O'Brien was born in about 1828, and was a "native" of Limerick. He graduated from Dublin Univeristy and moved to London to edit a paper, which failed. When O'Brien arrived in New York in 1852, he brought with him a letter of introduction from Dr. Mackenzie which he presented to prominent editors such as Major Noah and General Morris. In 1852, Dr. Mackenzie was living in Liverpool, but he was "later eminent in the journalism of Philadelphia" (75-76). Winter states: "O'Brien's career was brief, stormy, laborious, sometimes gay, sometimes miserable, and its close, though honorable, was sad" (75).
"Upon his arrival in America O'Brien entered with vigor upon the duties of the literary vocation." In this early period, O'Brien wrote for "The Home Journal," "The Evening Post," "The New York Times," "The Whig Review," "Harper's Magazine," and other publications. O'Brien also wrote short stage plays and was friends with both Lester Wallack and his father. Aldrich recalled that when he first met O'Brien, "he was trimming the wick of 'The Lantern,' the paper started by Brougham. Winter claims: "The best of O'Brien's works were first published in 'Putnam's Magazine,' 'Harper's' and 'The Atlantic.' The last article that came from his pen was printed in 'Vanity Fair,' a comic paper that struggled through much vicissitude, during the war time, and, though its payments were small, was of vital service to our Bohemian circle" (76).
When Clapp began the "Saturday Press," O'Brien was hired to write about the Stage. However, Winter remarks that "O'Brien was a man to whom the curb of regular employment was intolerable," and he was only associated with the paper for a few weeks (66-67).
He is listed by Winter as one of the Bohemians who frequented Pfaff's Cave (88). Winter states, "Among those Bohemian comrades of mine,--all dead and gone now and mostly forgotten,--O'Brien was at once the most potential genius and the most original character. As I think of him I recall Byron's expressive figure, 'a wild bird and a wanderer'" (67).
In the early days of "The Atlantic Monthly," O'Brien published "The Diamond Lens" and "The Wondersmith"; Winter guesses that contemporary audiences are unlikely to have heard of either work. However, Winter notes that "These stories were hailed as the most ingenious fabrics of fiction that had been contributed to our literature since the day when Edgar Poe surprised and charmed the reading community with his imaginative, enthralling tale of 'The Fall of the House of Usher.' They revived, indeed, the fashion of the weird short story, and they provided a model for subsequent compositions of that order" (67).
Winter notes "that brillaint Irishman" O'Brien, "as a passing guest," in Aldrich's rooms at the Frost house, wrote the story "What Was It?" (139).
Winter recalls that after O'Brien's "The Diamond Lens" was published, "a groundless, foolish fable was set afloat" that alleged that O'Brien had taken the story from one of North's manuscripts. Winter states that "the fact being that it ['The Diamond Lens'] was prompted by a remark made to him [O'Brien] by Dr. A.L Carroll (he who, for a short time in 1865, published a comic paper called 'Mrs. Grundy'), relative to the marvellous things contained in a drop of water" (67-68). Winter claims that O'Brien's stories were original compositions, several of which he wistnessed being written while he was shown others almost immediately after they were completed. Winter claims that O'Brien's "fine poem" of "The Falling Star" was written at his "lodging," and that he still has the first draft of the work, which "Fitz" left on his table, along with the pen he was using. Winter claims that Fitz-James O'Brien's story, "The Wondersmith" was inspired by an anecdote that Clapp told in O'Brien and Winter's presence. Clapp's story follows: "'Once, while I was working for Albert Brisbane' (so, in substance, said the Prince of Bohemia), 'I had to read to him, one evening, many pages of a translation I had made, for his use, of Fourier's book on the Social Destiny of Man. He was closely attentive and seemed to be deeply interested; but, after a time, I heard a slight snore, and looking at him, in profile, I saw that he was sound asleep--and yet the eye that I could see was wide open. The and thus I ascertained, somewhat to my surprise, that he had a glass eye.'" Winter recalls that after Clapp told the story, there was a discussion "about the use of glass eyes and about the startling effects producible by the wearer of such an optic who should suddenly remove it from his visage, polish it, and replace it." In "The Wondersmith," "O'Brien causes the uncanny keeper of the toys to place his glass eye, as a watcher,--investing that orb with the faculty of sight and the means of communication (69-70).
On the topic of the focus on "intemperance," Winter states: "Poe died in 1849, aged forty, leaving works that fill ten closely packed volumes. No man achieves a result like that whose brain is damaged by stimulants. The same disparagement has been diffused as to Fitz-James O'Brien, that fine poet and romancer, who died at thirty-four,--losing his life in the American Civil War,--whose writings I collected and published. I have known O'Brien to have neither lodging, food nor money,--to be, in fact, destitute of everything except the garments in which he stood. The volume of his works that I collected,--including the remarkable stories of 'The Diamond Lens' and 'The Wondersmith,'--is one of five hundred pages; and there are other writings of his in my possession that would make another volume of an equal size. He was an Irishman and knew and like the favorite tipple of his native land; but it is to his genius that the world owes his writings,--not to his drams" (34-35).
Winter recalls that O'Brien and William North were friends, but had had a falling-out. In "The Slave of the Lamp" (later "The Man of the World"), North "described and satirized" O'Brien in the character "Fitz-Gammon O'Bouncer" (68).
Winter tells the following story about O'Brien: "At twilight on a gloomy autumn day in 1860, when I happened to be sitting alone at the long table under the sidewalk in Pfaff's Cave, O'Brien came into that place and took a seat near to me. His face was pale and careworn and his expression preoccupied and dejected. He was, at first, silent; but presently he inquired whether I intended to go to my lodging, saying that he would like to go there with me, and to write something that he had in mind. I knew O'Brien, and thoroughly understanding his ways, I comprehended at once the dilemma in which he was placed. Our circle of boys had a name for it. He was 'on a rock'; that is to say, he was destitute. I told him that I had something to do, that would keep me absent for an hour, at the end of which time I would return for him. That was a pretext for going to my abode (it was in Varick Street), and causing a room to be prepared for my friend. He remained in that lodging for two nights and a day. In the course of that time he slept only about four hours: I could not induce him to food or drink: he would not eat even a little fruit that I obtained and contrived to leave in his way. On the morning of the second day he appeared at my bedside, having a roll of manuscript in his hand, and, formally, even frigidly, took leave of me. 'Sir,' he said, 'I wish you good morning'; and so saying, he departed. About four o'clock in the afternoon of that day I entered Delmonico's and there I found Fitz,--in glory. He was arrayed in new garments; he had refreshed himself; he was dispensing refreshment to all who would partake of it; his aspect was of wealth and joy. He had, in the meantime, sold to 'Harper's Magazine,' for a large price (at least in those days considered large), the product of his vigil at my lodging, and he was rejoicing in the sensation of affluence. He was a strange being: I remember that he became angry because I would not borrow some money from him, and at last I was obliged to appease him by accepting the loan of a small banknote. The composition he had sold was his fabric of narrative verse called 'The Sewing Bird,' --a singularly ingenious work, blending fancy with satire, which had been suggested to him by the sight of one of those little silver-colored birds, then a recent invention, used by sewing girls, to hold cloth. The drift of it is that much of the remunerative work that should be left for women to do is pre-empted and taken from them by men. It meant more at that time, perhaps, than it does now. It was widely read and much admired. The wish that every remunerative work to which women are equal should be reserved for them is, no doubt, general; but there is a ludicrous side to the subject, as noticed by that great novelist Wilkie Collins, who, in one of his most delightful stories, refers to '...Maternal societies for confining poor women; Magdalen societies for rescuing poor women; Strong-Minded societies for putting poor women into poor men's places and leaving the poor men to shift for themselves.' Still, 'The Sewing Bird' is a clever work, and it had a good effect" (70-73).
Of O'Brien's temper, Winter states that "Like many persons of the Irish race, O'Brien was impetuous in temper and 'sudden and quick in quarrel." Winter recalls that O'Brien and the Scotch novelist Donald McLeod were friends, and that one night the two were forced to share a bed. In this shared space, an argument broke out between the two over Irish or Scottish "racial superiority." "O'Brien was aggressively positive as to the predominant merit of the Irish," and McLeod felt the same way about the Scottish. The two men argued and then fell asleep, challenging each other to settle matters in the morning. According to Winter, "Both were sincere in their ferocious intentions, but neither of them could resist the suddenly comic aspect of their dispute, and so the quarrel ended in a laugh." Winter learned of the story when O'Brien told him of the incident (73-74).
Winter reprints a November 21, 1860, letter from O'Brien to his friend, John E. Owens, as a demonstration of O'Brien's sense of humor p. 74-75.
Winter states that "when the war began O'Brien promptly sought service in the field." O'Brien first enlisted with the New York Seventh Regiment, and was later on the staff of General Lander's forces in the position of a Volunteer Aid. O'Brien was seriously wounded in the shoulder joint of his right arm (it was shattered) on February 6, 1862, in a fight with the cavalry of Confederate Colonel Ashley. He died from that wound on April 6, 1862, at Cumberland, VA. Aldrich and O'Brien, "applied, almost simultaneously," to be the Aid of General Lander, leader of the New York Seventh Regiment, in April, 1862. Aldrich initially won the appointment, but the letter with his assignment to be delivered to Portsmouth never reached him, so the appointment went to O'Brien. Winter includes "One of Henry Clapp's grim witticisms on that subject: 'Aldrich, I see,' he said, 'has been shot in O'Brien's shoulder.'" Winter qualifies this by stating that "The old cynic did not like either of them" (76-77).
Winter remarks: "As to O'Brien, friendship had to charitable towards infirmities of character and errors of conduct. He lacked both moral courage and intellectual restraint. He was wayward, choleric, defiant, sometimes almost savage: but he was generous in disposition and capable of heroism, and his works afford abundant evidence of the imagination that accompanies genius and the grace that authenticates literary art. Among my Bohemian comrades, he was not the most beloved, but he had the right to be the most admired." To further discuss O'Brien's character and skill, Winter quotes several stanzas of O'Brien's poem "The Fallen Star" p. 78 which Winter feels "unconsciously, he [O'Brien] revealed the better part of his own nature, with some part of his own experience, and which pathetically indicate the writer's personality and the influence it diffused (77-78).
Winter states that the most "abrupt" contrast between personalities "was afforded by the restful, indolent, elegant demeanor of Wilkins, and the vital, breezy, exuberant, demeanor of Fitz-James O'Brien,--the most representative Bohemian writer whom it has been my fortune to know" (95). In discussing his temper, Winter notes that O'Brien sometimes became involved (or involved himself) in arguments that led to physical violence. "Persons whom he disliked he would not recognize and, in the expression of opinion, especially as to questions of literary art, he was explicit"; Winter states that this was a prevailing trait among the members of the Bohemian circle. This practice "was a salutory experience for young writers, because it habituated them to the custom not only of speaking the truth, as they understood it, but of hearing the truth, as others understood it, about their own productions." Winter provides an example of this practice: "I greatly like your poem of 'Orgia,' O'Brien said to me, "and I like it all the more because I did not think you could write anything so good" (95-96).
In response to Howells' criticisms of the Bohemians and in a discussion of their writing, Winter states: "Revelry requires money: at the time Mr. Howells met those Bohemians, -- with the 'damp locks' and the 'frenzied eyes,' -- it is probably that the group did not possess enough money among them all to buy a quart bottle of champagne. Furthermore, they were writers of remarkable quality, and they were under the stringent necessity of working continually and very hard: and it seems pertinent to suggest that such a poem, for instance, as George Arnold's 'Old Pedagogue,' or Fitz-James O'Brien's Ode in commemoration of Kane, or Charles Dawson Shanly's 'Walker of the Snow,' is not to be produced from under the stimulation of alcohol. Literature is a matter of brains, not drugs. It would be equally just and sensible for American criticism to cherish American literature, and to cease from carping about the infirmities, whether actual or putative, of persons dead and gone, who can no longer defend themselves" (93).
Winter also refers to Brougham's recollections of O'Brien: "John Brougham, the comedian, expressed to me the opinion that O'Brien never cared much for any person with whom he did not quarrel, and as both of them were Irishmen that opinion, perhaps, is correct" (95).
According to Winter, "The quarrels in which O'Brien participated were more often pugilistic than literary; contests into which he plunged, with Celtic delight in the tempest of combat. He was constitutionally valorous, but, as his valor lacked discretion and he did not hesitate to engage with giants, he was usually defeated." Winter recalls O'Brien reading his poem "The Lost Steamship" at Pfaff's after getting into a fistfight on Broadway over who had the right-of-way on the sidewalk. O'Brien "read that poem to our circle in a magnificent manner, with all the passionate vigor, all the weird feeling, and all the tremor of haunted imagination that its tragical theme requires." Winter continues with remarks about O'Brien's skill in capturing the feeling and horror of the tradegy (96-98).
Of his fights, Winter states that "Poor O'Brien's fights were, no doubt, serious enough to him, but to most of his associates they seemed comic." Winter discusses O'Brien's "Waterloo" on June 14,1858, at the New York Hotel, and the "playful" account of the event he heard from the doctor that treated O'Brien afterwards; O'Brien's nose was smashed and his facial injuries made him unrecognizable (98-99).
Winter argues that O'Brien was not always brawling and reckless, and that the "gypsy-like wildness of temperment" was developed over time and through disappointments. Winter cites Arnold for proof of this fact: "When I first knew O'Brien, in 1856-'57, he had elegant rooms; a large and valuable library; piles of manuscripts; dressing-cases; pictures; a ward-robe of much splendor; and all sorts of knick-knackery, such as young bachelors love to collect." Winter states that others who knew O'Brien when he arrived in 1852, described him as "a man of uncommonly attractive aspect,--making mention of his athletic figure, genial face, fair complexion, pleasing smile, waving brown hair, and winning demeanor." Winter notes that when he met O'Brien, "a change had occured, alike in his person and circumstances." At that time, O'Brien had gone to Boston as an assistant to H.L. Bateman, who was directing the professional tour of Matilda Heron. According to Winter, "it was easy to perceive that he had experienced considerable vicissitude and was a confirmed literary gypsy." O'Brien had apparently aged and his hair had begun to thin at this point, but Winter remarks that "his expressive gray-blue eyes were clear and brilliant; his laughter was bluff and breezy; his voice strong and musical; his manner was gay; and he was a cheerful companion,--making the most of To-day, and caring not at all for To-morrow" (99-100).
Winter reprints an 1880 "serio-comic" letter from Aldrich to Winter that discusses O'Brien. Aldrich writes of a dinner at Delmonico's that O'Brien hosted for Clapp, Arnold, and possibly Winter, that O'Brien had borrowed $35.00 from Aldrich to host. Aldrich was not invited to the event (100-101).
Winter discusses a rumor orginated and published by Briggs/Harry Franco about O'Brien: "O'Brien was not the heir to a title, nor did he pretend to be. The clever, piquant, tart, and rather malicious writer, Charles F. Briggs, once prominent in New York journalism as 'Harry Franco,' originated and published the incorrect statement,--which was accepted by Aldrich and others,--that O'Brien was a relative of Smith O'Brien, at one time conspicuous as an Irish 'agitator,' and was an heir to the title borne by Smith O'Brien's brother, Lord Inchiquin. Fitz-James's father was a lawyer: his mother's maiden name was de Courcy" (102).
Of O'Brien's works, Winter notes that the story "The Scarlet Petticoat" was started in the paper "Leslie's Stars and Stripes" in 1859, and ran for a few months, but was never completed. Several of O'Brien's works have been lost. Winter mentions that in 1881, he had a volume of O'Brien's works published which contained forty-three poems and thirteen stories. For a companion volume, Winter was able to collect "from various sources" thirty pieces of prose, fifteen pieces of verse, several plays, and "many interesting fragments," enough, Winter claims, "to make a book of five hundred pages" (102-103).
Winter also reprints a letter from O'Brien to Aldrich p.103.
O'Brien was a member of Taylor's poetic group, along with Richard Henry Stoddard, Elizabeth Barstow Stoddard, Edmund Clarence Stedman, George Henry Boker, George William Curtis, Christopher P. Cranch, and Fitz Hugh Ludlow. Winter notes that at the time of his writing "not one remains" of this group (177). Winter also notes that for a period, O'Brien was especially close to Taylor and Stoddard, but this did not continue. Winter also notes that when he published O'Brien's collected works in 1881 --Poems and Stories, "the most censorious review of them that appeared was, I remember, written by Stoddard, in "The New York Tribune" (295).
O'Brien was a member of a New York group of artists and writers that existed before the Pfaff's Bohemians that also included Gayler, North, Bellew, Charles G. Rosenberg, Seymour, and Eytinge. Winter was not a member of this group; all of its members are dead at the time of Winter's writing. Winter states, "That society, unlike the Pfaff's coterie, was, after a fortuitous fashion, organized, and it had a name,--the remarkable name of the Ornithorhyncus Club." The club was named after a Duck-Billed Platypus (308). O'Brien wrote one of the group's songs, which "was sung to an air from the ever popular 'Fra Diavolo'"; this song was "an especial favorite" of the group (309-310).
Of the poets associated with the Bohemian period, Winter states that O'Brien's name is one among a list of "names that shine, with more or less lustre, in the scroll of American poets, and recurrence to their period affords opportunity for correction of errors concerning it, which have been conspicuously made" (292).
Winter reprints a letter written to him from Aldrich that discusses a poem that is credited to O'Brien. It appears that the poem is a recent "discovery." The letter is dated March 8,1881, and Winter states that Aldrich had been editor of "The Atlantic Monthly" for a while. In regards to O'Brien, Aldrich writes: "If that is O'Brien's poem, it is the best he ever wrote. Here and there I catch the tone of his voice. That wild fancy, in the second stanza, about the floating yellow hair of the drowning sun, seems like O'Brien at his very best. The poem is wholly new to me..." (367).
Winter claims that "O'Brien had a presentiment of his early and violent death." Winter cites a letter to him from the artist Albert R. Waud, "who was in his company 'at the front'" for support:
"After O'Brien became Aid on Lander's staff a feeling took possession of him that he would not long survive the commission: under its influence he became, at times, strangely softened. His bouyant epicureanism partly deserted him. He showed greater consideration for others and was less convivial than was his wont.
One night I rode with him to the camp of the First Massachusetts Battery, where the evening passed pleasantly, with cigars and punch. Some one sang the song, from 'Don Casesar de Bazan,' 'Then let me like a soldier die.' Next morning he started, to join the General (Lander) at Harper's Ferry. As we rode he kept repeating the words of the song; said he appreciated it the more, as he had a presentiment that he should be shot, before long. He would not be rallied out of it, but remarked that he was content; and, when we parted, said good-bye, as cheerfully as need be.
I heard, afterward, that medical incompetance had more to do with his death than the wound. How true it was I don't know. But the same thing was said of General Lander; and there was, at that time, a great want of surgical experience in the field" (104).
In a final word on O'Brien's life, Winter states: "The propulsive influences of that period, greatly broadened and strengthened, are splendidly operative now, and the hard vicissitudes of such a case as that of O'Brien would be needless or impossible to-day. Poet, romancer, wanderer, soldier, he sang his song, he told his story, he met his fate like a brave man, giving his life for his adopted land, and dying,--with much promise unfulfilled,--when only thirty-four years old" (105).
The Vault at Pfaff's