I never heard that the refusal
was based on the inability to pay such a sum, and there was no offer to
pay any sum. The value of the houses destroyed by Hunter, with their
contents, was fully $100,000 in gold, and at the time I made the demand
the price of gold in greenbacks had very nearly reached $3.00 and was
going up rapidly. Hence it was that I required the $500,000 in
greenbacks, if the gold was not paid, to provide against any further
depreciation of the paper money.
"I would have been fully justified by the laws of retaliation in war in
burning the town without giving the inhabitants the opportunity of
redeeming it.
"J. A. Early."
Bok wrote to Eugene Field, once, asking him why in all his verse he had
never written any love-songs, and suggesting that the story of Jacob and
Rachel would have made a theme for a beautiful love-poem. Field's reply
is interesting and characteristic, and throws a light on an omission in
his works at which many have wondered:
"Dear Bok:
"I'll see what I can do with the suggestion as to Jacob and Rachel.
Several have asked me why I have never written any love-songs. That is
hard to answer. I presume it is because I married so young. I was
married at twenty-three, and did not begin to write until I was
twenty-nine. Most of my lullabies are, in a sense, love-songs; so is 'To
a Usurper,' 'A Valentine,' 'The Little Bit of a Woman,' 'Lovers' Lane,'
etc., but not the kind commonly called love-songs.
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