own very mark'd and without special tinge or color from any source. He always applauded the masters, whence and whoever. I remember his special defences of Byron, Burns, Poe, Rabelais, Victor Hugo, George Sand, and others. There was always a little touch of personal cadence in his superb voice; and I think there was something of the same sadness in his temperament and nature. Perhaps, too, in his literary structure. But he was a very buoyant, jovial, good-natured.

So much for a hasty melanged reminiscence
and note of William O'Connor, my dear, dear
friend and staunch, (probably my staunchest)
literary believer and champion from the first
and throughout without halt or demy for
twenty-five years. No better friend — none
more reliable through this life of one's ups and
downs. On the occurrence of the latter he
would be sure to make his appearance on the
scene, eager, hopeful, full of fight like a per-
fect knight of chivalry. For he was a born
sample of the flower and symbol of olden time
first, class, and knighthood here in the 19th cen-
tury. Thrice blessed be his memory!

WALT WHITMAN.