LIBRARY 
 
 OF THK 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA. 
 
 Class 
 
 
CONTEMPORARY MEN 
 OF LETTERS SERIES 
 
 EDITED BY 
 WILLIAM ASPENWALL BRADLEY 
 
 CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER 
 
CHARLES DUDLEY 
 WARNER 
 
 BY MRS. JAMES T. FIELDS 
 
 Contemporary 
 
 Men of Letters 
 
 NEW YORK 
 McCLURE, PHILLIPS 
 MCMIV 
 
 CO. 
 
COPYRIGHT, 1904, BY 
 McCLUEE, PHILLIPS & CO. 
 
 Published, March, 11)04, N 
 
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER 
 
 C ? ' - 
 
 
Charles Dudley Warner was distinctively 
 a man of his own day. He was enlisted 
 for the men and women who made his 
 world. He knew the past, for he was a 
 man of letters; the future he did not 
 know; he was content to leave that to the 
 Father of us all ; the present was his field. 
 Warner's acceptation of the present and 
 the way he lived for it was a peculiar and 
 distinguishing gift. Planting his feet 
 firmly on the knowledge he never ceased 
 to acquire, he was ready to speak at call 
 before any assembly when he was invited, 
 or to hold his part in any conversation. 
 Never dull, never insistent, but grace 
 fully, helpfully, joyously furthering the 
 [3] 
 
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER 
 
 ends of any interesting occasion whatever 
 it might be. The generosity of his na 
 ture and a certain self-possession enabled 
 him to be profoundly social. There was 
 no day, no hour, no moment, no thing 
 which he would not give, if he could, to a 
 fellow-mortal who needed his presence or 
 his help. That the demand was import 
 ant to some one else made it important 
 enough for him to consider. This wide 
 sympathy fitted him to be what he became 
 a newspaper editor of distinction, a 
 writer of many books, primarily for his 
 contemporaries, but so well done that some 
 of his published work will live beyond his 
 time. 
 
 He could say "no" with the best, yet it 
 would be after considering if he might not 
 [4] 
 
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER 
 say "yes." His large sympathy made 
 him a large man among his fellows. He 
 pursued his ends without let or hindrance, 
 being concentrated on the manner of 
 working which was natural to him. The 
 final means not only of his progress, but 
 of all real progress, he believed to be 
 literature, or the power of making perma 
 nent what is worthy. 
 
 His first book, when a mere boy, was a 
 compilation called "A Book of Eloquence 
 for Students." His second was pub 
 lished quite twenty years later, a delight 
 ful and amusing home picture called "My 
 Summer in a Garden" ; but before, behind, 
 and beyond the yearly books which ensued 
 upon the success of his "Garden" was 
 the never-ceasing flow of newspaper and 
 [5] 
 
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER 
 
 magazine writing, wherein he was steadily 
 using the power that was his for the pub 
 lic good. 
 
 Charles Dudley Warner was born in 
 Plainfield, Massachusetts, September 12, 
 1829, a country boy without wealth or spe 
 cial opportunity. His opportunity was 
 always his own brain, his own heart, his 
 own steady-growing virtue. His father 
 died a young man, thirty-six years old, and 
 when Charles was only five; there was a 
 brother George, one year old, and these 
 two little boys, with their mother, who 
 came from Cazenovia, New York, lived 
 for three lonely years on their cold up 
 land farm of two hundred acres, "blown 
 by wind and beaten by shower," and 
 [6] 
 
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER 
 
 nearly buried by the snows of winter. 
 For the farm was the only inheritance 
 of Charles's father, whose brother and 
 sisters each and all went westward, leav 
 ing the land to him, Justus by name, to 
 do what he could with the unreward 
 ing soil. Plainfield was not a town to 
 be judged by the standards of some 
 country towns to-day; that and Cum- 
 mington, its neighbor, where William 
 Cullen Bryant was born ; Ashfield, doubt 
 less, and many another township of that 
 part of New England, were settled by de 
 scendants of the Mayflower immigrants, 
 or from the colony which moved to Hart 
 ford from Cambridge in 1636, under their 
 leader, Thomas Hooker, and afterward 
 left Connecticut for a less-restricted re- 
 [7] 
 
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER 
 
 ligious atmosphere. Warner's paternal 
 ancestor was one of the Connecticut col 
 ony who seceded, probably with compan 
 ions, and came northward. He must 
 have been pathetically ignorant of New 
 England hill-country climate to have 
 bought a farm 2,200 feet above the sea 
 upon which to support a family and 
 bequeath its storms and its stones to 
 his descendants forever. But the land 
 may have been allotted, as was some 
 times done in those early days, to desira 
 ble settlers. 
 
 Warner's mother descended from one 
 of the voyagers in the Mayflower, Cooke, 
 whose name is duly inscribed in the 
 Plymouth records. Her people came 
 first to live in a town adjacent to Plain- 
 [8] 
 
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER 
 
 field, Hawley, and removed to Cazenovia 
 while Charles's mother was a little girl. 
 It was natural enough that affectionate 
 connections once made between the two 
 families should have grown stronger 
 rather than weaker upon the removal 
 of one of the families to Cazenovia. 
 Certain it is that Justus Warner went 
 thither to seek his wife Sylvia (Rus 
 sell Hitchcock), and to bring her back 
 to the familiar vicinity from which her 
 parents' removal seemed to have trans 
 planted her; but the "little god" is ever at 
 his work, and Charles was to be born in 
 Plainfield, one mile from the old church 
 of his parents and grandparents. Doubt 
 less at the sad moment of her young hus 
 band's death the little boy Charles often 
 [9] 
 
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER 
 seemed to his mother "a great help," but 
 at the age of five this help must naturally 
 be taken in a moral sense. The labour on 
 the farm must be performed by hired 
 men; and while he was a cheerful, loving, 
 intelligent child and a joy to his mother's 
 heart, the burdens of unusual business and 
 unremunerative farming must often have 
 weighed upon her mind. We cannot 
 doubt that her boy continually surprised 
 her by his sympathetic insight and clever 
 ness, but five years have their limitations. 
 She went on bravely, wishing to keep her 
 children with her, until Charles was eight 
 years old and his brother four, then, yield 
 ing to the kind suggestions of relatives 
 and friends, she left her home forever. 
 In the town of Charlemont, eight miles 
 [10] 
 
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER 
 from Plainfield, on the Deerfield River, 
 lived an intelligent man, a farmer, Jonas 
 Patch by name, a connection of the family 
 who was willing to become Charles's 
 guardian. It was a necessity that the 
 boy should now go to school and begin 
 a new life. The reasons for the change 
 were sufficient, the farm was sold and a 
 share of the money that came from it was 
 carefully husbanded for Charles's educa 
 tion, because his father's latest words were 
 that "Charles must go to college." 
 
 Plainfield was not a place of ordinary 
 farming people, as we have already inti 
 mated. The minister of the old Presby 
 terian church, Parson Hallock, was a man 
 of intellect and learning and set the pace. 
 Justus Warner, and his father before him, 
 [11] 
 
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER 
 
 owned and read good books, and the peo 
 ple met and talked together as did the 
 people described by Mrs. Stowe. Charles 
 had always found standard English books 
 on shelves where he could reach them; 
 there was a fine portrait of his father 
 painted in Boston by a good artist, "in a 
 dress which seemed elegant," hanging on 
 the walls. His father was evidently a 
 man of knowledge and promise. Thus 
 his mother's happy associations belonged 
 to Plainfield, all her young hopes and am 
 bitions of early married life were centred 
 there, and, in leaving Plainfield for 
 Charlemont, she left everything that was 
 dear to her except her boys, and upon 
 them her life, she felt, should now be con 
 centrated. 
 
 [12] 
 
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER 
 On arriving at Charlemont, Jonas 
 Patch, a man "of excellent standing and 
 influence in the community, " gladly re 
 ceived the oldest boy and brought the best 
 possible influences to bear upon him. 
 Many years after Charles's first literary 
 successes and travels abroad, in his ma 
 turity, it seems to have occurred to him 
 how good it might be for future boys and 
 future guardians, as well as how amusing 
 for the world in general, to read a boy's 
 true experiences between the ages of eight 
 and twelve, on a New England farm. 
 The integrity of his character gave him 
 the very rare power of telling the exact 
 truth regarding his own life. The books 
 of Warner are real autobiography. 
 Whatever the subject may be of which he 
 [13] 
 
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER 
 
 treats, it is his own experience of that sub 
 ject. His life was not eventful, in the 
 usual meaning of that term, but he lived 
 and felt genuinely always, could and 
 would speak the truth, and enjoyed every 
 hour like a true Christian. 
 
 In 1877 he published "Being a Boy," a 
 book giving a delightful picture of his ex 
 periences on Jonas Patch's farm. He 
 says: "The rural life described is that of 
 New England between 1830 and 1850, in 
 a period of darkness before the use of 
 lucifer matches. ... I invented noth 
 ing not an adventure, not a scene, not an 
 emotion. I know from observation how 
 difficult it is for an adult to write about 
 childhood. Invention is apt to supply de 
 tails that memory does not carry." Not 
 [14] 
 
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER 
 
 with Warner when he undertakes to tell a 
 true story ! Here we have an unvarnished 
 picture of the boy, "the father of the 
 
 man." 
 
 "One of the best things in the world to 
 be is a boy," he says; "it requires no ex 
 perience, though it needs some practice to 
 be a good one. . . . The proudest day 
 of my life was one day when I rode on the 
 neap of the cart, and drove the oxen all 
 alone, with a load of apples, to the cider 
 mill. I was so little that it was a wonder 
 that I did not fall off and get under the 
 broad wheels. Nothing could make a 
 boy, who cared anything for his appear 
 ance, feel flatter than to be run over by 
 the broad tire of a cart-wheel. But I 
 never heard of one who was, and I don't 
 [15] 
 
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER 
 believe one ever will be. ... There are 
 so many bright spots in the life of a farm- 
 boy that I sometimes think I should like 
 to live the life over again; I should be al 
 most willing to be a girl if it were not for 
 the chores. ... I have often thought 
 it fortunate that the amount of noise in a 
 boy does not increase in proportion to his 
 age; if it did the world could not contain 
 it." . . . 
 
 He runs on in this pleasant way, be 
 traying his own nature at every point. 
 Once he reminds us of Richard Brinsley 
 Sheridan, whose wit held London on the 
 alert, yet wrote: "Sit still, think, and do 
 nothing." Warner says: "A boy can 
 stand on one leg as well as a Holland 
 stork. . . . If he had his way, he would 
 [16] 
 
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER 
 do nothing in a hurry ; he likes to stop and 
 think about things, and enjoy his work as 
 he goes along." 
 
 Meanwhile the years were slipping 
 away and the time approaching when an 
 other school must be found for a boy 
 whose tastes were proved to be distinctly 
 scholarly. "He tells at home that he has 
 seen the most wonderful book that ever 
 was, and a big boy has promised to lend 
 it to him. 'Is it a true book, John?' asked 
 the grandmother; 'because if it isn't true, 
 it is the worst thing that a boy can read.' 
 . . . John cannot answer as to the truth 
 of the book, and so does not bring it into 
 the house, but he borrows it, nevertheless, 
 and conceals it in the barn, and, lying in 
 the hay-mow, is lost in its enchantments 
 [17] 
 
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER 
 
 many an odd hour when he is supposed to 
 be doing chores. There were no chores in 
 the * Arabian Nights'; the boy there had 
 but to rub the ring and summon a genie 
 who would feed the calves and pick up 
 chips and bring in wood in a minute. It 
 was through this emblazoned portal that 
 the boy walked into the world of books, 
 which he soon found was larger than his 
 own, and filled with people he longed to 
 know." 
 
 When Charles was twelve came the 
 next important step in his life. His 
 mother's brother, in Cazenovia, took the 
 family back to that pleasant town, where 
 Charles was soon placed in the Methodist 
 Seminary, a school of note in that part 
 of the country. He did not become a 
 [18] 
 
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER 
 Methodist his family were all Presby 
 terians and possibly he did not give 
 much thought to the subject. In later 
 years he liked to go to the Episcopal 
 Church, especially that of Dr. Rainsford 
 in New York; when in Hartford his 
 friendship for Mr. Twichell would not 
 allow him to think of going elsewhere 
 than to Mr. TwichelFs church. It was 
 not long before he was talked of as the 
 first boy in his class, and on commence 
 ment day he carried off the chief prize. 
 The "Oneida Conference Seminary," for 
 such it was called, was a co-educational 
 school, and it is probable that a certain 
 power which he possessed, peculiarly, of 
 making friendship with women and en 
 joying their society in what would seem a 
 [19] 
 
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER 
 perfectly natural way (if it were oftener 
 seen in the world), may have been ac 
 quired there. It was on the graduating 
 day of his class when it was noised abroad 
 that a handsome lad, Warner, was to 
 make the prize address, that he was first 
 seen by a little girl, Susan Lee, whom he 
 afterward married. 
 
 Meantime Charles kept steadily at 
 other work beside his books else the 
 small patrimony might not have held 
 out for college. He associated him 
 self with the printing office of the local 
 paper ; then he went into a book-store ; and 
 finally served in the post-office as a clerk. 
 He must have been studying all the time, 
 for when he found himself able to go to 
 college he entered as sophomore at Ham- 
 [20] 
 
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER 
 
 ilton, in the town of Clinton. Thence he 
 graduated with a reputation for literary 
 acquirements in 1851. One other experi 
 ence was his in the way of education, prob 
 ably preceding the glorious days of the 
 seminary. He had an aunt who was a 
 Quaker, who lived in the town of De Ruy- 
 ter, where there was a school of very high 
 repute. Charles was invited by this aunt 
 to make her a long visit and attend the 
 De Ruyter school. It was an invitation 
 not to be resisted. 
 
 Here Charles evidently enjoyed him 
 self a great deal, one of his chief pleasures 
 being that of finding his lifelong friend, 
 a boy at the same school, Wirt Dexter. 
 When, after this, and the college days at 
 Hamilton being ended (he entered Ham- 
 [21] 
 
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER 
 
 ilton at nineteen) , he found himself a man 
 of twenty-one, with the problem still un 
 settled, the problem which confronts every 
 young man: "What shall I do with my 
 talents, which way shall I turn?" With 
 some men, especially if they are to be 
 artists of any kind, with pen or pencil, 
 this season may be lingering and painful, 
 but Warner, having no one but himself to 
 lean upon and being confirmed in his de 
 sire to study law, needed only to settle 
 with himself as to ways and means to this 
 end. Whatever he might one day accom 
 plish in the field of letters, he knew there 
 was no possibility of maintaining himself 
 properly at first in this career, beside he 
 needed the equipment of the law, the defi 
 nite knowledge which a profession brings. 
 [22] 
 
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER 
 
 Unhappily at this juncture his health 
 failed, but he secured a position in an en 
 gineering corps surveying for railroads in 
 the State of Missouri. Two years in the 
 open restored him entirely. His clear 
 blue eyes and his fresh complexion took 
 on their wonted look of health once more, 
 and receiving an invitation at this junc 
 ture from one of his college friends in 
 Philadelphia, Charles went there at once 
 to look about him. The grandfather of 
 this friend was a conveyancer, and urged 
 Charles to begin his studies in law 
 straightway, and come as soon as possi 
 ble into his office. 
 
 Young Warner applied himself to the 
 work with unremitting energy, encour 
 aged and helped on by his generous 
 
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER 
 
 friends, and the day he began to practice 
 he married Susan Lee. Their marriage 
 took place in the year 1856. He studied 
 law faithfully, but the practice of the pro 
 fession never agreed with him. He found 
 it very harassing. He did not think of 
 settling in Chicago, but later while on 
 a journey another college friend per 
 suaded him to go into business there with 
 him, and the sign Davenport & Warner 
 was very soon put up. He took a mod 
 est house, furnished it with the great 
 est simplicity and taste, and here his 
 delightful home life began. He had 
 a few friends in Chicago to start with, 
 Wirt Dexter among others, and proba 
 bly the most intimate. Unhappily the 
 hard times of 1856, 1857, and 1858 are 
 [24] 
 
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER 
 still rememberable, and Warner did not 
 immediately succeed to his liking in those 
 days of peculiar difficulty for young pro 
 fessional men. 
 
 [25] 
 
II 
 
 At this time one of his Eastern friends, 
 Mr. Joseph R. Hawley, had become the 
 editor of a Republican paper just started 
 in Hartford, Conn., The Press. He 
 wished Charles Warner to assist him in 
 the editorship, and went to Chicago to try 
 to induce him to return to the East and to 
 live in Hartford. Small time was lost in 
 coming to a decision, but what could they 
 do with the pleasant house? At that mo 
 ment Wirt Dexter determined to marry 
 and wanted a place to live. The lease 
 was assumed by him, but how about the 
 furnishings? "Oh," said Warner, "I paid 
 just so many hundred dollars for every 
 thing in this house, and you shall have it 
 [261 
 
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER 
 
 all for that if you will." The money was 
 paid, the Warners went to Hartford; the 
 following year General Hawley was 
 called to the war and Warner took the sole 
 editorship of The Evening Press. He 
 would have gone to the war himself ex 
 cept for his extreme short-sightedness, 
 which forced him to stay at home and 
 serve the country by his pen. This 
 service he never quitted. After the war 
 he and his friend were able to buy the 
 Hartford Courant, and consolidate the 
 two papers, making a powerful journal 
 which has always held its own and some 
 thing more. It would be deeply interest 
 ing to follow his war papers from day to 
 day, but we can only refer to them here. 
 One summer when the hearts of men were 
 [27] 
 
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER 
 
 very low Warner said: "Look here, this 
 will never do ; suppose I write a few edito 
 rials during these weeks of August which 
 shall give people something to laugh about 
 and something to think about that is cheer 
 ful? He went to his desk and every 
 week printed one of the editorials after 
 ward put together in the book called "My 
 Summer in a Garden," and published by 
 Fields & Osgood in 1870. Henry Ward 
 Beecher wrote an introductory letter say 
 ing: "In our feverish days, it is a sign of 
 health or of convalescence that men love 
 gentle pleasure. . . . The love of rural 
 life, the habit of finding enjoyment in 
 familiar things ... is worth a thou 
 sand fortunes of money or its equivalent." 
 The editorials, and later the book, 
 [28] 
 
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER 
 gained at once a happy fame. The fruit 
 of this garden was unexpected. Many a 
 heart was soothed and stimulated by it. 
 The influence upon the writer was no less 
 wholesome. He returns to his boyish 
 habits: "I like to go into the garden," he 
 says, "these warm latter days and muse. 
 To muse is to sit in the sun and not think 
 of anything!" The wit and humour of 
 the pages are exquisite, and so are the de 
 lightful glimpses of home-life, which with 
 him never lost its savour. Polly and he 
 understood one another too well to be dis 
 turbed by shafts of fun launched at each 
 other's expense. "What might have be 
 come of the garden, if Polly's advice had 
 been followed, a good Providence only 
 knows; but I never worked there without 
 [29] 
 
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER 
 a consciousness that she might at any mo 
 ment come down the walk, under the 
 grape -arbour, bestowing glances of ap 
 proval, that were none the worse for not 
 being critical. ... It was this bright 
 presence that filled the garden, as it did 
 the summer, with light." . . . 
 
 The combination of work and play to 
 be found in his garden, as in every true 
 garden, fills the reader with sympathetic 
 pleasure. * 'Hoeing on a bright soft May 
 day, when you are not obliged to, is nearly 
 equal to the delight of going trouting." 
 His fun about weeding seems truly im 
 mortal. "Pusley" received its death 
 blow in spite of a letter entreating him to 
 pause because a certain lady's husband 
 had been so inflamed with zeal that in her 
 [30] 
 
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER 
 absence "he had rooted up all her beds 
 of portulaca (a sort of cousin of the pot 
 weed), and utterly cast it out." The 
 table of the garden's profit and loss is very 
 amusing. He says: "I have tried to make 
 the table so as to satisfy the income-tax 
 collector. ... I have had some diffi 
 culty in fixing the rate of my own wages. 
 It was the first time that I had an oppor 
 tunity of paying what I thought labour 
 was worth. ... I figured it right 
 down to European prices, seventeen cents 
 a day for unskilled labour. Of course, I 
 boarded myself." 
 
 The years of our great war were stimu 
 lating and very hard-working years for the 
 young editor. Those who have watched 
 him at his desk say it was extraordinary 
 [31] 
 
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER 
 to see with what apparent ease he turned 
 off long and serious pieces of writing. 
 When he determined that a thing was to 
 be done, he went without hesitation or de 
 lay to his writing, and while another man 
 would be considering the topic, he would 
 have worked it out pen in hand; but with 
 the next decade his books began to appear 
 and he was no longer so closely tied to his 
 journalism. His interest in The C our ant 
 was as great as ever. He had unremit 
 ting editorial oversight, but he no longer 
 filled the whole editorial page, on occasion 
 of necessity, by his own pen. 
 
 The war having ended and his work 
 having settled into more definite shape, he 
 went with his wife for their first jour 
 ney to Europe. He needed change and 
 [32] 
 
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER 
 repose. His editorials went on continu 
 ously, as if he were at home, but the sub 
 jects differed, and the papers were to be 
 gathered into books. In the year 1872 
 he published two volumes one "Saunter- 
 ings," recording his first experiences and 
 impressions in Europe; the other "Back- 
 Log Studies," a delightful series of essays 
 on home-life written after his return. 
 
 "Back-Log Studies" invites us into his 
 home with the easy cordiality and true hos 
 pitality which were his own. The lesson 
 to Peter, when the great sheet knit at the 
 four corners was let down containing all 
 manner of birds and beasts and he was 
 commanded to call nothing common, was 
 never needed by Warner's catholic mind 
 and heart. In none of his books does 
 [33] 
 
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER 
 one see this so clearly, nor indeed do 
 we anywhere find his wit more ex 
 quisite, his native sunshine more at 
 large than between these covers. He 
 says: "A wood fire on the hearth is a 
 kindler of the domestic virtues." The 
 whole book is a kind of apotheosis of 
 home, portraying his modest ideal of what 
 almost every happy pair can attain who 
 are not stricken too deeply by discourage 
 ments and woes. Speaking of the world 
 generally as being "a little off the track," 
 he says: "Our American economy leaves 
 no place for amusements; we merely add 
 them to the burden of a life already full" ; 
 and speaking of building the house he 
 continues: "It took the race ages to build 
 dwellings that would keep out rain ; it has 
 [34] 
 
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER 
 
 taken longer to build houses airtight, but 
 we are on the eve of success. We are 
 only foiled by the ill-fitting, insincere 
 work of the builders, who build for a day 
 and charge for all time." The talk be 
 came very wise and pleasant by that fire 
 side both in reality and in the book. As 
 to the latter it would be hard to find one 
 pleasanter to read aloud for a small group 
 of friends on a rainy day, who like the 
 kind of writing that suggests conversa 
 tion and music and friendly interruptions. 
 "Daylight disenchants," he says, "it draws 
 one from the fireside and dissipates the idle 
 illusions of conversation, except under cer 
 tain conditions. Let us say these condi 
 tions are: A house in the country, with 
 some forest-trees near and a few ever- 
 [35] 
 
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER 
 greens, ... a snowstorm beginning 
 out of a dark sky, falling in a soft pro 
 fusion that fills all the air. . . . Noth 
 ing makes us feel at home like a great 
 snowstorm. ... In point of pure 
 enjoyment, with an intellectual sparkle 
 in it, I suppose that no luxurious loung 
 ing on tropical isles, set in tropical seas, 
 compares with the positive happiness one 
 may have before a great wood fire (not 
 two sticks laid crossways in a grate) with 
 a veritable New England winter raging 
 outside. In order to get the highest en 
 joyment, the faculties must be alert and 
 not be lulled into a mere recipient dul- 
 ness." ... It was a late spring that 
 year. "There was a popular longing 
 for spring that was almost a prayer. 
 [36] 
 
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER 
 Easter was set a week earlier than the 
 year before, but nothing seemed to do 
 any good. We agreed, however, that, 
 but for disappointed expectations and the 
 prospect of late lettuce and peas, we were 
 gaining by the fire as much as we were 
 losing by the frost." . . . 
 
 The spirit of the book may be gathered 
 from these brief passages, but for the 
 charming humour of it one must go to the 
 pages themselves. We must write of 
 Warner as a man, and of his books only as 
 they express his nature and make evident 
 the settled purposes of his life; and so we 
 deny ourselves longer quotations. "Back- 
 Log Studies" has a peculiar charm be 
 cause it marks a period in a beneficent ex 
 istence when a man of thoughtful mind 
 [37] 
 
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER 
 
 looks about him and plants his feet as he 
 does his trees among those who are to 
 make his world, and recognises his home 
 as the foundation of true work and devel 
 opment. 
 
 One of the Warners' near neighbours 
 was Mr. S. L. Clemens (Mark Twain), 
 and in 1873 the two authors ventured upon 
 what is always a more or less unsatisfac 
 tory scheme, writing a book together. It 
 was a satire called "The Gilded Age." In 
 the preface the authors say, over their sig 
 natures, that every chapter was written 
 jointly, the idea being to portray pecu 
 liarities developed in our country by the 
 sudden acquisition of great wealth and the 
 opening up of vast areas and new schemes 
 suggested by new opportunities. With 
 [38] 
 
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER 
 
 all its ingenuities and cleverness, the book 
 can hardly be called a literary success. A 
 one-man power is always a necessity for 
 true success, whether in the conception 
 and execution of a book or in the govern 
 ment of the police of cities. Very close 
 relations grew up between the two fam 
 ilies, and in a note from Mr. Clemens af 
 ter Warner's death he says, in reply to an 
 appeal to him for letters: "Alas, and alas, 
 we are packed for Italy, and all valued 
 letters are packed and stored with the 
 silver and hymn-books. There were not 
 many, of course, we being near neigh 
 bours, and communicating mainly by 
 mouth. I wish I could send you War 
 ner's Invocation to L. on St. Valentine's 
 morning, beginning: 
 
 [39] 
 
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER 
 
 " Come out into the slush, dear, 
 In your gracious galoshes shod/' 
 
 but that is packed, too. I am of no use in 
 reminiscing my memory is worthless. 
 Warner was always saying brilliant 
 things, felicitous things, but one can't 
 carry them in the mind in their exact lan 
 guage, and without that their glory is 
 gone. But there is one remark not 
 made by Warner which we do not for 
 get. You will note in it the sunshine 
 shed by his personality. One day a young 
 friend of ours came in with a fine light in 
 her eye, and said: 'I've just had a good- 
 morning from Mr. Warner, and I'm a 
 happy girl for the day !' ' 
 
 Mrs. Stowe was still living at that time 
 and was a near neighbour also and most 
 [40] 
 
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER 
 
 honoured guest, roaming at will in and 
 out of the Warners' house, and in her 
 latest age seating herself at the piano, 
 playing and singing sometimes in her own 
 weird fashion to the empty air. 
 
 The Reverend Joseph Twichell was one 
 of Warner's dearest Hartford friends. 
 Mr. Twichell was so often introduced into 
 Warner's conversation that many persons 
 felt they had a certain acquaintance and 
 wished they knew him better. The great 
 preacher has lately written of his friend: 
 "His humour was in all circumstances 
 unforced, seeming to be unintended the 
 simply natural expression of the man. In 
 the main it was of a playful quality, yet 
 it could, too, on occasion, take on edge. 
 When the late war with Spain was de- 
 [41] 
 
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER 
 
 clared, which he held to have been avoid 
 able and earnestly deprecated, coming one 
 Sunday out of church, after hearing a ser 
 mon in which the preacher who it may as 
 well be owned was the present writer 
 had discoursed on war in the light of its 
 incidental benefits, he said he had felt like 
 rising in his place in the congregation and 
 offering the motion: 'That, in consonance 
 with the views just presented, we post 
 pone the Christian religion to a more con 
 venient season.' . . . When he first 
 came to the notice of the general public as 
 a writer and humourist, he was often 
 spoken of as a new Charles Lamb. This 
 he laughed at. ... Yet, notwithstand 
 ing his disclaimer ... in the genial, 
 gentle feeling for humanity, characteris- 
 [42] 
 
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER 
 
 tic of his humour, Charles Dudley War 
 ner was certainly a spiritual brother of 
 Charles Lamb. . . . But his humour 
 was always a more observable feature of 
 his speech than of his writing. Nowhere 
 else did it come so fully out as in his com 
 mon talk. . . . While on a visit to the 
 Bermudas, as in our rambles up and down 
 we passed the little single-room school- 
 houses that are frequent in those islands, 
 Warner, who was ever on the sociological 
 quest, was quite apt to step in, and with 
 apologies for interruption, interview the 
 teachers, man or woman, black or white, 
 and, after introductory statistical in 
 quiries, draw out the teacher's opinions on 
 educational and other matters. On vari 
 ous such occasions, at his suggestion, 
 [43] 
 
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER 
 
 classes were called up to recite before him, 
 and to them he propounded questions, 
 sometimes outside the province of the sub 
 ject of their recitation, obtaining, in in 
 stances, answers remarkable and exceed 
 ingly entertaining. It was all done in a 
 manner of interest and friendliness which 
 was, indeed, unfeigned, and with an entire 
 gravity of demeanour which the bystander 
 found it extremely difficult to preserve. 
 . . . But that fashion of gleaning was 
 one of his ways, and reveals a source of 
 the material of humour with which he was 
 supplied; it hints the secret, too, of the 
 human sympathy with which his humour 
 was pervaded. . . . For more than 
 thirty years Charles Dudley Warner was 
 my neighbour and friend. The humour, 
 [44] 
 
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER 
 softly radiant, refined . . . that was 
 so distinct a feature of his mind and utter 
 ance, was memorably to me one of the re 
 freshments that went with his dear com 
 pany for all that time. But though the 
 impression of it vividly remains, and can 
 not but be abiding, in trying to convey 
 that impression, far fewer things to the 
 purpose than I should have expected re 
 turn to me in shape to tell." . . . 
 
 While his friendships were growing 
 more numerous, deeper, and stronger at 
 home, Warner's life was widening in its 
 reach. The newspaper and his books 
 were anchors holding him to Hartford 
 perpetually, but he was aware that his 
 work would be enriched by a wider knowl 
 edge of the world and by the rest which 
 [45] 
 
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER 
 comes with change. Therefore, in the 
 thirty years of life between 1870 and 
 1900, the year of his death, Warner made 
 five journeys to Europe, involving seven 
 years of absence. These five absences 
 yielded good literary fruit not alone di 
 rectly by his books of travel, but by the 
 general enriching of life and thought 
 which such journeys and such close obser 
 vation afford. 
 
 In the summer of 1873 he went to Nova 
 Scotia with his friend Mr. Twichell, mak 
 ing Baddeck his objective point. A 
 pleasant little book, which he calls "Bad- 
 deck and That Sort of Thing: Notes of a 
 Sunny Fortnight in the Provinces," was 
 the result, dedicated to his fellow-traveller. 
 Hartford was soon regarded as a half- 
 [46] 
 
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER 
 
 way land of rest between New York and 
 Boston. It began to be a habit with him 
 to spend a week or two every winter in or 
 about Boston. An earlier acquaintance 
 with Ho wells was now ripening into the 
 friendship of a lifetime. Howells was 
 then living in Cambridge and editor of 
 the Atlantic Monthly. Norton's house, 
 with its generous hospitalities, was also 
 open to him, and Longfellow was there 
 with his kindly welcome. Warner wrote 
 to Howells in March, 1873, from Hart 
 ford: "To have your good opinion of 
 'Back Logs' would quite content me, but 
 to have it expressed so exquisitely nearly 
 upsets me. Your analysis of that first 
 sentence is so much better Jthan the sen 
 tence itself that I think I shall ask Mr. 
 [47] 
 
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER 
 Osgood to substitute it in the next edition. 
 And you have me at a perpetual disad 
 vantage. For if ever I try to express my 
 opinion of the 'Chance Acquaintance' at 
 length, I should quite fail I am sure. We 
 read it with increasing delight in your 
 subtle opening of the characters of the 
 two lovers. I suppose it wouldn't do to 
 tie a bunch of firecrackers to A.'s coat-tail, 
 would it? And you are coming pretty 
 soon? . . ." 
 
 Returning from Boston to Hartford, 
 the following week would often find him 
 in New York, where the Century, the 
 Authors', and the Players' clubs threw 
 their doors open to him, as the Tavern 
 Club and the University loved to do in 
 Boston. 
 
 [48] 
 
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER 
 Again he writes to Howells in 1874: 
 "Failing to obtain either a clerkship or 
 any back or forward pay at Washington, 
 I came home last night. Hartford is af 
 ter all the best place for an honest man 
 who is poor. If you only lived here I 
 should be content never to go away any 
 more. I find on my return the flavour of 
 your visit just as strong as it was when 
 you left. Have you found out yet I 
 suppose you have that better than repu 
 tation in Peoria and Hong Kong is the 
 attachment of one sincere person who is 
 fond of you?" 
 
 In May he writes: "My dear Mr. How- 
 ells : To-day is fit to make a body cry ; sky 
 distant and deep blue, clouds fleecy and 
 floating, the world full of apple-blossoms. 
 [49] 
 
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER 
 
 On such a day you said you'd come. You 
 admit that man is a twofold being. It 
 takes two of him to make one. You 
 promised long ago to visit here. You ad 
 mit that. How did you keep your prom 
 ise? You only half came. Now we ex 
 pect the whole of you. We are compelled 
 to look upon you, although you are poet, 
 essayist, traveller, and critic, as only a 
 fraction, without Mrs. Howells." In Au 
 gust, of the same year, he continues: "You 
 dear old fellow, and you are not so very 
 old either when you come to think of it, 
 but I couldn't be fonder of you if you 
 were as old as Catherine Beecher." Again 
 he says, in October: "My dear friend, 
 since you will not let me give you the title 
 of 'Mr.,' which Harvard conferred on 
 [50] 
 
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER 
 
 you, the time has come to say good-bye, 
 and I hate to say it and am not jocular a 
 bit. I was lonesome a good while after 
 we came away from your sincere house 
 hold. It almost makes me cry now to 
 see Johnny with swollen eyes and sup 
 pressed sobs thrusting his hands into the 
 basket of grapes, and casting glances 
 upon the wreck on the table to see if there 
 was anything else that could better stay 
 his grief. Happy boyhood that can con 
 quer grief by filling the mouth. You 
 wouldn't believe what a great place you 
 have got in my heart, both of you in both 
 our hearts? I feel so much richer for it. 
 God keep us all safe and well, and give us 
 more days for the enjoyment of a friend 
 ship which I believe has no selfishness in 
 
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER 
 
 The last letter of the year is from 
 Cairo as he is leaving to go up the Nile, a 
 long, full letter, such as a skilled writer 
 can write and a friend loves to receive. I 
 can only give a hint of it here. Every 
 reader of Warner should know his "Win 
 ter on the Nile," and, knowing that, the 
 charming description in this letter need 
 not be reproduced. He says: "I only 
 write to give you a last word before we 
 start, and to tell you how much you both 
 have been in our minds. I know the situ 
 ation would take hold of you powerfully. 
 We have wanted you ever since we have 
 been in Egypt. . . . For myself I have 
 no human feeling when I am cold, and 
 very little when the sky is cloudy. As yet 
 I have written nothing save a letter of 
 [52] 
 
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER 
 news to the New York Times barely in 
 my diary. I have had no leisure, and, be 
 sides, how can one write with such a crowd 
 of new things before the eye ? . . . Do 
 you know what a dreary thing a news 
 paper is, and what relation has that thing 
 you call literature to this vast serenity and 
 on-going of the ages into which we have 
 fallen. I felt ashamed of myself when I 
 looked at the sphinx, and that great 
 pyramid is it not more important to find 
 out what it was built for than it is to keep 
 the run of your little politics and our small 
 book-making? What a tremendous space 
 we Americans fill in history ! And we are 
 about to celebrate our centennial. I saw 
 a wooden statue of fine workmanship in 
 the museum here that is probably 6,000 
 [53] 
 
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER 
 years old. Did you see that magnificent 
 Doric temple at Psestum which was built 
 before the she-wolf suckled Romulus? 
 Just over yonder is old Cairo, built not 
 long after the hegira of the Prophet. 
 There is a portion of the citadel built by 
 Saladin. All about and under Cairo are 
 the mountainous ruins of cities and civili 
 sations. And will you still publish what 
 you are pleased to call the Atlantic 
 Monthly ? Just now I went out of our 
 front door to look at the stars and stepped 
 upon an Arab. Perhaps it was only a 
 Nubian, one of our crew, who are sleeping 
 under the sky on our lower deck. Well, 
 God bless you both. I wish I could see 
 you just for half an hour." 
 
 "My Winter on the Nile" is perhaps 
 [54] 
 
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER 
 
 the acme of Warner's achievements in his 
 books of travel. The southern sun, the 
 rest, the fresh field of observation seemed 
 to satisfy his physical and mental life, and 
 we can almost warm ourselves in his sun 
 shine. His style is always full of his own 
 charm and exactness. His intelligence, 
 his sympathy, were coming into fullest 
 bloom. He speaks of a family of culti 
 vated Germans on the same steamer "who 
 handle the English language as delicately 
 as if it were glass, and make of it the most 
 naive and interesting form of speech." 
 At Alexandria he says: "In one moment 
 the Orient flashes upon the bewildered 
 traveller; and though he may travel far 
 and see strange sights, and penetrate the 
 hollow shell of Eastern mystery, he will 
 [55] 
 
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER 
 never see again at once such a complete 
 contrast to all his previous experience." 
 The motto of the book is from "Amrou, 
 Conqueror of Egypt, to the Khalif 
 Omar," and well describes what Warner 
 found to enjoy. "O Commander of the 
 Faithful, Egypt is a compound of black 
 earth and green plants, between a pulver 
 ised mountain and a red sand. Along the 
 valley descends a river, on which the bless 
 ing of the Most High reposes, both in the 
 evening and the morning, and which rises 
 and falls with the revolutions of the sun 
 and moon. According to the vicissitudes 
 of the seasons, the face of the country is 
 adorned with a silver wave, a verdant em 
 erald, and the deep yellow of a golden 
 harvest." 
 
 [56] 
 
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER 
 Warner says: "When we are yet 
 twenty miles from Cairo, there in the 
 southwest, visible for a moment and then 
 hidden by the trees, ... are two forms, 
 the sight of which gives us a thrill. They 
 stand still in that purple distance in which 
 we have seen them all our lives. Beyond 
 these level fields and these trees of syca 
 more and date-palm, beyond the Nile, on 
 the desert's edge, with the low Libyan 
 hills falling off behind them, as delicate 
 in form and colour as clouds, as enduring 
 as the sky they pierce, the Pyramids of 
 Geezeh! I try to shake off the impres 
 sion of their solemn antiquity, and imag 
 ine how they would strike one if all 
 their mystery were removed. But that 
 is impossible. The imagination always 
 [57] 
 
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER 
 prompts the eye. And yet I believe that 
 standing where they do stand and in their 
 atmosphere, they are the most impressive 
 of human structures." 
 
 He continues later: "The pyramidal 
 towers of the great temple of Medeenet 
 Haboo are thought to be the remains 
 of the palace of Rameses III. Here, 
 indeed, the Egyptologists point out his 
 harem and the private apartments. . . . 
 It is from such sculptures as one finds 
 here that scholars have been able to re 
 habilitate old Egyptian society, and tell 
 us not only what the Egyptians did, but 
 what they were thinking about. The 
 scholar to whom we are most indebted for 
 the reconstruction of the ancient life of 
 the Egyptians, Sir Gardner Wilkinson, 
 [58] 
 
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER 
 
 is able, not only to describe to us a soiree, 
 from paintings in tombs at Thebes, but to 
 tell us what the company talked about and 
 what their emotions were. . . . This is 
 very wonderful art and proves that the 
 Egyptians excelled all who came after 
 them in the use of the chisel and the 
 brush." 
 
 Through all the wonder and enthusiasm 
 inspired by monuments of the past, War 
 ner never failed to see the present. He 
 exclaims, seeing the miserable inhabitants 
 of to-day: "Not more palaces and sugar 
 mills, O Khedive, will save this Egypt, 
 but some plan that will lift these women 
 out of dirt and ignorance!" 
 
 At Dakkeh, about seventy miles from 
 PhilaB, he speaks of Ergamenes, an Ethi- 
 [59] 
 
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER 
 opian king, who is said to have begun the 
 handsome temple at this place, and also to 
 have gained a reputation by a change in 
 his religion as it was practised in Meroe. 
 "When the priests thought a king had 
 reigned long enough, it was their custom 
 to send him notice that the gods had or 
 dered him to die ; and the king, who would 
 rather die than commit an impiety, used 
 to die. But Ergamenes tried another 
 method, which he found worked just as 
 well ; he assembled all the priests, and slew 
 them a very sensible thing on his part." 
 "Nothing in Egypt," he says, "not even 
 the temples and pyramids, has given us 
 such an idea of the immense labour the 
 Egyptians expended in building as these 
 vast excavations in the rock at Silsilis. 
 [60] 
 
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER 
 We have wondered before where all the 
 stone came from that we have seen piled 
 up in buildings and heaped in miles of 
 ruins ; we wonder now what use could have 
 been made of all the stone quarried from 
 these hills. . . . What hells these quar 
 ries must have been," he continued, "for 
 the workmen, exposed to the blaze of a 
 sun intensified by the glaring reflection 
 from the light-coloured rock and stifled 
 for want of air. They have left the 
 marks of their unending task in these lit 
 tle chisellings on the face of the sand 
 stone walls. . . . These quarries are as 
 deserted now as the temples that were 
 taken from them; but nowhere else in 
 Egypt was I more impressed with the 
 duration, the patience, the greatness of 
 [61] 
 
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER 
 
 the race that accomplished such prodigies 
 of labour." 
 
 It is really difficult to turn away from 
 Warner's book on Egypt. His chapter 
 on the "Tombs at Thebes," in spite of all 
 the learned books written on the subject, 
 is, in its own way, unrivalled. 
 
 After the tombs of the kings, he 
 thought little remained which was worth 
 while to visit. He made two expeditions 
 to these gigantic mausoleums. "It is not 
 an easy trip, for they are situated in wild 
 ravines or gorges that lie beyond the west 
 ern mountains which circle the plains and 
 ruins of Thebes. . . . The path winds, 
 but it is steep; the sun blazes on it; every 
 step is in pulverised limestone, that seems 
 to have been calcined by the intense heat, 
 [62] 
 
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER 
 
 and rises in irritating powder; the moun 
 tain-side is white, chalky, glaring, reflect 
 ing the solar rays with blinding brilliancy, 
 and not a breath of air comes to temper 
 the furnace temperature. . . . When 
 we pass out of the glare of the sun 
 and descend the incline down which the 
 mummy went, we feel as if we had begun 
 his awful journey. On the walls are 
 sculptured the ceremonies and liturgies of 
 the dead, the grotesque monsters of the 
 under-world, which will meet him and as 
 sail him on his pilgrimages, the deities, 
 friendly and unfriendly, the tremendous 
 scenes of cycles of transmigration. . . 
 We come at length, whatever other won 
 ders or beauties may detain us, to the 
 king, the royal mummy. . . . Some- 
 [63] 
 
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER 
 where in this vast and dark mausoleum the 
 mummy has been deposited; he has with 
 him the roll of the Funeral Ritual; the 
 sacred scarabseus is on his breast; in one 
 chamber bread and wine are set out; his 
 bearers withdraw, the tomb is closed, 
 sealed, all trace of its entrance effaced. 
 The mummy begins its pilgrimage. The 
 Ritual (Lenormant epitome) describes all 
 the series of pilgrimages of the soul in the 
 lower-world; ... it embodies the phi 
 losophy and religion of Egypt; the basis 
 of it is the immortality of the soul, that is 
 of the souls of the justified, but a clear 
 notion of the soul's personality apart from 
 the body it does not give! ... In this 
 wonderful book the deceased is allowed to 
 speak of his own morality, and among the 
 64] 
 
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER 
 
 wonderful things said is the following: 
 '/ have given food to the hungry, drink 
 to the thirsty, and clothes to the naked' " 
 June, 1875, finds him writing to How- 
 ells from Venice: "We are here at last 
 the East kept us so long. ... I have 
 given half a year to the dead East in these 
 days of centennials and thronging ambi 
 tions. ... I am writing you this from 
 the top story (with plants in the balconies) 
 of what is probably a poor palace, on the 
 Grand Canal, second door below palace 
 Barboso,and opposite Salviati's glass shop. 
 I have taken this admirable little perch to 
 write in, and was never better suited in 
 my life, only I do wish I had sat up 
 nights and written up Egypt and killed 
 myself in so doing while I was there. It 
 [65] 
 
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER 
 is so hard to bring back the colour and 
 bloom. . . ." 
 
 Again in August, from the same place, 
 he writes: "A photo of the Casa Falieri I 
 cannot find in any of the shops. It is 
 very stupid of the photographers not to 
 take one of the most picturesque houses in 
 Venice, and one so interesting for its occu 
 pants. I say nothing of the Falier. I 
 do not care to dig up the dead but what 
 a world this is, when no more honour is 
 paid to the man who has done more to 
 bring Venice into good repute than any 
 man in the last hundred years, except per 
 haps Ruskin. . . . Americans are al 
 ways floating past and staring about, and 
 probably they don't know that in this very 
 palace the only true history of Egypt and 
 [66] 
 
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER 
 
 Rameses II. is now actually building it 
 self up day by day. Hang it, there is no 
 chance for modest merit. By the way, I 
 want to tell you something. I fell in love 
 with you over again the other day. I 
 chanced upon an English copy of the 
 'Italian Journeys' and re-read it with in 
 tense enjoyment. What felicity, what 
 delicacy. Your handling of the English 
 language charms me to the core, and you 
 catch characters and shades nu-an-ces 
 of it. Why do I break out upon you in 
 this bold manner? Well, for this, you are 
 writing another story, probably it is all 
 executed, in fact, now. Probably it is to 
 be another six-months' child. It will be 
 as good as the other, no doubt, and that is 
 saying everything. But, it is time you 
 [67] 
 
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER 
 quit paddling along shore, and strike out 
 into the open. Ask Mrs. Howells (with 
 my love) if it is not so. The time has 
 come for you to make an opus not only a 
 study on a large canvas, but a picture. 
 Write a long novel, one that we can dive 
 into with confidence, and not feel that we 
 are to strike bottom in the first plunge. 
 Permit me the extent of the figure we 
 want to swim in you, not merely to lave 
 our faces. I have read Mr. James's 
 'Roderick Hudson' up to September, and 
 I give in. It is not too much to call it 
 great. What consummate art it all is, no 
 straining, but easily the bull's-eye every 
 time. Another noticeable thing is that, 
 while it is calm and high in culture, there 
 is none of the sneer in it or any cant of 
 [68] 
 
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER 
 
 culture, and I wonder if the author himself 
 knows that his characters never seem to be 
 used by him as stalking-horses to vent an 
 opinion which the author does not quite 
 care to father. His characters always 
 seem to speak only for themselves. I 
 take it there is no better evidence of the 
 author's success than that." 
 
 "In the Levant," which appeared the 
 same year, is a book for travellers to read 
 to-day. Travellers, like biographers, have 
 not been famed in the past for being 
 truth-telling folk, but in the latter part of 
 the nineteenth century, if no earlier, it 
 was discovered that nothing is so witty 
 and attractive as a bit of truth, whether 
 it concerns a man's temper or his jour 
 ney to the Levant. Warner was one of 
 [69] 
 
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER 
 
 the men who discovered this. His ac 
 count of Palestine would keep many a 
 sentimentalist by his own fireside if he 
 had the common sense to read "In the 
 Levant" before starting. The preface 
 says: "In the winter and spring of 1875 
 the writer made the tour of Egypt and 
 the Levant. . . . The notes of the jour 
 ney were taken and the books were written 
 before there were any signs of the present 
 Oriental disturbances, and the observa 
 tions made are therefore uncoloured by 
 any expectation of the existing state of 
 affairs. Signs enough were visible of a 
 transition period, extraordinary but hope 
 ful; with the existence of poverty, op 
 pression, superstition, and ignorance, 
 were mingling Occidental and Christian 
 [70] 
 
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER 
 influences, the faint beginnings of a re 
 vival of learning, and the stronger pulsa 
 tions of awakening commercial and indus 
 trial life. The best hope of this revival 
 was then, as it is now, in peace and not in 
 war." Nearly thirty years have passed 
 since these words were written, and the 
 Turks, with the forlorn peoples under 
 their flag, are still unredeemed, oppressive, 
 unregenerate. "Beyrout," Warner says, 
 "is the brightest spot in Syria or Pales 
 tine, the only pleasant city that we saw, 
 and the centre of a moral and intellectual 
 impulse the importance of which we can 
 not overestimate. . . . The fitful and 
 unintelligent Turkish rule cannot stifle its 
 exuberant prosperity; but above all the 
 advantages which nature has given it, I 
 [71] 
 
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER 
 should attribute its brightest prospects to 
 the influence of the American mission, 
 and to the establishment of Beyrout Col 
 lege. . . . The transient visitor can see 
 something of this in the dawning of a bet 
 ter social life, in the beginning of an im 
 provement in the condition of women, in 
 an unmistakable spirit of inquiry, . . . 
 and this new leaven is not confined to a 
 sect, nor limited to a race; it is working, 
 slowly it is true, in the whole of Syrian 
 society. . . . Our American Consul 
 was not in good repute with many of the 
 foreign residents. . . . The dragomans 
 of the Consulate, who act as interpreters 
 and are executors of the Consul's author 
 ity, have no pay, but their position gives 
 them a consideration in the community. 
 
 E?*] 
 
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER 
 
 . . . The salary of the American Consul 
 at Beyrout is $2,000 a sum in this expen 
 sive city which is insufficient to support a 
 Consul who has a family in the style of a 
 respectable citizen. . . . The English 
 name is almost universally respected in 
 the East, so far as my limited experience 
 goes, in the character of its consuls; the 
 same cannot be said of the American." 
 This experience of nearly thirty years ago 
 reads as if it were yesterday. It is to be 
 hoped that a better grade of men now go 
 as consuls whose pay is sufficient for the 
 representative of the United States, but 
 that a brave man, Magelsson, the present 
 consul (1903), was supposed only yester 
 day to be murdered because of his coura 
 geous and upright behaviour, shows that 
 [73] 
 
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER 
 
 the Turkish Government may yet need 
 stronger proof that civilised nations can 
 no longer endure such faithlessness and 
 ignorance. "We were not sorry," adds 
 Warner, "to leave even beautiful Bey rout, 
 and would have liked to see the last of 
 Turkish rule as well." 
 
 There are few things in the book more 
 characteristic than all he writes of Beth 
 lehem. Among other things he says: 
 "Bethlehem is to all the world one of the 
 sweetest of words. A tender and roman 
 tic interest is thrown about it as the burial- 
 place of Rachel, as the scene of Ruth's 
 primitive story, and of David's boyhood 
 and kingly consecration; so that no other 
 place in Judea, by its associations, was so 
 fit to be the gate through which the Divine 
 
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER 
 Child should come into the world. And 
 the traveller to-day can visit it with per 
 haps less shock to his feelings of rever 
 ence, certainly with a purer and simpler 
 enjoyment, than any other place in Holy 
 Land. . . . There was one chamber, or 
 rather vault, that we entered with genuine 
 emotion. This was the cell of Jerome, 
 hermit and scholar, whose writings have 
 given him the title of Father of the 
 Church. . . . There is, I suppose, no 
 doubt that this is the study in which he 
 composed many of his more important 
 treatises. It is a vaulted chamber, about 
 twenty feet square by nine feet high. 
 There is in Venice a picture of the study 
 of Jerome by Carpaccio, which represents 
 a delightful apartment; the saint is seen 
 [75] 
 
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER 
 in his study in a rich neglige robe; at the 
 side of his desk are musical instruments, 
 music stands, and sheets of music, as if he 
 were accustomed to give soirees; on the 
 chimney-piece are Greek vases and other 
 objects of virtu, and in the middle of the 
 room is a poodle-dog of the most worldly 
 and useless of the canine breed. The 
 artist should have seen the real study of 
 the hermit a grim unornamented vault, 
 in which he passed his days in mortifica 
 tions of the body, hearing always ringing 
 in his ears, in his disordered mental and 
 physical condition, the last trump of 
 judgment." 
 
 "In the Levant" is full of knowledge 
 and wit and wisdom. It would be diffi 
 cult to find a truer and lovelier picture of 
 [76] 
 
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER 
 
 the ^Egean Sea and its famous islands; 
 of Ephesus and the remains of the later 
 glories of the Greeks. Of the Athenians 
 he says: "They were an early people; they 
 liked the dewy freshness of the morning; 
 . . . the rising sun often greeted the 
 orators on the bema and an audience on 
 the terrace below. We had seen the 
 Acropolis in almost every aspect, but I 
 thought one might perhaps catch more of 
 its ancient spirit at sunrise than at any 
 other hour. . . . The Athenians ought 
 to be assembling on" the Pnyx to hear 
 Demosthenes. . . . One would like to 
 have sat upon these benches, that look on 
 the sea, and listened to a chorus from the 
 Antigone this morning. One would like 
 to have witnessed that scene, when Aris- 
 [77] 
 
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER 
 
 tophanes on this stage mimicked and 
 ridiculed Socrates, and the philosopher, 
 rising from his undistinguished seat high 
 up 'among the people, replied." War 
 ner concludes with these words, satisfac 
 tory to all true travellers: "For myself, 
 now that we are out of the Orient and 
 away from all its squalor and cheap mag 
 nificence, I turn again to it with a longing 
 which I cannot explain ; it is still a land of 
 the imagination." 
 
 The Orient will be older and newer, a 
 different land, in %hort, before another 
 book of travels will be written to compare 
 with the two-in-one of which we have 
 spoken. They are volumes delightful to 
 those who stay at home, enlightening to 
 those who wish to go abroad, arid refresh- 
 [78] 
 
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER 
 
 ing to all who have suffered the weariness 
 of travel and have not seen so much in the 
 same places. Warner's taste for archse- 
 ology, which thus far had been a slumber 
 ing inner consciousness, rather than a keen 
 interest developing into knowledge, be 
 gan to awaken the moment he knew Pses- 
 tum on his way to Egypt. With his pow 
 ers of assimilation and love of study in 
 their ripeness, he emerged from Egypt 
 born anew into one department of human 
 life and knowledge. The joy and excite 
 ment of this knowledge never grew dim. 
 It was not like him to insist that others 
 should of necessity feel his interest in 
 Egypt. Therefore, he says in the begin 
 ning of his journey that "there is no 
 reason why any one indisposed to do so 
 [79] 
 
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER 
 
 should accompany us," but "we are off to 
 Pa2stum." Even then, after expressing 
 something of the charm' of the spot and 
 saying that "in all Europe there are no 
 ruins better worthy the study of the ad 
 mirer of noble architecture than these," he 
 adds: "The Temple of Neptune is older 
 than the Parthenon, its Doric sister, at 
 Athens. It was probably built before the 
 Persians of Xerxes occupied the Acrop 
 olis and saw from there the flight of their 
 ruined fleet out of the Strait of Salamis. 
 It was built when the Doric had attained 
 the acme of its severe majesty, and it is to 
 day almost perfect on the exterior. . . . 
 At first we thought the temple small, and 
 did not even realise its two hundred feet of 
 length, but the longer we looked at it the 
 [80] 
 
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER 
 
 larger it grew to the eye, until it seemed 
 to expand into gigantic size; and from 
 whatever point it was viewed its harmoni 
 ous proportions were an increasing de 
 light. The beauty is not in any orna 
 ment, for even the pediment is and always 
 was vacant, but in its admirable lines. 
 The two other temples are fine specimens 
 of Greek architecture, also Doric, pure 
 and without fault, with only a little ten 
 dency to depart from severe simplicity in 
 the curve of the capitals, and yet they did 
 not interest us. They are of a period 
 only a little later than the Temple of Nep 
 tune, and that model was before their 
 builders, yet they missed the extraordi 
 nary, many say almost spiritual, beauty of 
 that edifice. We sought the reason, and 
 [81] 
 
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER 
 
 found it in the fact that there are abso 
 lutely no straight lines in the Temple of 
 Neptune. The side rows of columns 
 curve a little out; the end rows curve a 
 little in; at the ends the base line of the 
 columns curves a trifle from the sides to 
 the centre, and the line of the architrave 
 does the same. ... It is not repeated 
 in the other temples, the builders of which 
 do not seem to have known its secret. 
 Had the Greek colony lost the art of this 
 perfect harmony in the little time that 
 probably intervened between the erection 
 of these edifices? It was still kept at 
 Athens, as the Temple of Theseus and the 
 Parthenon testify." 
 
 It was through the columns of this 
 Temple of Neptune at Pgestum that War- 
 [82] 
 
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER 
 
 ner looked toward Egypt, where he was 
 to see "the first columns, prototypes of the 
 Doric order, chiselled by man." Few 
 travellers, even those who bear the learned 
 title of archaeologists, have been so well 
 fitted by nature to explore the unspeak 
 able wonders of the Orient, and from that 
 day in Passtum until the day when he took 
 his last view of the ^Egean Islands his 
 knowledge and fervour grew apace. 
 
 [83] 
 
Ill 
 
 July, 1876, found Mr. Warner again in 
 Hartford. He wrote to Mr. Howells: 
 "My dear, dear friend: I have come into 
 this land of Family and Chance Acquaint 
 ances and find it hot and dirty, and in 
 debt, and I am in sympathy with it. It is 
 only when I think of you and the dear 
 friends whose presence would make even 
 the peninsula of the White Sea a para 
 dise that I have heart and resolve to do as 
 Cranmer told Ridley to do under similar 
 circumstances, play the man, though I am 
 burnt to a crisp. . . . Mrs. Warner is 
 sunning herself in the thought that she is 
 at home. That woman is a deep and de 
 signing patriot, and would dwell here f or- 
 [84] 
 
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER 
 ever, if her plans were not upset by her 
 private and ill-concealed affection for me. 
 . . . God bless you for your generous 
 notice of the 'Levant' book. It quite took 
 my breath away, and I am not sure I 
 should have survived, if it were not that 
 Mr. Prime and General McClellan and 
 others of that sort in New York are say 
 ing, publicly and privately, that it is the 
 best book written on Egypt. I myself 
 still doubt, however, if it is as good in all 
 respects as the Pentateuch. But I am 
 sincerely astonished at its good reception." 
 Again in December he says: "Just now 
 the nearest thing is old Egypt the 
 Egypt 1,000 years before Abraham. I 
 am trying to write a lecture about it for 
 the institute here. A weak yielding to go 
 [85] 
 
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER 
 
 before the public which I suspect I shall 
 bitterly repent. But just now I am tired, 
 tired of writing, of books, of editorials, of 
 politics, of the everlasting squabble. I 
 wish I were a Returning Board; I would 
 elect myself to go on a mission to some 
 misty land of sun and fleas, where the 
 wicked and the weary dwell together and 
 don't care. I am again deeply in your 
 debt for another exceedingly friendly 
 notice, and as graceful as kind. I will 
 not thank you for it, but it gives me cour 
 age and comfort. Mr. Ripley conde 
 scends to rather sit down on the book with 
 his broad understanding as rather a liter 
 ary falling off. On the contrary, it seems 
 to me rather less slovenly than some of my 
 other performances. Mark says that "to 
 [86] 
 
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER 
 
 give a humourous book to Ripley is like 
 sending a first-chop paper of chewing to 
 bacco to a young ladies' seminary for them 
 to review." 
 
 With all the literary engagements just 
 referred to above, he naturally found it 
 necessary to get away again in the sum 
 mer of 1877. The season was spent in 
 the Adirondacks, and another book, "In 
 the Wilderness," was published the fol 
 lowing year as a result. It contains an 
 amusing story of a man unaccustomed to 
 rougher wild life than one can meet black- 
 berrying, finding himself face to face with 
 a bear on the same business. It con 
 tains also a description of the flight of a 
 doe from the hunters, which is one of the 
 finest appeals of that nature in literature. 
 [87] 
 
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER 
 He wrote to Howells from Hartford in 
 April, 1877: "We greatly enjoyed your 
 first of April letter, but, of course, we do 
 not take it seriously. We are not to be 
 put off by feigned marriage in Quebec, 
 nor by a grand burst into the fashion of 
 Newport. For a person who dislikes so 
 ciety, the Newport cottage is just the 
 thing; it will make him dislike it all the 
 more. . . . You must come in May. 
 Ask Mrs. Howells to consider how few 
 springs there are in this little life of ours, 
 and what it is to neglect one of them. Is 
 there any good in life except we snatch the 
 little pleasures. ... I have just read 
 your last Venice. When that story is 
 ended you are going to stand up among 
 the masters, so keep your head level." 
 [88] 
 
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER 
 Again in October he says: "We shall look 
 for you on the 25th, next Thursday. 
 That will suit us, provided the weather is 
 propitious. Let us hope it will be. The 
 last part of the week suits me, for I have 
 a partial let-up Saturday and Sunday. 
 If the weather is good, we want to take 
 you to the Talcott Mountain Tower and 
 show you the kingdom of the earth dyed 
 red and yellow and brown, and to South 
 Manchester to show you the ideal factory 
 village of the world." And later in the 
 month he wrote: "What a charming visit 
 you gave us, except that it was so wretch 
 edly short. It seemed heartless for us to 
 go to bed while you two were driving on 
 through the sand and darkness of Massa 
 chusetts the native State of neither of 
 [89] 
 
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER 
 you, toward a midnight horse-car ter 
 mination. We sat up till one o'clock, 
 when we judged you were safe in Boston, 
 and then we stopped talking about you 
 and went to bed. We didn't say any 
 thing about you, however, that you might 
 not have heard, if not with profit, cer 
 tainly with pleasure. We dare to hope 
 that our friendship is a little solidified by 
 this visit and put upon the unremote fam 
 ily ground." In November he says: "I 
 feel greatly encouraged by your opinion 
 of 'My Only Boy.' Isn't he a little like 
 your 'John'? I hope you may like him 
 all through. I only wish you were multi 
 plied by 20,000. But I fear you are like 
 Jean Paul, 'The Only One.' I cannot 
 hope that anyone will enter into the spirit 
 [90] 
 
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER 
 of the 'Boy' as you did. I suspect that 
 you saw him a good deal through the form 
 of your dear 'John,' and it is too much to 
 expect that you will lend 'John' to all the 
 people who ought to read and buy the 
 book. . . . The notice is thoroughly 
 lovely and charming, the most sympa 
 thetic in the world. It quite takes away 
 my power to give you ordinary thanks. I 
 wish the book were half as good as the 
 notice. Why could you have the heart to 
 carelessly take up your pen in that way 
 and say, 'There, my boy, that was the 
 way to have done it.' Well, it is worth 
 writing a book to get one of your notices, 
 and I am tempted to write an autobiog 
 raphy merely to extract an essay from 
 you. If you were only my enemy now 
 [91] 
 
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER 
 and had written that notice, how I should 
 love you. . . . We had a very good 
 time in New York and saw a great many 
 people, who saw us. ... I liked 
 especially Mr. W. W. Story, whom I saw 
 at the Century, and also at a breakfast at 
 Botta's, where Mr. Bryant and Mr. Rip- 
 ley and a dozen or two swells were pres 
 ent. Whitelaw Reid was also there." In 
 1879, writing to Howells from Hartford, 
 he surprises us by saying that he had been 
 writing on "The People for Whom 
 Shakespeare Wrote." The book was not 
 published until 1897, but a large part of 
 it was written, perhaps one-half, enough 
 for two papers of the Atlantic Monthly,, 
 in these busy days. In July, 1879, he 
 writes to Howells: "You see I am junket- 
 192] 
 
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER 
 
 ing a good deal though I contrive to 
 keep up my editorial by writing ahead 
 and behind. . . . Also last week I 
 went to the centennial of the town of 
 Cummington (in which I was nearly 
 born as Plainfield was set off from 
 it in 1785) and stayed with the two 
 lovely Bryant brothers, who had come 
 on from Princeton, 111., at the old home 
 stead." . . . 
 
 Warner's most absorbing topic just at 
 this time was "The Work of Washington 
 Irving," and an essay on this subject is 
 one of his excellent pieces of writing. 
 He also wrote the biography of Irving, 
 the initial volume of the "American Men 
 of Letters Series," of which he was ed 
 itor. The list of Lives written by men of 
 [93] 
 
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER 
 his choice is an excellent one. He was am 
 bitious to do the work well, and America 
 has to thank him for a biography of Em 
 erson by O. W. Holmes; of Poe by G. 
 E. Woodberry, and other Lives by men 
 of talent and genius, written with distin 
 guished ability. 
 
 If Warner himself had done nothing 
 else, the "Life of Washington Irving" 
 would have made his literary gift evi 
 dent, and what was of still larger 
 value, his power of understanding the 
 character of Irving and differentiat 
 ing it in behalf of the long future. 
 He says: "Washington Irving's writ 
 ings induce to reflection, to quiet mus 
 ing, to tenderness for traditions; they 
 amuse, they entertain, they call a check to 
 [94] 
 
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER 
 
 the feverishness of common life; but they 
 are rarely stimulative or suggestive. . . . 
 It is very fortunate that a writer who can 
 reach the great public and entertain it can 
 also elevate and refine its tastes, set before 
 it high ideas, instruct it agreeably, and all 
 this in a style that belongs to the best 
 literature. . . . The service that he 
 rendered to American letters no critic dis 
 putes; nor is there any question of our 
 national indebtedness to him for investing 
 a crude and new land with the enduring 
 charms of romance and tradition. In this 
 respect our obligation to him is that of 
 Scotland to Scott and Burns, and it is an 
 obligation due only, in all history, to here 
 and there a fortunate creator to whose 
 genius opportunity is kind. 'The Knick- 
 [95] 
 
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER 
 erbocker Legend' and the romance witH 
 which Irving has invested the Hudson are 
 a priceless legacy, and this would remain 
 an imperishable possession in popular tra 
 dition if the literature creating it were de 
 stroyed. . . . This creation is sufficient 
 to secure for him an immortality, a 
 length of earthly remembrance that all 
 the rest of his writings together might not 
 give. . . . Irving regarded life not 
 from the philanthropic, the economic, the 
 political, the philosophic, the metaphysic, 
 the scientific, or the theologic, but purely 
 from the literary point of view. He 
 belongs to that small class of which John 
 son and Goldsmith are perhaps as good 
 types as any, and to which America 
 has added very few. The literary point 
 [96] 
 
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER 
 of view is taken by few in any generation ; 
 it may seem to the world of very little con 
 sequence in the pressure of all the complex 
 interests of life, and it may even seem 
 trivial amid the tremendous energies ap 
 plied to immediate affairs; but it is the 
 point of view that endures ; if its creations 
 do not mould human life, like the Roman 
 law, they remain to charm and civilise, like 
 the poems of Horace. You must not ask 
 more of them than that. This attitude 
 toward life is defensible on the highest 
 grounds. ... It is not a question 
 whether the work of the literary man is 
 higher than that of the reformer or the 
 statesman; it is a distinct work and is jus 
 tified by the result, even when the work is 
 that of a humourist only. We recognise 
 [97] 
 
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER 
 
 this in the case of the poet. Although 
 Goethe has been reproached for his lack 
 of sympathy with the liberalising move 
 ment of his day (as if his novels were 
 quieting influences), it is felt by this gen 
 eration that the author of 'Faust' needs 
 no apology that he did not spend his en 
 ergies in the effervescing politics of the 
 German states. ... I cannot bring 
 myself to exclude Irving's moral quality, 
 from a literary estimate. There is some 
 thing that made Scott and Irving person 
 ally loved by the millions of their readers, 
 who had only the dimmest ideas of their 
 personality. This was some quality per 
 ceived in what they wrote. Each one can 
 define it for himself; there it is, and I do 
 not see why it is not as integral a part of 
 [98] 
 
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER 
 
 the authors an element in the estimate of 
 their future position as what we term 
 their intellect, their knowledge, their skill, 
 or their art. However you rate it, you 
 cannot account for Irving's influence 
 in the world without it. In his ten 
 der tribute to Irving, the great-hearted 
 Thackeray, who saw as closely as anybody 
 the place of mere literary art in the sum 
 total of life, quoted the dying words of 
 Scott to Lockhart, 'Be a good man, my 
 dear.' We know well enough that the 
 great author of 'The Newcomes' and the 
 great author of 'The Heart of Mid 
 lothian' recognised the abiding value in 
 literature of integrity, sincerity, purity, 
 charity, faith. These are beneficences, and 
 Irving's literature, walk around it, and 
 [99] 
 
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER 
 
 measure it by whatever critical instru 
 ments you will, is a beneficent literature. 
 
 "The author loved good women and lit 
 tle children and a pure life; he had faith 
 in his fellow-man, a kindly sympathy with 
 the lowest, without any subservience to the 
 highest; he retained a belief in the possi 
 bility of chivalrous actions, and did not 
 care to envelop them in a cynical suspi 
 cion; he was an author still capable of an 
 enthusiasm. His books are wholesome, 
 full of sweetness and charm, of humour 
 without any sting, amusement without 
 any stain; and their more solid qualities 
 are marred by neither pedantry nor pre 
 tension." 
 
 Much of this also may be truthfully said 
 of Charles Dudley Warner. His gifts 
 [100] 
 
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER 
 never carried him so far as to rank him 
 among these writers of whom he was 
 speaking in original conception, but he 
 never wavered in his idea of the value 
 of the literary point of view to one who 
 was eminently possessed of the writer's 
 gift. He was content for himself in 
 this idea of achievement, and he ad 
 vanced steadily year by year. 
 
 December, 1881, he wrote Howells 
 from Munich: "One item in the Ameri 
 can Register to-day has given us great 
 pain and anxiety, it is to the effect that 
 you are very ill with a nervous disease 
 brought on by overwork. It comes to 
 us when w r e are in a little trouble, and 
 has not made our day any brighter. 
 My second thought, after sympathy for 
 [101] 
 
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER 
 you in your suffering, was that the novel 
 which was to be done by January 1st is 
 not yet finished, and that will add to 
 your worry and depression of spirits. It 
 seems a pity now that you did not quit 
 work last summer and come over here 
 to finish your story. I wish you were here 
 now, for this part of Europe is certainly 
 good for nervous complaints; indeed any 
 part of Europe is more soothing than 
 America, and I hope you will carry out 
 your plan of coming as soon as possible. 
 Perhaps it will be a little relief to you to 
 know that other people have trials also, 
 and that little in this world goes as 
 smoothly as we plan it. Else I should 
 be writing you now from sunny Palermo, 
 and not from cloudy Munich, where we 
 [102] 
 
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER 
 are having a warmish, rainy December, 
 and no snow yet. I came abroad to es 
 cape our winter and find some sunny re 
 treat where Mrs. Warner and I could take 
 it easy and perhaps write a little. The 
 doctor thought Spain would not suit for 
 the winter, so I planned for south of 
 France, Italy, and Sicily. We went to 
 Avignon, Nimes, and Montpellier. We 
 were a month in lovely Provence and 
 Languedoc, with roses galore; the climate 
 not too warm, and suited my throat 
 exactly. We have here the best music 
 in the world, very good friends, and 
 a good doctor. We have got a place 
 in an excellent German family. I was 
 quite in the spirit of writing in Mont 
 pellier, and wrote for the Council and 
 [103] 
 
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER 
 
 Christian Union some romantic Proven 
 cal stuff. I want to do some work this 
 winter if I can find a genial place, but I 
 cannot unless my anxiety about Mrs. 
 Warner is removed. She sends her love 
 to you both, and you know I do. . . . 
 There is not much good in the world ex 
 cept friends." 
 
 He wrote again from Sicily in April, 
 1882: "I was three weeks in Capri, some 
 time at Amalfi, and now over a month 
 in Sicily. Heaven is pretty near the hill 
 of Taormina, with great Etna dominat 
 ing the scene. You never saw anything so 
 enchanting. We have been nearly a week 
 at this old, desolate, interesting Syra 
 cuse. This morning we punted up the 
 swift Anapo, and pulled up the papyrus, 
 [104] 
 
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER 
 
 on which the Greeks wrote their immortal 
 remarks about goats and pretty shep 
 herdesses. Theocritus created the at 
 mosphere of all this coast for me. I 
 sailed to-day on the pool and looked thirty 
 feet into its clear waters, into which 
 Cyane was changed when she opposed 
 the transfer of Proserpine to Hades by 
 Pluto it was down this hole that he went 
 to his own place with the enchanting girl. 
 But I am not going to tell you about the 
 enchantments of Syracuse. You must 
 come here. ... I just have the very 
 sad news of dear Longfellow's death; 
 since I saw him last summer I have felt 
 that it might occur at any time, but the 
 loss of a man so noble is none the less 
 great. . . ." 
 
 [105] 
 
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER 
 The Life of Washington Irving had 
 been followed by the same flow of literary 
 work as usual, but the trend of Warner's 
 mind was becoming more and more, not 
 social, that could scarcely be possible, but 
 in modern phrase, sociological. For a 
 while he was kept in the same traces where 
 work multiplied continually. "The Life 
 of Captain John Smith sometime Gov 
 ernor of Virginia and Admiral of New 
 England: a Study of his life and writ 
 ings," came first. The chief contribu 
 tion to Warner's biography in this book 
 is to be gathered from the preface, where 
 he gives some idea of the unexpected 
 labour necessary to accomplish it. "When 
 I consented," he says, "to prepare this 
 volume ... I did not anticipate the 
 [106] 
 
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER 
 seriousness of the task. ... If the 
 life of Smith was to be written, an effort 
 should be made to state the truth and to 
 disentangle the career of the adventurer 
 from the fables and misrepresentations 
 that have clustered about it. . . . If 
 he was always and uniformly untrust 
 worthy it would be less perplexing to fol 
 low him, but his liability to tell the truth 
 when vanity or prejudice does not inter 
 fere is annoying to the careful student." 
 Another book of European travel, 
 called "A Roundabout Journey," was 
 published in 1883. He leaves Paris as 
 we all like to do when we must leave it 
 at all, in a November fog. "At night 
 the door of the car opened at Dijon. The 
 four simple words then spoken by the 
 [107] 
 
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER 
 
 ticket-taker, 'Billets s'il vous plait,' so 
 deluged the apartment with garlic that 
 we had to open all the windows. If he 
 had added another solid word, I think we 
 should have been compelled to jump out 
 of the car." Mr. Warner found Avignon 
 as ever delightful. "We were come," he 
 says, "to a land where statues can sit 
 out of doors with comfort in winter." 
 He goes to the extraordinary old city 
 of Aigues-Mortes on the southern coast 
 and on, true to his "Roundabout Jour 
 ney," through Orvieto and other old Ital 
 ian cities to Sicily, really resting in ex 
 quisite Taormina and writing of it as no 
 one else has done except George Wood- 
 berry in his unrivalled monograph, or 
 possibly some of the great French au- 
 [108] 
 
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER 
 thors. In recommending the climate of 
 Syracuse his guide referred to an Amer 
 ican lady who recovered her health there. 
 "She bought a cow," he remarked, "got 
 well in a few weeks, went back to 
 America, and married a species of poet." 
 Warner thinks that "a milk diet and 
 union with a species of poet is better than 
 being converted into a fountain." 
 
 He wrote again to Mr. Howells, July, 
 1883, from Hartford: ". . . The 
 Tribune represents you as moving about 
 the shady sides of Boston streets, dodging 
 the sun and public honour. If you are 
 where the Tribune pretends you are, do 
 for heaven's sake tell me how you are 
 and how the rest of the family thrive. I 
 would welcome you back with all my 
 [109] 
 
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER 
 heart if I felt sure you were here. For 
 I have a great desire to see you. Just 
 now I am tied here. Hawley, Clark, and 
 Hubbard of our court are in Europe. 
 We are likely to be kept here till the mid 
 dle of September. But I am very well, 
 free from malaria, and hard at work. 
 . . . I made a Virginian trip in June." 
 Again in December he writes: "God bless 
 you and everybody in your house this 
 Christmas time. ... I am to be in 
 New York for two or three weeks. I've 
 got to make some lectures for Princeton 
 and Cornell." 
 
 Lectures from him were now in con 
 stant demand. He was asked to take 
 part in the Social Science Congress, at 
 the Ashfield Dinner and other annual and 
 [110] 
 
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER 
 patriotic meetings. He always spoke as he 
 wrote, apparently with extraordinary ease, 
 until others were led to forget that such 
 expenditure of nervous energy cannot be 
 given by any human being without a 
 corresponding sense of loss. He found 
 at last that continued speaking increased 
 a delicacy of the throat which gradually 
 became chronic, and he was thus forced 
 to pass a part of every winter in a milder 
 climate than that of New England. 
 The meetings of the Social Science Con 
 gress interested him deeply. The re 
 ports on the condition of prisons and 
 criminals read at these meetings espe 
 cially arrested his attention. His mind 
 and heart were finally given to the sub 
 ject of the criminal with an intensity 
 
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER 
 which never slackened. For fifteen years 
 until his death he lost no opportunity, and 
 sought to make many an occasion, to 
 speak and write upon this subject. 
 
 "Will you come and lecture for us this 
 winter," said a friend to him who lived 
 in one of our cultivated and intelligent 
 New England cities. "Yes," said War 
 ner, "I will go if you will let me speak 
 upon prisons. I haven't the time to talk 
 upon any other subject." His audiences 
 wished to hear him lecture upon litera 
 ture; they wanted his wit and humour to 
 play over the books he knew so well and 
 could speak of with an instructed mind; 
 but he felt himself called now in another 
 direction. He visited many prisons and 
 passed six weeks once with Mr. Brock- 
 [112] 
 
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER 
 way at Elmira Reformatory, going there 
 for unexpected visits and consultations 
 with his friend, the superintendent, as he 
 found the time. Nevertheless, in the 
 summer of 1885 he visited the chief water 
 ing places of America and wrote a de 
 scription of them, weaving an interest 
 ing story called "Their Pilgrimage" from 
 his experiences. Beginning early in the 
 season at Fortress Monroe, the autumn 
 finds him at the White Mountains and 
 Lenox. He makes notes at Cape May, 
 Atlantic City, the Catskills, Newport, 
 and other vacation resorts. It is a charm 
 ing but keen report by a trained observer 
 of our people at their summer amuse 
 ments and dissipations. "In the car for 
 Niagara," he wrote, "was an Englishman 
 [113] 
 
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER 
 
 of the receptive, guileless, thin type, in 
 quisitive and overflowing with approval 
 of everything American, a type which has 
 now become one of the common features 
 of travel in this country. . . . He 
 was accompanied by his wife, a stout 
 resolute matron in heavy boots, a sensible 
 stuff gown, with a lot of cotton lace 
 fudged about her neck, and a broad- 
 brimmed hat with a vegetable garden on 
 top. The little man was always in pur 
 suit of information, in his guide-book or 
 from his fellow-passengers, and whenever 
 he obtained any he invariably repeated it 
 to his wife, who said, 'Fancy!' and 'Now 
 really!' in a rising inflection that ex 
 pressed surprise and expectation. The 
 conceited American, who commonly draws 
 [114] 
 
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER 
 himself into a shell when he travels, 
 and affects indifference, seems to be los 
 ing all natural curiosity, receptivity, and 
 the power of observation, is pretty cer 
 tain to undervalue the intelligence of 
 this class of English travellers, and get 
 amusement out of their peculiarities in 
 stead of learning from them how to make 
 every day of life interesting. Even 
 King, who, besides his national crust of 
 exclusiveness, was to-day wrapped in the 
 gloom of Irene's letter, was gradually 
 drawn to these simple, unpretending peo 
 ple. He took for granted their igno 
 rance of America ignorance of America 
 being one of the branches taught in the 
 English schools and he soon discovered 
 that they were citizens of the world. 
 [115] 
 
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER 
 They not only knew the Continent very 
 well, but they had spent a winter in 
 Egypt, lived a year in India and seen 
 something of China and much of Japan. 
 Although they had been scarcely a fort 
 night in the United States, King doubted 
 if there were ten women in the State of 
 New York, not professional teachers, who 
 knew as much of the flora of the country 
 as this plain- featured, rich-voiced woman. 
 They called King's attention to a great 
 many features of the landscape he had 
 never noticed before, and asked him a 
 great many questions about farming, 
 stock, and wages that he could not answer. 
 It appeared that Mr. Stanley Stubbs, 
 Stoke-Cruden for that was the name 
 and address of the present discoverers of 
 
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER 
 
 America had a herd of short-horns, and 
 that Mrs. Stubbs was even more familiar 
 with the herd-book than her husband. 
 But before the fact had enabled King to 
 settle the question of his new acquaint 
 ance satisfactorily to himself, Mrs. 
 Stubbs upset his estimate by quoting 
 Tennyson. 'Your English poet is very 
 much read here,' King said, by way of 
 being agreeable. 'So we have heard,' re 
 plied Mrs. Stubbs. 'Mr. Stubbs reads 
 Tennyson beautifully. He has thought 
 of giving some readings while we are 
 here. We have been told that the Amer 
 icans are very fond of readings.' 
 
 'Yes,' said King, 'they are devoted 
 to them, especially readings by English 
 men in their native tongue. There is a 
 [117] 
 
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER 
 great rage now for everything English; 
 at Newport hardly anything else is 
 spoken.' 
 
 "Mrs. Stubbs looked for a moment as 
 if this might be an American joke; but 
 there was no smile upon King's face, and 
 she only said: 'Fancy! You must make 
 a note of Newport, dear. That is one 
 of the places we must see. Of course, 
 Mr. Stubbs has never read in public, you 
 know. But I suppose that would make 
 no difference, the Americans are so kind 
 and so appreciative.' 
 
 " 'Not the least difference,' replied 
 King. 'They are used to it.' 
 
 " 'It is a wonderful country,' said Mr. 
 Stubbs." 
 
 We cannot give further quotations 
 [118] 
 
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER 
 
 from this pretty story. This bit will give 
 an idea of the light wit and keen observa 
 tion with which it is filled, making it a 
 book for summer reading of a pattern 
 seldom indeed to be found. It has the 
 writer's charming characteristics, with 
 passages here and there which Thackeray 
 and again Irving would not be sorry to 
 call their own. 
 
 The winter of 1885, in spite of War 
 ner's various literary engagements, found 
 him steadily at work in his heart upon 
 the prison interests. In April he printed 
 a paper called "A Study of Prison Man 
 agement," from which, being lost 'to sight 
 at present in the pages of an old number 
 of The North American Review, we must 
 print extracts if we faithfully represent 
 [1191 
 
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER 
 the occupations of Warner's mind and 
 life: 
 
 "Our failure," he says, "in the handling 
 of criminals with reference to their ref 
 ormation, and the proportionate security 
 of society and decrease of taxation, is 
 due largely to the fact that we have con 
 sidered the problem as physical, and not 
 psychological. The effort has been to 
 improve prisons and the physical condi 
 tion and environment of prisoners. This 
 effort has been directed by sentiment, 
 rather than upon principles of economy 
 and a study of human nature. It has 
 been assumed that if convicts were 
 treated with more kindness, if they were 
 lodged in prisons well warmed and well 
 ventilated, light and airy, in cells 
 
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER 
 roomy and comfortable; if they had bet 
 ter food and more privileges (graduated 
 on good deportment), they would be 
 more likely to reform and to lead honest 
 lives after their discharge. 
 
 "This movement was dictated by phil 
 anthropic motives, and I am far from 
 saying that it is all wrong. But it has 
 not produced the results that were ex 
 pected ; and it seems to me that the revolt 
 in the public mind against what is called 
 the 'coddling' system is justified by facts 
 and results. The modern model prison 
 is a costly and architecturally imposing 
 structure; it is safer to lodge in and 
 freer from odours than most hotels; its 
 cells are well warmed, lighted with gas, 
 and comfortable; it has a better dietary 
 
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER 
 than most of its inmates are accustomed 
 to; it has bath-rooms, a library, often 
 large and well selected; an admirably 
 arranged hospital; a cheerful chapel, 
 garnished with frescoes and improving 
 texts; there are Sunday services and Sun 
 day-schools; there is a chaplain who visits 
 the prisoners to distribute books and 
 tracts, and converse on religious topics; 
 there are lectures and readings and occa 
 sional musical concerts by the best tal 
 ent; sometimes holidays are given; there 
 are extra dinners on Thanksgiving day, 
 Christmas day, and the Fourth of July, 
 when the delicacies of the season stimu 
 late the holiday and patriotic sentiments; 
 and in most State prisons a man may 
 earn a considerable abatement of his sen 
 tence by good behaviour. . . . 
 
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER 
 "The reform in prison construction 
 and management was very much needed, 
 and I am not anxious now to express an 
 opinion whether or not it has gone too 
 far. But it must be noted that along 
 with this movement has grown up a sickly 
 sentimentality about criminals which has 
 gone altogether too far, and which, un 
 der the guise of 'humanity' and philan 
 thropy, confounds all moral distinctions. 
 The mawkish sympathy of good and 
 soft-hearted women with the most de 
 graded and persistent criminals of the 
 male sex is one of the signs of an 
 unhealthy public sentiment. A self- 
 respecting murderer is obliged to write 
 upon his cards 'no flowers.' I think it 
 will not be denied that our civilisation, 
 which has considerably raised the average 
 [123] 
 
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER 
 of human life, tends to foster and in 
 crease the number of weaklings, incom 
 petents, and criminally inclined. Un 
 systematic charity increases pauperism, 
 and unphilosophical leniency toward the 
 criminal classes increases that class. 
 
 "It seems to me that we have either 
 gone too far, or we have not gone far 
 enough. If our treatment of the incom 
 petent and vicious is to keep pace with 
 our general civilisation, we must resort 
 to more radical measures. The plan of 
 systematised charity, which cultivates in 
 dependence instead of dependence, and 
 the increased attention given to the very 
 young children who by their situation 
 and inheritance are criminally inclined, 
 are steps in the right direction. Proba- 
 
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER 
 bly it will be more and more evident that 
 it is the best economy for the State to 
 spend money liberally on those who are 
 liable to become dependents and crim 
 inals. If the State were to show as 
 much energy in this direction as it does 
 in police supervision and the capture and 
 conviction of criminals, it is certain that 
 a marked improvement would be felt in 
 society within a generation. . . . 
 
 "My proposition is that there is very 
 little difference between our worst State 
 prisons and our best in the effect pro 
 duced upon convicts as to reformation or 
 a reduction of the criminal class. The 
 State prison at Wethersfield, Conn., is 
 one of the old type. It is an old and 
 ramshackle establishment, patched up 
 [125] 
 
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER 
 
 from time to time, and altogether a 
 gloomy and depressing place. It is, 
 however, well managed ; it is made to pay 
 about its running expenses; and many of 
 the modern alleviations of prison life are 
 applied there a library, occasional en 
 tertainments, a diminution of time of sen 
 tence for good conduct, and so on, what 
 ever such a place is capable of in the way 
 of comfort consistent with the system. 
 But the inmates are the most discourag 
 ing feature of the exhibition. They are 
 in appearance depressed, degraded, down- 
 looking, physically sluggish, mentally 
 and morally tending to more and more 
 degradation. There is no hope or sug 
 gestion of improvement in them. The 
 discipline is good, and the men earn time 
 [126] 
 
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER 
 by good conduct, but there are no evi 
 dences that the alleviations (which take 
 from the former terrors of prison life) 
 are working the least moral change. It 
 is a most depressing and dispiriting sight. 
 "Would any change for the better be 
 wrought if the environment were more 
 cheerful? The State prison at Cranston, 
 R. I., is a new, handsome, granite build 
 ing, with the modern improvements. 
 Perfectly lighted and ventilated, with 
 roomy cells, a common messroom, an ad 
 mirable hospital, a more than usually 
 varied dietary, with a library, and all the 
 privileges that humanity can suggest as 
 consistent with discipline and security, it 
 is as little gloomy and depressing as a 
 State prison well can be. Having occa- 
 [127] 
 
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER 
 sion recently to look into this matter offi 
 cially, I confess that I expected to find 
 at Cranston a very different state of 
 affairs as to the convicts from that exist 
 ing at Wethersfield. The improved 
 physical conditions ought to show some 
 moral and physical uplift in the men. I 
 was totally disappointed. Here were 
 the same hang-dog, depressed, hopeless, 
 heavy lot of convicts. The two prisons 
 might change inmates, and no visitor 
 would know the difference. You might 
 expect just as little reformation in one 
 as in the other. We are not considering 
 now any question of sentiment or human 
 ity; and the conclusion was forced upon 
 me that, so far as the real interests of 
 society are concerned, nothing is gained 
 [128] 
 
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER 
 
 by converting prisons into comfortable 
 hotels. 
 
 "Since we have abolished punishments, 
 and are not ready to take any radical 
 steps for reformation, it would be better 
 to make prison life so hard that detention 
 would be a punishment in itself. The 
 men should earn their living at hard 
 labour, and be made to feel the weight of 
 their transgressions. If professional and 
 confirmed criminals, men who declare by 
 undergoing second conviction for a fel 
 ony that they have made preying upon 
 society their business, who belong, in 
 short, to a pretty well-defined criminal 
 class, cannot be removed altogether from 
 troubling this world, they ought to be 
 locked up permanently and made to earn 
 [129] 
 
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER 
 their living. They are of no sort of use 
 in the world, and are an expense and a 
 danger to society. The rosewater treat 
 ment has no effect on this class, as a 
 rule. Holidays, occasional fine dinners, 
 concerts, lectures, flowers we are going 
 ridiculously far in this direction, unless 
 we add a radical something to this sort 
 of treatment that will touch the life of 
 the man, and tend to change his nature 
 and inclination. . . . 
 
 "Can anything better be done with men 
 convicted of State-prison offences? It 
 is with the hope of throwing some light 
 on this question that I wish to give a 
 brief and informal account of what is go 
 ing on in the Reformatory of Elmira, 
 N. Y., under the superintendency of Mr. 
 [130] 
 
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER 
 
 Z. R. Brockway. Here is an experiment 
 in the personal treatment of convicts, 
 unique, so far as I know, in the world; 
 and I suppose it is an open question 
 whether anybody except Mr. Brockway 
 could carry it on. It is well to say, by 
 way of preliminary, that the theory of 
 indeterminate sentences, held by Mr. 
 Brockway and other prison reformers, 
 has been by many regarded as impracti 
 cable of operation, for want of a tribunal 
 to say when a man is sufficiently re 
 formed for his sentence to terminate. 
 For the role of hypocrisy is one of the 
 easiest for a rogue to play. 
 
 "The Elmira Reformatory, which cost 
 more than it should (being built in New 
 York), is a somewhat pretentious build- 
 [131] 
 
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER 
 ing, situated on a commanding eminence. 
 It need not be particularly described, fur 
 ther than to say that in point of arrange 
 ment, light, air, roominess, ventilation, 
 etc., it conforms to modern notions. . . . 
 What distinguishes it, however, is that 
 it is provided with school-rooms sufficient 
 for the accommodation of all its inmates. 
 And it is, as we shall see, a great edu 
 cational establishment, the entrance to 
 which is through the door of crime. The 
 keynote of it is compulsory education. 
 The qualifications for admission to it are 
 that the man convicted of a State-prison 
 offence shall be between the ages of six 
 teen and thirty, and that he has not been 
 in State prison before. In his discretion 
 any judge in the State may send a con- 
 [132] 
 
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER 
 
 vict of this description to Elmira. He 
 is sentenced to the Reformatory subject 
 to the rules of that institution, not for a 
 definite term; but he cannot be detained 
 there longer than the maximum for which 
 he might have been sentenced under the 
 law. For instance, if for burglary he 
 might have been sentenced to State prison 
 for ten years, he may be held at Elmira 
 for ten years; but he may, in the discre 
 tion of the board of managers, who are 
 appointed by the Governor, be discharged 
 in one year. The institution is practi 
 cally managed by the superintendent. 
 The discharges are made only by the 
 board, who consider the man's record in 
 the prison, and the probabilities, from all 
 the evidence concerning him, that he will 
 [133] 
 
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER 
 
 behave if set at liberty. He must have 
 a perfect record before the board con 
 sider his case; and, besides this, the board 
 must have confidence in his will and abil 
 ity to live up to it. 
 
 "The process of his release is this: If 
 he is reported perfect in three things- 
 labour, school, and conduct for each of 
 which three marks are required each 
 month, making nine in all, for six months, 
 he is advanced to the first grade. If he 
 remains perfect in the first grade for six 
 months more, gaining nine good marks 
 each month, he may then, at the discre 
 tion of the managers, be sent out on his 
 parole. But he is not released on parole 
 until a place is found for him in which 
 [ 134 ] 
 
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER 
 he can get employment and earn his 
 living. If his friends cannot find a place 
 for him, or he will not be received back into 
 his former employment, if he had any, 
 the institution places him by means of 
 correspondence. On parole he must re 
 port his conduct and condition every 
 month to the superintendent, and this re 
 port must be indorsed by some one of 
 known character. If the paroled contin 
 ues to behave himself for six months, he 
 receives his final discharge; if he back 
 slides, he is rearrested, brought back, and 
 must begin over again. . . . 
 
 "It will be seen from this slight sketch 
 
 that it is not an easy matter to get out 
 
 of the Elmira Reformatory before the 
 
 expiration of the maximum sentence. 
 
 [135] 
 
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER 
 Three things are required perfect con 
 duct, perfect diligence, and willingness in 
 labour with as good progress in school 
 as the capacity of the man admits. . . . 
 The most striking thing about the insti 
 tution is the cultivation of individual re 
 sponsibility; a man's progress depends 
 upon himself. The education is strictly 
 compulsory. Such a motive was never 
 before given men to study, for release 
 depends upon diligence and understand 
 ing of the matter in hand. . . . 
 
 "Never was compulsory education so 
 completely applied. But it must be con 
 fessed, in this case, that the class had 
 got thoroughly interested in the subject. 
 The expression of their faces was that 
 of aroused intelligence. Nothing seemed 
 [136] 
 
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER 
 
 lost on the majority of them; the finest 
 points made by Socrates, his searching 
 moral distinctions, his humour, you could 
 see were taken instantly, by the expres 
 sion of their faces. The discussions and 
 the essays in this class show a most re 
 markable grasp, subtlety, penetration, 
 and power of drawing fine moral dis 
 tinctions; and the vigour and fitness of 
 the language in which they are couched 
 are not the least notable part of the 
 display. The previous Sunday there had 
 been a lively discussion of the question, 
 'Is Honesty the best Policy?' The study 
 of the morality of Socrates led the class 
 naturally, and by their request, to a study 
 of the morality of Jesus and the New 
 Testament, though not at all as a re- 
 [ 137 ] 
 
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER 
 
 ligious inquiry; and thus a result was 
 reached in moral investigation that a 
 clergyman, beginning at the other end, 
 probably never could have brought this 
 mixed and abnormal class to attempt will 
 ingly. For these men are not only crim 
 inals, warped and prejudiced against any 
 religious teaching, but they are of all sects 
 by inheritance, perhaps half the number 
 Catholics, and fifty of them Hebrews. 
 Among men that have abandoned all prac 
 tice of religion it would be perfectly easy 
 to stir up a bitter theological feeling. 
 The lecture on the second Sunday I was 
 present was introductory on the develop 
 ment of religions, preparatory to such a 
 study of the New Testament morality 
 as had been given to that of Socrates. 
 [138] 
 
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER 
 Before I quit this Sunday audience, I 
 ought to say that, when the six hun 
 dred are assembled it is one of the most 
 alert and quickly responsive I have ever 
 seen. . . ." 
 
 Warner's persuasion that reform in 
 methods for dealing with the criminal 
 cannot long be delayed saved him from 
 restless effort. He did what he could. 
 His pen was heated with fresh fire, his 
 heart was filled with new longing. He 
 grasped with fervour the first genuine 
 fundamental effort the world has seen 
 in the right direction; that made on 
 the ground of indeterminate sentence. 
 Warner learned at the Social Science 
 Congress that Mr. Brockway, in hope of 
 being granted indeterminate sentence for 
 [139] 
 
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER 
 Elmira, was beginning experiments there 
 with rather more men than he believed 
 well for the experiments but with a prom 
 ise, understood, of limiting the number 
 to six hundred. This promise was not 
 kept, nor was absolutely indeterminate 
 sentence granted, but in face of all diffi 
 culties the work proceded as we have seen. 
 He saw cabals growing against the re 
 former; he watched the effect of general 
 ignorance played upon by the enemies of 
 reform, and he lived to see Mr. Brockway 
 overthrown by the politicians of New 
 York. 
 
 Yet who shall say that the experiment 
 has failed? In the perspective afforded 
 by these very few years we see that fail 
 ure is impossible. New men, younger 
 [140] 
 
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER 
 men, will offer themselves, and women, 
 too, though late, will begin to under 
 stand what reform means in behalf of the 
 criminal. 
 
 In the year 1886 Warner renewed his 
 work by printing two popular papers 
 upon the subject in different magazines. 
 The first appeared in the Arena in Janu 
 ary. This paper had been delivered pre 
 viously as an address before the Social 
 Science Congress and may be found in 
 their archives. The second appeared in 
 Harper's Monthly Magazine in Febru 
 ary of that year, the editor, Mr. Alden, 
 having always shown himself sympathetic 
 with true advance in humanitarian direc 
 tions. Warner wrote : 
 
 "Is there any way, theoretically, that 
 [141] 
 
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER 
 promises to change the confirmed crim 
 inal? Is there any evidence that this 
 theoretical way will work practically? 
 Yes. I firmly believe there is a way, and 
 there is an example. That remedy, that 
 way, is education, but education under 
 proper conditions. And by education I 
 do not mean the teaching of knowledges, 
 the imparting of information, learning 
 from books or any other source. I mean 
 education in the original signification of 
 the word; that is, discipline, the develop 
 ment of unknown, unused powers, the 
 restoration of lost powers in short, a 
 training and bringing out of all the 
 powers and faculties that go to make 
 up a man, sound in mind, in morals, in 
 body. 
 
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER 
 
 "If you propose to reform a criminal, 
 improved physical conditions are not 
 enough. For such a man, whose moral 
 nature is as unstable as water, no tem 
 porary or sentimental religious excite 
 ment will avail to put his feet on a rock 
 where he can stand against temptation. A 
 man coarse in fibre, weak in will, an easy 
 prey to vice, can be excited, can be melted 
 into tears, will fall into a mush of repent 
 ance, but the mood will probably only be 
 a passing sentiment. . . . 
 
 "Let us see how discipline, applied to 
 the body, to the mind, and to the moral 
 sense ought to work upon the man how, 
 in fact, it has worked in one institution 
 with which we are familiar. I do not 
 refer to this institution for the sake of 
 [143] 
 
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER 
 saying anything of the tact and skill of 
 its manager, but to call your attention to 
 the philosophic basis upon which his ef 
 fort rests. For it is very important that 
 the fact should be recognised that a prin 
 ciple is involved in the attempt at the 
 Elmira Reformatory which is entirely in 
 dependent of the adaptability of its man 
 ager to deal with men. Of course much 
 depends upon the man in any system 
 or institution. In teaching deaf-mutes 
 there is a great difference in the power 
 of men to awaken inert faculties. We 
 may have a good system of municipal 
 government the working of which may 
 be defeated by a bad or incompetent 
 mayor, or we may have a defective sys 
 tem which may yield fair results with a 
 [144] 
 
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER 
 competent, honest executive; but it re 
 mains true that a good system will eventu 
 ally give the best results. . . . 
 
 "In order to reform any person ad 
 dicted to evil living, an adequate motive 
 must be offered. Under the method de 
 scribed the powerful motive is the desire 
 of regaining liberty. This would seem 
 enough, but it is not always sufficient to 
 arouse ambition in a sluggish nature, 
 especially when the period of incarcera 
 tion is fixed and is short. This motive, 
 then, has to be supplemented by others. 
 A way must be found to arouse the slug 
 gish body, and interest the dormant mind. 
 It is sometimes long before this way can 
 be discovered. These ruined natures 
 have often very little that can be ap- 
 [145] 
 
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER 
 
 pealed to successfully. But I believe 
 there is in most men and women, however 
 degraded, the seed of a better life. The 
 first step will probably be the awakening 
 of an interest in something outside them 
 selves; not a purpose of change, but sim 
 ply an interest. It may be a desire to 
 learn the alphabet, or an awakened taste 
 for reading, or a little inclination to know 
 something. It may be a pride in per 
 sonal appearance, or a wish to get com 
 mendation for good behaviour, or a 
 dawning sense of the agreeableness of 
 order, neatness, cleanliness. Or it may 
 be some pleasure in a discovered power 
 to do well a piece of work. This inter 
 est, once aroused, can be stimulated by 
 various incitements, slight rewards of 
 [146] 
 
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER 
 promotion, the fear of social degrada 
 tion; and this path of doing well will be 
 come powerfully attractive when it is seen 
 to be the path, and the only one, to lib 
 erty. But this interest in any form, with 
 even the prize of liberation, cannot be 
 depended on to last. The will of the 
 criminal is weak and vacillating. He can 
 not be depended on, he cannot depend 
 upon himself, for continuance. He may 
 fail and fall again and again. The only 
 remedy in his case and it is the common 
 case is to keep him at it, keep him try 
 ing, until a habit is formed, until his will 
 is strengthened, until, in fact, it is men 
 tally and physically just as easy for him 
 to live a normal, healthful life as it was 
 to live a disorderly life. . . . 
 [147] 
 
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER 
 "The important thing, as necessary in 
 this system to getting out of confinement 
 as to becoming a man, is the formation 
 of habit. And here is where the notion 
 of an indeterminate sentence comes in as 
 the only condition of forming a fixed 
 habit. 
 
 "An indeterminate sentence is the sen 
 tence of a convict to confinement until in 
 the judgment of some tribunal he is fit to 
 go out into society again, until it is evi 
 dent that he is likely to be law-abiding. 
 If a person is determined upon a crim 
 inal life, the best thing that can be done 
 for him and for society is to confine him 
 where he can do no mischief, and where 
 his labour will pay for his keeping, so that 
 he may not be an expense to society nor 
 [148] 
 
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER 
 
 a terror to it. And, logically, he should 
 be confined until there is good reason to 
 believe that he will be a self-supporting, 
 law-abiding member of the community. 
 Now the difficulty heretofore has been to 
 determine when a person might safely be 
 released on an indeterminate sentence. 
 Under the present prison system, if re 
 lease depended simply on good behaviour, 
 on external observance of rules, most 
 criminals are shrewd enough to behave 
 admirably, and to even offer evidence of 
 Christian conversion, in order to get re 
 lease. Where is there a tribunal that 
 could pass upon his character? The El- 
 mira system compels a person literally to 
 work out his own salvation. It will 
 take some men a longer and some men a 
 [149] 
 
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER 
 shorter time to do it, that is, to acquire 
 such a habit that for a given period they 
 can stand perfect in study, in work, in 
 conduct. Under our present rule of de 
 terminate sentences there are many incor 
 rigible cases. Probably there are some 
 natures incapable of being changed to 
 anything better. Let such stay where 
 they can pay for their living and not 
 injure society. But it is difficult to say 
 of any man that he cannot be reached 
 and touched by discipline, physical, men 
 tal, and moral, for a long time and con 
 tinuous; that it is impossible to drill him, 
 in years of effort, into a habit of decent 
 living and a liking for an orderly life. 
 It is impossible, psychologically and 
 physiologically, for a person to obey rigid 
 [150] 
 
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER 
 rules of order and decency, to be drilled 
 in mental exercises, to be subject to super 
 vision for intelligent and attentive labour, 
 for a considerable length of time, and not 
 form new habits, not be changed sensibly 
 and probably radically. It may be in 
 one year, it may be in ten years, but ulti 
 mately habits will be formed, and the man 
 cannot, without a greater or less effort, 
 be what he was before he was subjected 
 to this process. . . ." 
 
 Warner had an excellent example in 
 Dickens to encourage him to believe that 
 the pen has power even in these unwonted 
 paths. Dickens's work for Newgate 
 prison has never been questioned, and at 
 that time "interest was shown in the pris 
 oner," Dickens says, "but no sympathy." 
 [151] 
 
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER 
 The world has progressed; yet, consider 
 ing the need, it moves slowly. May it 
 not be hoped that all who loved Charles 
 Dudley Warner and who cared for his 
 life and work in any degree will be quick 
 ened to forward this interest of his 
 that it may become theirs, since it is for 
 humanity as well as for his memory. We 
 are reminded in this of the unforgetable 
 words of Fenelon where he speaks of per 
 sonal grief and says: "II faut passer a 
 1'humanite cet attendrissement sur soi." 
 
 [152] 
 
IV 
 
 During the winter of 1877 Warner had 
 taken his first brief glimpse of Mexico, 
 but it was not until after later visits in 
 1888 that he published a book containing 
 much that was new upon a country which 
 possessed great fascination for him. He 
 began also to make notes on California, al 
 though his book "Our Italy" was not fully 
 written until later. Of Mexico he was 
 never tired and was always ready after 
 this first glimpse to start off again when 
 he could find an agreeable companion, if 
 only for a month or two. The colour, the 
 climate, the people, all delighted him, and 
 the constant surprises. Writing there 
 from a remote Indian village, Zinzunzan, 
 [153] 
 
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER 
 he says: "To these poor savages, Philip 
 II. made a gift that any monarch or any 
 city might envy." Here in a decaying 
 church of ancient splendour is to be found 
 The Entombment, by Titian. "It seems 
 incredible," he continues, "that a work of 
 this value should be comparatively un 
 known, and that it should be found in a 
 remote Indian village in Mexico. But 
 the evidence that it is by Titian is strong. 
 . . . We could not but be profoundly 
 impressed." 
 
 In 1888 Warner seems to have pub 
 lished the results of several brief jour 
 neys in foregoing years in a book called 
 "On Horseback." Virginia, North Caro 
 lina, and Tennessee were all delightfully 
 reviewed. "If the travellers had known," 
 [154] 
 
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER 
 
 he says, "the capacities and resources of 
 the country they would not have started 
 without a supply train, or the establish 
 ment of bases of provisions in advance." 
 They did not have a very easy time, these 
 travellers on a horseback tour, but ease 
 was not what they started for, so they 
 kept on. Speaking of one town where 
 the jail was shut up, Warner says: "It 
 is not much use to try to run a jail with 
 out liquor." 
 
 Mr. Alden, of Harper's Magazine, pro 
 posed to Mr. Warner in 1885 that he 
 should make an extended journey South 
 and West and report upon the condition 
 of the States which were less generally 
 known and less closely affiliated than was 
 desirable with the North and East. The 
 [155] 
 
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER 
 book which was the result of observations 
 made upon this tour contains a prefatory 
 note to his friend the editor, in which he 
 says: "The object was not to present a 
 comprehensive account of the country 
 south and west, but to note certain rep 
 resentative developments, tendencies, and 
 dispositions, the communication of which 
 would lead to a better understanding be 
 tween different sections. The strongest 
 impression produced upon the writer in 
 making these studies was that the pros 
 perous life of the Union depends upon 
 the life and dignity of the individual 
 States." 
 
 Warner fell in love with New Orleans 
 at first sight. Among his friends there 
 he met a lady who said (only what sev- 
 [156] 
 
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER 
 eral others said in substance), "We are 
 going to get more out of this war than 
 you at the North, because we suffered 
 more." "South and West" is a book of 
 permanent value to patriotic Americans, 
 and although changes have gone forward 
 steadily since the day it was written its 
 value and interest have scarcely lessened. 
 It is a great temptation to quote from 
 it; indeed it seems unfair not to repre 
 sent the many months of Warner's life 
 which were absorbed in the labour of ob 
 serving and travelling and recording, in 
 order to make this book, but space is lack 
 ing. Bound in the same volume is a 
 valuable study of Canada. The writer 
 heard him say some years after this book 
 ("South and West") was published that 
 [157] 
 
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER 
 he always felt sorry that he had included 
 Canada. That was a study by itself and 
 overweighted the book, at the same time 
 being lost there. It stands, wherever it 
 is found, as a valuable piece of work, and 
 if Warner had lived would have shown 
 him possessed of knowledge such as a 
 real statesman should possess, knowledge 
 which showed him ready for any public 
 position. 
 
 We find a letter to his old friend Wirt 
 Dexter, written from New York, March, 
 1889, saying: "I am delighted that you 
 are able to sit up and take a little gruel, 
 and be healthfully indignant over the low 
 plane on which Harrison has started. 
 His idea seems to be to reward all the 
 [158] 
 
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER 
 newspapers and army boys who helped 
 nominate and elect him. I wonder if 
 there are no gentlemen in this country 
 who could represent us abroad, or whether 
 a gentleman could not represent us. 
 
 "I have been scratching away on my 
 serial, which they are now calling a novel, 
 and have got to a burning point where I 
 want to look about a little. So I am go 
 ing down to Washington to-morrow for 
 a couple of weeks. I go for some local 
 colour, but I shall steer clear of the per 
 sons in office and those who want to be 
 in. I cannot understand the policy of 
 the Republican party. If it really wants 
 a united Union, why don't it act as if the 
 South were in the Union. Not a South 
 ern man yet appointed anywhere. And 
 [159] 
 
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER 
 what a good Attorney- General John 
 Mason Brown would have made. You 
 haven't got another Fuller, have you, to 
 go in Justice - -'s place?" 
 
 The renewal of his early friendship 
 with Wirt Dexter happened on his first 
 visit to Chicago after an interval of 
 twenty years or more. Each of them 
 had been absorbed in their successful work 
 and they had never met; and Warner 
 seized his earliest opportunity to go to 
 Mr. Dexter's house. The great lawyer 
 was sitting on his piazza when Warner 
 came up the steps and rang the bell; but 
 both had changed and they did not recog 
 nise each other. Mrs. Dexter received 
 her guest w^armly and sent for her hus 
 band. When he entered the room War- 
 [160] 
 
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER 
 ner had the advantage, and going quietly 
 up and taking him by the hand said (re 
 membering their old transaction in house 
 hold goods) : "Wirt, did you ever pay me 
 for that furniture?" A fine burst of 
 laughter followed this unexpected sally, 
 and the ttto friends rejoiced to find each 
 other really unchanged. 
 
 Later he wrote to Mr. Dexter from 
 Munich, September, 1891: 
 
 "My dear, dear friend: I received your 
 note when I was in Marienbad, and should 
 at once have replied, but I got there with 
 an attack of rheumatism in my right arm, 
 which has incapacitated me from writing. 
 I am now, after five weeks, much better 
 and speedily on the way to be all right, 
 [161] 
 
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER 
 but my head is still too uncertain for any 
 thing but a short note. We have just 
 been two weeks in Meran, in Tyrol, about 
 the loveliest place the Lord ever made, 
 and full of grapes and figs. . . . We 
 expect to be at home before December 1. 
 I am not sorry to go, though I know I 
 shall want at once to flee from the win 
 ter of New England. . . . The sad 
 dest thing of all the things is Lowell's 
 death. Boston is fast ceasing to be Bos 
 ton. 
 
 "Ever affectionately yours." 
 
 It was close upon the beginning of the 
 
 last decade of Warner's life, 1890, that 
 
 he conceived the idea of writing a novel, 
 
 the first hint of which we find in his let- 
 
 [162] 
 
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER 
 ter to Wirt Dexter. He was then sixty 
 years old and had occupied himself in a 
 different field of letters up to that time; 
 nevertheless he undertook, with a boyish 
 sense of excitement for a "new thing," a 
 trilogy of novels called, respectively, "A 
 Little Journey in the World," "The 
 Golden House," and "That Fortune." 
 They are all good and interesting stories; 
 "first-rate reading"; though the first is 
 by an essayist who has fallen in love with 
 a few characters and makes them talk out 
 subjects because the subjects interest him. 
 "The Golden House" is, however, a de 
 lightful story without let or hindrance. 
 Any one seeking for an interesting novel 
 may well read that and its sequel, "That 
 Fortune." We need not say that these 
 [163] 
 
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER 
 three novels absorbed the larger part of 
 his interest and attention during the years 
 he held them in hand. It was 1899 be 
 fore the last, "That Fortune," was pub 
 lished. 
 
 Among the few letters we find of this 
 period is one written to Manchester-by- 
 Sea, September, 1893, from Hartford. 
 . . . "On my way down I read Miss 
 Jewett's last story in the Century. When 
 I came home I read it aloud amid laugh 
 ter and tears and with a choking voice 
 now and then. How pathetic is happi 
 ness! This is a true New England pic 
 ture. . . . This is a higher truth about 
 it. 'The dear sweet thing!' they said, as 
 I read on, and found those swift sure 
 touches of nature ; meaning the dear sweet 
 [164] 
 
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER 
 writer. The story, which is not a story 
 either, has a wonderful quality. Give 
 my warmest love and fealty to Miss 
 Jewett. 
 
 "What a rare visit it was to your high 
 perch, with - - and Miss Cochrane and 
 the ever memorable lunch with Dr. 
 Holmes and Mr. Ho wells. It almost 
 makes me long to be eighty-four. Do 
 you suppose we shall be like that, that wit 
 will be born so, and memory so survive? 
 It was all delightful, the three days there 
 and the wonderful country and the charm 
 ing people, and I never again shall climb 
 that same hill with you and Miss Fearn. 
 Such things are not repeated. 
 
 "Lady Edward Fitzmaurice did not 
 [165] 
 
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER 
 
 come yesterday, but is expected this after 
 noon, any moment now. So I must go 
 down and put on my noble manners if I 
 can find them. 
 
 "Yours affectionately." 
 
 Meanwhile several small books were 
 published made up of papers previously 
 printed in Harper's Magazine. In 1884 
 he had associated himself with that mag 
 azine, first as editor of the Drawer and 
 later of the Study, and kept up the con 
 nection until 1898, two years before his 
 death. Between the years 1896 and 
 1898, with the assistance of his brother, 
 Mr. George Warner, he edited the large 
 volumes of the compendium called "The 
 World's Best Literature," writing some 
 [166] 
 
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER 
 
 of the prefaces and introductions, which 
 showed his own matured literary tastes 
 and judgments. This collection really 
 represents his own idea of the leaders in 
 English letters, which is far from being 
 the case with every collection issued un 
 der the segis of a distinguished name. In 
 1899 also he had published a book with an 
 historical flavour, called "The People for 
 Whom Shakespeare Wrote," and this 
 book, with the exception of a collection 
 of essays, "The Relation of Literature 
 to Life," closed the long series of his 
 labours. 
 
 "The Relation of Literature to Life" 
 
 carries a peculiar interest apart from style 
 
 and thought when looked at from our 
 
 present standpoint, that of the indi- 
 
 [167] 
 
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER 
 
 yidual and the purpose of his life. The 
 autumn is near, but with no touch of 
 decadence, only ripeness and calm. The 
 close relation of all "genuine enduring 
 literature" to human life is here pointed 
 out with the persuasion of a man who 
 has lived by the knowledge of an almost 
 unacknowledged truth and is now re 
 hearsing it in plain speech. "The most 
 remunerative method of studying a litera 
 ture," he says, "is to study the people for 
 whom it was produced," and illustrations 
 of this are drawn by him in a course of 
 lectures previously delivered from the 
 Greek, French, and English literatures. 
 "English readers can test this," he writes, 
 "by taking up their Shakespeare after a 
 thorough investigation of the customs, 
 [168] 
 
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER 
 
 manners, and popular life of the Eliza 
 bethan period." 
 
 Where else can we turn to find a man 
 whose life was frankly devoted to letters, 
 always defending his guild and shelter 
 ing the race of literary men behind so 
 brave a shield? Other men of letters 
 have been proud of their profession and 
 content with the high place which some 
 of them, presuming for a moment they 
 are men of genius, have attained. But 
 genius is not to be classified. Charles 
 Warner was speaking of the necessity 
 of literature and of the lofty eminence 
 of the profession apart from individuals. 
 He says: "If the world in which you live 
 happens to be the world of books, if your 
 pursuit is to know what has been done 
 [169] 
 
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER 
 and said in the world, to the end that 
 your own conception of the value of life 
 may be enlarged, and that better things 
 may be done and said hereafter, this world 
 and this pursuit assume supreme impor 
 tance in your mind. But you can in a 
 moment place yourself in relations you 
 have not to go far, perhaps only to speak 
 to your next neighbour where the very 
 existence of your world is scarcely rec 
 ognised. . . . You will speedily be 
 aware how completely apart from human 
 life literature is held to be, how few peo 
 ple regard it seriously, as a necessary ele 
 ment in life." He then compares the 
 great labours of men of affairs, the build 
 ing of towns and manufactures in in 
 credibly short spaces of time upon lands 
 [170] 
 
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER 
 
 where forests grew a few months earlier 
 and speaks of the marvellous exhibition 
 of energy which has wrought such results. 
 He inquires: "Why encounter these diffi 
 culties? The men are not consciously 
 philanthropists. . . . They enjoy no 
 doubt the feeling of leadership, but they 
 embark in their enterprise in order that 
 they may have the position and luxury 
 that increased wealth will bring. . . . 
 The observation of this phase of modern 
 life is not in the least for purposes of 
 satire or of reform. . . . We are in 
 quiring how fully this conception of life 
 is divorced from the desire to learn what 
 has been done and said to the end that 
 better things may be done and said 
 hereafter, in order that we may under- 
 [171] 
 
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER 
 
 stand the popular conception of the insig 
 nificant value of literature in human af 
 fairs." Warner then quotes what Plato 
 says upon this subject in the Laws, where 
 the Athenian stranger remarks that one 
 cause of decay of defence in a state is the 
 love of wealth, which wholly absorbs men 
 and never for a moment allows them to 
 think of anything but their private pos 
 sessions. . . . The conclusion of Plato 
 is that we ought not to pursue any occu 
 pation to the neglect of that for which 
 riches exist. "I mean," he says, "soul 
 and body, which without gymnastics and 
 without education will never be worth 
 anything; and therefore, as we have said 
 not once but many times, the care of 
 riches should have the last place in our 
 thoughts." 
 
 [172] 
 
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER 
 
 "The majority of mankind," he con 
 tinues, "reverses this order of interests, 
 and therefore it sets literature to one side 
 as of no practical account in human life. 
 More than this, it not only drops it out 
 of mind, but it has no conception of its 
 influence and power in the very affairs 
 from which it seems to be excluded. . . . 
 Just as it is that virtue saves the state, if 
 it be saved, although the majority do not 
 recognise it, and attribute the salvation 
 of the state to energy," etc., . . . "so 
 it is that in the life of generations of men 
 considered from an ethical and not from 
 a religious point of view, the most potent 
 and lasting influence for a civilisation 
 that is worth anything, ... is that 
 which I call literature." 
 
 In this sentence we find the keynote of 
 [173] 
 
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER 
 Charles Dudley Warner's life the rea 
 son why we are led to speak of him and 
 remember him as one of the agents toward 
 the better, the larger life of our land. 
 
 "Literature," he says again, "must 
 have in it something of the enduring and 
 the universal. ... In books of 
 law, theology, politics, medicine, science, 
 travel, adventure, biography, philosophy, 
 and fiction there may be passages that 
 possess, or the whole contents may pos 
 sess, that quality which comes within our 
 meaning of literature. There must be 
 an appeal to the universal in the race. 
 . . . The subject of a production does 
 not always determine the desired quality 
 which makes it literature. ... A 
 biography may contain all the facts in 
 [174] 
 
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER 
 
 regard to a man and his character ar 
 ranged in an orderly and comprehensible 
 manner, and yet not be literature; but it 
 may be so written, like Plutarch's 'Lives' 
 or Defoe's 'Account of Robinson Crusoe,' 
 that it is literature and of imperishable 
 value as a picture of human life, as a sat 
 isfaction to the want of the human mind 
 which is higher than the want of knowl 
 edge. ... It may be weighty and 
 profound; it may be light, as light as the 
 fall of a leaf or a bird's song on the 
 shore; it may be the thought of Plato 
 where he discourses of the character neces 
 sary in a perfect state, or of Socrates, 
 who, out of the theorem of an absolute 
 beauty and goodness, greatness, and the 
 like, deduces the immortality of the soul; 
 [175] 
 
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER 
 
 or it may be the love song of a Scotch 
 ploughman, something ministering to a 
 need in human nature higher than a need 
 for facts, for knowledge, for wealth." 
 Warner had set himself no easy task 
 to define why literature not of knowl 
 edge alone, but of a higher power, was 
 a force greater than that of physical 
 forces. But he never relaxed in his 
 noble endeavour to make this truth clear, 
 and while he regrets that the natural 
 division of occupations should cause a 
 want of sympathy between the followers 
 of the various pursuits existing in the 
 world, and while he recognises the disap 
 pointing fact, occasionally met, of the 
 "arrogance of culture," he still makes the 
 truth evident that "the production of the 
 [176] 
 
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER 
 poet is as necessary to universal men as 
 the atmosphere. . . . We all know 
 it is true, true in our individual conscious 
 ness, that if a man be known as a poet and 
 nothing else, if his character is sustained 
 by no other achievement than the produc 
 tion of poetry, he suffers in our opinion 
 a loss of respect. And this is only recov 
 ered for a man after he is dead and his 
 poetry is left alone to speak for his name. 
 . . . This popular estimate of the 
 poet extends also, possibly in less degree, 
 to all the producers of the literature that 
 does not concern itself with knowledge. 
 It is not our care to inquire further why 
 this is so, but to repeat that it is strange 
 that it should be so when poetry is, 
 and has been at all times, the universal 
 [177] 
 
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER 
 solace of all peoples who have emerged 
 out of barbarism, the one thing not su 
 pernatural, and yet akin to the super 
 natural, that makes the world, in its hard 
 and sordid conditions, tolerable to the 
 race. For poetry is not merely the corn- 
 fort of the refined and the delight of 
 the educated; it is the alleviator of pov 
 erty, the pleasure-ground of the igno 
 rant, the bright spot in the most dreary 
 pilgrimage. . . . 
 
 "The hard conditions of the lonely New 
 England life, with its religious theories 
 as sombre as its forests, . . . would 
 have been unendurable if they had not 
 been touched with the ideal created by 
 the poet. There was in creed and pur 
 pose the vitality that creates a state, and, 
 [178] 
 
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER 
 
 as Menander says, the country which is 
 cultivated with difficulty produces brave 
 men; but we leave out an important ele 
 ment in the lives of the Pilgrims if we 
 overlook the means they had of living 
 above their barren circumstances. I do 
 not speak only of the culture which many 
 of them brought from the universities, of 
 the Greek and Roman classics, and what 
 unworldly literature they could glean 
 from the productive age of Elizabeth 
 and James, but of another source, more 
 universally resorted to, and more power 
 ful in exciting imagination and emotion, 
 and filling the want in human nature of 
 which we have spoken. They had the 
 Bible, and it was more to them, much 
 more, than a book of religion, than a 
 [179] 
 
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER 
 
 revelation of religious truth, a rule for 
 the conduct of life, or a guide to heaven. 
 . . . It opened to them a boundless 
 realm of poetry and imagination. . . . 
 The Bible is the best illustration of the 
 literature of power, for it always con 
 cerns itself with life, it touches it at all 
 points. And this is the test of any piece 
 of literature its universal appeal to hu 
 man nature." . . . 
 
 Charles Dudley Warner's love for his 
 kind, for life, for the varied resources and 
 beauty in human nature developing in 
 endless and unexpected forms, led him, as 
 we have seen, far and wide, but every 
 thing was focussed in his central idea of 
 the "relation of literature to life." His 
 constant study, excepting the few early 
 [180] 
 
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER 
 
 years given to the law, was in pondering 
 the method of saying what he believed 
 could help the world in the simplest and 
 clearest style. "I have learned," he said, 
 "that the most effective word-painting, as 
 it is called, is the simplest. 
 In those moments when we have a clear 
 vision of life that which seems to us 
 most admirable and desirable is the sim 
 plicity that endears to us the idyl of 
 Nausicaa." . . . 
 
 Whatever his labour might be by the 
 way, whether for prisons, for the negro, 
 for women, for schools, for hospitals, the 
 form of labour possible to him was by 
 pen and speech. This he followed for 
 the aggrandisement of letters. In no 
 other way, he believed, can the people be 
 [181] 
 
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER 
 
 so surely guided to higher ends. No uni 
 versity work for the training of news 
 paper men and editors can succeed until 
 they have grasped one and all this primal 
 idea of literature as the surest means for 
 the education of the people. Only by per 
 fecting the medium can this be achieved. 
 The irresistible manner of saying is born 
 of character. 
 
 Warner's faith in literature led him to 
 be a prop and inciter to young authors. 
 Where he could discern real talent and 
 character he was ready to become a main 
 stay. Only those shivering upon the 
 edge of a plunge into the sea of literary 
 life can know what a help he was and 
 what happiness his hope in behalf of oth 
 ers gave. His advice was born out of 
 [182] 
 
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER 
 wide experience. There is a record of 
 one of the many cases of his helpfulness, 
 where he writes to Sarah Orne Jewett, 
 who had confided to him the actual be 
 ginning of a story which he had first sug 
 gested and she had long been planning, 
 "The Tory Lover"; "I am not in the least 
 alarmed about the story, now that you 
 are committed to it by the printing of the 
 beginning, only this, that if you let the 
 fire slow down to rest for a week or so, 
 please do not take up any other work, 
 but rest really. Do not let any other 
 theme come in to distract your silent 
 mulling over the story. Keep your frame 
 of mind in it. The stopping to do any lit 
 tle thing will distract you. Hold the story 
 always in solution in your mind ready to 
 [183] 
 
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER 
 be precipitated when your strength per 
 mits. That is to say, even if your fires are 
 banked up, keep the story fused in your 
 mind." He wrote also to the same friend : 
 "The Pointed Firs in your note perfumed 
 the house as soon as the letter was opened, 
 and were quite as grateful to me as your 
 kind approval. . . . We are greatly 
 rejoiced to know that you are getting bet 
 ter. I quite agree with you that being 
 sick is fun compared to getting well. I 
 want to see you ever so much and talk 
 to you about your novel, and explain to 
 you a little what I tried to do with Evelyn 
 in my own. It seems to me possible to 
 educate a child with good literature as 
 well as bad; at least I tried the experi 
 ment. Most affectionately yours." 
 [184] 
 
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER 
 
 In July, 1900, he wrote to the present 
 writer from Hartford: "My dear Friend: 
 I have been told that there is to be a little 
 clearing 1 out of our house and a temporary 
 break-up on the 7th or 9th of August. 
 . . . You see this leaves me unprovided 
 for, and out in the heat. I can no longer 
 \valk my five to ten miles a day with my 
 dog Sam in the region of Hartford. My 
 face neuralgia is slowly improving, but 
 I have not much liking for general com 
 pany, in which I should have to explain 
 myself. It has been suggested that you 
 might like to renew your invitation, and 
 take me in for a little at this time, for 
 the sake of what I used to be, or what 
 you used to think I was. I may also stay 
 a little with Woodberry at Beverly. If 
 [185] 
 
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER 
 S. O. J. is not with you I might run 
 up to South Berwick and see her. I 
 might call on Howells at Annisquam. 
 Perhaps Aldrich is somewhere stranded 
 on your coast. It is so long since I have 
 seen anybody, that I have quite a long 
 ing for converse with the unfortunate 
 class to which I belong. I mean the 
 slaves and bond servants of the publish 
 
 ers." 
 
 Sunday, August 19, 1900, he writes 
 from the New Marlboro Inn: "My dear 
 Friend: . . . It is really a heavenly 
 Sunday in the (illegible) of a lovely land 
 of high pastures and woods, and the clear 
 est, most inspiring air! You could not 
 make a better day if you had the recipe. 
 We have been wandering all the morn- 
 [186] 
 
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER 
 
 ing over the hills before lunch. . . . 
 I reached Great Barrington yesterday 
 after four. The distance is only ten 
 miles here, but it is mostly up hill, and I 
 had two hours and a half in which to 
 enjoy the splendid fields and the general 
 country solitude. . . . It is one of 
 the few open and cheerful and secluded 
 places I know." 
 
 September 1st brought his last note to 
 the same: "Dear Friend: It 'looks like' 
 your Massachusetts Boards would have 
 to run their own career of sentimentalism 
 and cant." (This refers to the lack of 
 feeling about the necessity for adopting 
 proper methods of reforming criminals.) 
 "The sort of criminal religion they are 
 [187] 
 
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER 
 after has about as much fruit as a Judas 
 Tree. 
 
 "Well, 'lets' you and S. and I try to 
 be good. I mean to go to Plymouth 
 September 15th, to a Mayflower meet 
 ing. 
 
 "Yours affectionately, 
 "CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER." 
 
 Each friend to whom he wrote famil 
 iarly must remember and treasure such 
 notes as these. As one re-reads them, 
 they bring back his voice, his smile, the 
 light of his clear eyes. No man could 
 have been dearer to his friends, and it 
 was from a happy hour with a little group 
 of them that he went suddenly and swiftly 
 away from this world. There was to be 
 [188] 
 
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER 
 
 in his life no winter of enforced idle 
 ness, no laying down of his armour be 
 fore his life's end. 
 
 [189] 
 
An editorial of his own newspaper, The 
 Hartford Courant, has come into the 
 hands of the writer, just as this brief 
 memorial must close. 
 
 THE TWENTIETH OF OCTOBER, 1903 
 
 "It was on an October 20 three years 
 ago that Mr. Warner went away from 
 us. His friends have not even begun to 
 forget him ; and they never will. As they 
 turn the pages of his books, or find them 
 selves in some place dear from old asso 
 ciation, the familiar voice speaks again, 
 and again the shrewd, benignant eyes 
 look into theirs. 
 
 "His life was a full and helpful and 
 [ 190 ] 
 
CHARLES DUDLEY .WARNER 
 happy life. He went through this world 
 with an alert interest in everything to be 
 seen in the journey observing, compre 
 hending, and interpreting. His tastes, 
 like his sympathies, were very catholic. 
 He was a good comrade and audience for 
 John Burroughs in the woods ; nature was 
 a perpetual delight to him, and for his 
 pet haunts here in New England he had 
 a love that would have endeared him to 
 St. Francis, but Dr. Johnson would have 
 found him a companion to his liking in a 
 ramble down Fleet Street. The cities 
 interested him, the go-and-come of the 
 streets, the shops, the politics, the talk 
 of the clubs, the clamour of the stock ex 
 change. He never wearied of the study 
 of men their ambitions, struggles, slips, 
 [191] 
 
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER 
 
 and recoveries. Nothing human was dull 
 to him, or unimportant. He did what he 
 could and not by any means in his books 
 alone to make the world a saner, whole- 
 somer world for men, even the most un 
 fortunate of them, to live in. It was said 
 by somebody that nothing else in him was 
 so remarkable as this all-around interest, 
 understanding, and sympathy. But what 
 his friends remember most vividly and 
 thankfully is his friendliness. 
 
 "Emerson, many years ago, put into 
 words his idea and ideal of friendship, as 
 follows : 
 
 " 'It is for aid and comfort through all 
 
 the relations and passages of life and 
 
 death. It is fit for serene days, and 
 
 graceful gifts, and country rambles, but 
 
 [192] 
 
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER 
 
 also for rough roads and hard fare, ship 
 wreck, poverty and persecution. It keeps 
 company with the sallies of the wit and 
 the trances of religion. We are to dig 
 nify to each other the daily needs and 
 offices of man's life, and embellish it by 
 courage, wisdom, and unity.' 
 
 "The friendship of Charles Dudley 
 Warner was of that staying, sufficing 
 quality. It measured up to the Emerson 
 tests." 
 
 Any account of such a newspaper editor 
 as Charles Dudley Warner would be 
 sadly at fault without a fuller account of 
 his stewardship in that direction than it 
 has been the writer's power to give un 
 aided; therefore the subjoined letter was 
 [193] 
 
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER 
 
 gratefully received from his successor in 
 editorship, Mr. Charles Hopkins Clark, 
 who came a very young man into the 
 Courant office and into Mr. Warner's 
 closest friendship: 
 
 "I am very glad to send you a little 
 something about Mr. Warner, though I 
 am painfully aware that it will be inade 
 quate. One of my great regrets is that 
 I did not keep any journal or. other 
 memorandum to record some at least of 
 the innumerable wise and clever sayings 
 which came so spontaneously into his 
 every-day conversation. The whole room 
 seemed to sparkle when he came into it. 
 
 "I worked in one capacity or another 
 under him on the Hartford Courant for 
 [194] 
 
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER 
 
 about thirty years, and it is mortifying 
 not to be able to say more, and more defi 
 nitely, of one so vividly and fondly re 
 membered. Mr. Warner was the best 
 all-around newspaper man I ever met. 
 He had made his way up from exchange 
 editor at $800 a year, and he knew the 
 practical side of the work, and he had a 
 clear notion of just how each department 
 should be conducted and what a news 
 paper should be. His editorial policy, 
 often emphasised to his younger asso 
 ciates, was 'Be sure you are right and 
 then don't worry. You may be in the 
 minority at first, but not for long.' He 
 had a cheerful optimism in practice, al 
 though he sometimes talked despondently 
 of the drift of things. His sense of news 
 [195] 
 
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER 
 was keen and sure. 'Why didn't you 
 have something in the paper to-day,' he 
 asked, 'about that matter we were talk 
 ing of yesterday?' 'Oh,' was the reply, 
 'I did not think it would interest people.' 
 'It interested us, didn't it?' he went on, 
 'and aren't we people? What interests 
 us will interest others, and it is what in 
 terests them that people want to read.' 
 
 "He wrote with the utmost ease and 
 had the largest fund of general informa 
 tion at hand, and the widest range of in 
 terests, of all the men I have known. He 
 was especially recognised in those articles 
 that were more or less essaistical and in 
 which his delicious humour had a chance 
 to play. But he wrote also on occasions 
 the most virile and strenuous political ed- 
 [196] 
 
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER 
 
 itorials. Often when his partner and fel 
 low-editor, General Hawley, would come 
 home after a long absence, people drop 
 ping into the office would say they were 
 glad to see 'Hawley's vigorous pen at 
 work again,' while, in fact, what they had 
 noticed was another of Mr. Warner's 
 leaders. His style of writing adapted 
 itself to his theme. He did his work and 
 then moved along to the next thing and 
 did not carry all the time in mind what 
 he had done. I recall that once, at my 
 urgent request, when Mrs. Stowe was re 
 ported dying, he wrote an editorial about 
 her to be published at her death. She ral 
 lied and lived months, perhaps years. 
 When finally the article appeared he was 
 at the South. On receiving his C our ant 
 [197] 
 
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER 
 he wrote home expressing his hearty ap 
 proval of the editorial, adding that there 
 were things in there that he had always 
 intended to say when the time came. He 
 was quite curious to know who the author 
 was. Whenever anything appeared in 
 the paper which he particularly liked it 
 was his way to find who wrote it and to 
 tell him that he liked it and why. He 
 was especially considerate of the young 
 men and always ready to encourage them. 
 His cheery companionship belonged to 
 all of us in the office. Long after his 
 active work on The Courant ceased, in 
 deed, up to and including the day of his 
 death, he came there regularly, ran his 
 eye over the papers, and discussed the 
 news of the day. His kindly, simple, and 
 [198] 
 
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER 
 
 lovable nature put all at ease who came 
 in contact with him, and his ready wit, 
 his broad views of life, his quick and 
 true judgment, not only entertained but 
 instructed them. His personality per 
 vaded the whole office. Not only did he 
 establish the standard for all who worked 
 under him, but he was the standard him 
 self." 
 
 In the November number of Harper's 
 Magazine after Mr. Warner's death Mr. 
 Howells published in the "Easy Chair" 
 the following tribute in token of their 
 friendship : 
 
 "Nothing in a man's life can so abso 
 lutely free us concerning him as its end; 
 [199] 
 
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER 
 and if we then grieve that our praise can 
 no longer soothe the dull, cold ear, we 
 are safe in knowing that we cannot wound 
 it. We are liberated to the wish of see 
 ing him as he was, and we are as far 
 from the wish to overpraise his work as 
 to censure it. More than ever in that 
 solemn, sudden absence we feel the gro- 
 tesqueness of insincerity, and could wish 
 to speak of it as it would wish to speak 
 of itself, if it did not fear being misun 
 derstood. But the friend whom we all 
 lost, whether we personally knew him or 
 not, in Charles Dudley Warner, was a 
 man little given to speaking of himself. 
 Some literary men have the habit, not less 
 modestly than those who have it not, of 
 talking freely of their work, both in and 
 [200] 
 
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER 
 
 out of print; but it would not be easy 
 to find in his work any expression of his 
 sense of it. No doubt he knew how to 
 value it rightly, and he was personally 
 present in it in uncommon measure. It 
 was his voice speaking all the more di 
 rectly for himself because of the trans 
 parent mask he put on in those little 
 humourous studies which first charmed us ; 
 it was always his voice we heard in what 
 he wrote and it appealed to each of us 
 as from the heart of his own personality. 
 The true form of his art was at its best 
 in the series of essays which preceded his 
 fiction. 'My Summer in a Garden,' 
 'Backlog Studies,' 'Saunterings,' 'Adi 
 rondack Sketches,' 'Baddeck,. and That 
 Sort of Thing' it is a pleasure to name 
 [201 ] 
 
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER 
 
 them over, and for their old lovers each 
 name will have a glimmer of the opales- 
 cence which filled the things themselves 
 with lovely light. They were of the 
 quality which we felt in his fiction, but 
 felt not so intimately, and in his effort 
 to make it felt intimately there was the 
 defect of this fiction. He had not the 
 novelist's habit of using experience imag 
 inatively, structurally. He had rather 
 the essayist's habit of using it illustra 
 tively, even decoratively, and in a time of 
 far greater novelists it was his distinction 
 to be the first essayist among the rarest 
 few. In one little book of his, which is 
 still an essay, he made perhaps his most 
 original contribution to literature. It 
 would be idle to say that no one else could 
 
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER 
 
 have written anything like 'Being a Boy,' 
 but it is certain that no one else had, when 
 he conceived of an autobiographic study 
 of all boyhood, which should be as true 
 to every other man's sense of his own boy 
 hood as it was to the author's, and which 
 as it were dramatised the nature of a boy. 
 In its sense of character still in the bud 
 it has not been equalled, if it ever will be. 
 "No one has seen life more kindly and 
 wisely. His range was very wide, and 
 he wrote with delightful intelligence of 
 other lands and peoples, as different from 
 one another as they were alien to ours. 
 His travels were of the mood which every 
 educated American will recognise as hav 
 ing been his own in the period of moral 
 expansion following the great war, 
 [203] 
 
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER 
 when we were beginning to judge the 
 Old World without provincial arrogance 
 or colonial servility. They are full of 
 young pleasure in the Continent and 
 Orient which cannot be known to a gen 
 eration grown over-familiar unto both; 
 and this mood, which may make them 
 chiefly interesting hereafter to the stu 
 dent of their period, is strongly character 
 istic of the essays which it will establish 
 as a part of literature. No man who is 
 not thoroughly of his own time can sur 
 vive it, and Charles Dudley Warner was 
 conspicuously a New England American 
 of the decades between 1870 and 1890, 
 which witnessed his greatest literary ac 
 tivity. He first made himself known as 
 a gentle humourist of a certain whimsical, 
 
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER 
 
 dry quaintness, and then, when we were 
 all in love with him for this, we found 
 him a humanist of a temper as fine. 
 While we were still smiling with him at 
 the rich drolling in 'A Fight With a 
 Bear' and 'Killing a Trout,' we found our 
 eyes wet with the pathos he invoked in 
 'Hunting the Deer.' It may be forgot 
 ten how, without acquiring the evil fame 
 of a reformer, he went on to self-sacri 
 ficing labours in various philanthropies; 
 but what he did for mankind in litera 
 ture, to console or to move it, will not be 
 forgotten if any American work of our 
 time is to become an English classic. No 
 one of our authors except Curtis led so 
 much the life of a public man, but War 
 ner was scarcely thought of as a public 
 [205 ] 
 
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER 
 man so greatly by virtue of its truest 
 expression was his life that of a literary 
 man. He was a journalist, an economist, 
 a philanthropist; he remains an essayist, 
 a humourist, an artist of delicate fibre, of 
 rare temperament, of a certain charm, 
 impossible not to feel peculiarly his. 
 When people were once tried almost be 
 yond endurance by the most exasperat 
 ing of winters, he said, 'Everybody is talk 
 ing about the weather, why doesn't some 
 body do something?' And this, with its 
 subtle irony of human futility, is perhaps 
 one of the most representative examples 
 of his wit, but this humour was an aroma 
 which interfused all his thought, and filled 
 his page with the constant surprise of its 
 presence. He was, in everything he 
 [ 206 ] 
 
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER 
 wrote, of a high ideal. He thought liter 
 ature worthy of the best he could do ; and 
 all that he did was in the interest of those 
 more refined good morals which we call 
 good manners; it was polite literature. 
 His artistic conscience was of one make 
 with his ethical conscience, and whether 
 he was always aware of it or not, he ad 
 dressed his reader from both. What he 
 wrote, that he was; and to praise him as 
 one from whose books no one could rise 
 with a base or rude thought would be an 
 offence to his memory, so much was his 
 literature a positive counsel of civility, so 
 far was it above the poor virtues of omis 
 sion. It remains, and will remain, an 
 influence for right behaving through 
 right feeling and thinking. No one to 
 [207] 
 
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER 
 
 whom letters are dear could help feeling 
 an intimate loss in the sudden passing of 
 that fine and clear intelligence; and if it 
 was one's fortune to be long associated 
 with it, through the same years of aspira 
 tion and endeavour, one must feel some 
 thing of his own life gone out of him 
 with it. It is not for such a one to put 
 on the prophet and declare his future, and 
 it is not the present affair to fix Charles 
 Dudley Warner's place in literature. It 
 is more useful to ascertain its place in 
 him and to realise that whatever the 
 beauty and sweetness of his literatures it 
 was the fainter and slighter image of the 
 beauty and sweetness of his nature." 
 
 Surely no recapitulation of Warner's 
 [208] 
 
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER 
 life could be more perfectly made. By 
 one of those singular accidents, as we 
 are pleased to call them, the little line of 
 books called "Lives of Contemporary 
 Men of Letters" was projected shortly 
 before his death and his name was one of 
 the first proposed to lead the series. Con 
 temporary he ever was and will be until 
 all those who have known him are at rest, 
 for he was a man as the prophet says, 
 "such as man shall be, an hiding place 
 from the wind and a covert from the 
 tempest." 
 
 THE END 
 
 [209] 
 
CONTEMPORARY MEN OF LETTERS SERIES 
 WILLIAM ASPENWALL BRADLEY, EDITOR 
 
 THE purpose of this series is to provide brief but compre 
 hensive sketches, biographical and critical, of living writers 
 and of those who, though dead, may still properly be re 
 garded as belonging to our time. There is a legitimate 
 interest in the lives of our contemporaries that is quite dis 
 tinct from mere personal curiosity. There is also, in spite 
 of the obvious limitations of contemporary criticism, a 
 justifiable ambition to arrive at some final estimate of the 
 literary production of our age in advance of posterity. It 
 is to satisfy so far as possible this ambition and this interest 
 that the present series is planned. European as well as 
 English and American men of letters are included, so as to 
 give a complete survey of the intellectual and artistic life of 
 an age that is characteristically cosmopolitan. It is also 
 often called a decadent age, and it has therefore a varied 
 outlook on life. The diverse and often conflicting points of 
 view that we thus meet with in modern poets and prose 
 writers are all treated intelligently and sympathetically by 
 writers especially qualified in every instance, although the 
 prevailing temper of the series is idealistic. 
 
 McCLURE, PHILLIPS & CO., 
 141 Kast Twenty-fifth Street, New York. 
 
 [OVER] 
 
IN THE SAME SERIES 
 
 WALTER PATER 
 BY FERRIS GREENSLET 
 
 " One of the best things of the sort that we know of." 
 
 New York Evening Sun. 
 
 " A thoroughly sympathetic and penetrating study." 
 
 New York Independent. 
 
 " A most suggestive and stimulating little volume." 
 
 Kansas City Star and Times. 
 
 "A piece of solid, genuine criticism." 
 
 Boston Transcript. 
 
 "The writer has handled his subject with rare skill and 
 appreciation." Current Literature. 
 
 " Performs a service for which the lovers and students of 
 Pater will be grateful." Ethical Record. 
 
 " In a compass of 150 pages the author has given a more 
 satisfying portrait and estimate of his subject than other 
 critics have given of other authors in 600 pages." 
 
 Baltimore Sun. 
 [ OVEU ] 
 
IN THE SAME SERIES 
 
 BRET HARTE 
 BY H. W. BOYNTON 
 
 " An admirable piece of condensed biographical writing 
 , . . a truthful study. . . . Far and away the best 
 (study of Bret Harte) that has yet come to us, and delight 
 ful reading after the mass of uncritical, gushing, senti 
 mental biography." N. Y. Outlook. 
 
 ** Very well worth reading, especially by those who want 
 a fair view of Harte that shall not make them dislike him." 
 
 The Nation. 
 
 Will be welcomed by all admirers of the poet." 
 
 The Churchman. 
 
 "A sane little work, and gives in brief compass just 
 those things one wants to know about this famous literary 
 man, for the treatment is sane and sympathetic." 
 
 Christian Herald. 
 
 [ OVER ] 
 
IN PREPARATION 
 
 WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS AND THE IRISH 
 LITERARY REVIVAL 
 
 BY HORATIO SHEAFE KRANS 
 
 AUTHOR OF "IRISH LIFE IN IRISH FICTION." 
 
 CHARLES ALGERNON SWINBURNE 
 
 BY GEORGE EDWARD WOODHERRY 
 Author of l< American Literature," " Life of Hawthorne," " Poems," etc. 
 
 PRESS COMMENTS ON THE SERIES 
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 . . . The publishers who have put it forth have done 
 notably good work in bookmaking of late and these vol 
 umes . . . are fitted to adorn any shelves. 
 
 Providence Journal. 
 
 " In typographical make-up these volumes far excel the 
 other literary monographs on the market. " 
 
 Philadelphia Press. 
 
 " The volumes are made up with all the taste which dis 
 tinguishes the books that come from their publisher and 
 promise well." The Independent. 
 
 "Begins not only well but brilliantly. Its future issues 
 will receive close attention, thanks to the sterling qualities 
 of its first two issues. N. Y. Mail and Express. 
 
 " These handy volumes are just the thing for busy people 
 who like to know something about the men of letters of the 
 
 passing generation." Church Standard. 
 
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