Los Angeles herald., 1891-06-20


titled "a Little Journey Around the
World" Thackeray's greatest works were
finished before he was fifty, but Mr.. War
ner, with a reputation as humorist of the
truer sort, and as an essayist of delightful
quality, undertook when he was past fifty
five years of age the writing of novel
The story was successful in certain meas
ure, for it was approved by the cultivated
readers, and yet, after all, it's charm con-
sisted wholly in the display of the same
qualities which had given Mr.. Warner re-
pute as delightful essayist. He had used
the machinery of conversation, and con-
nected the story by making it hinge upon
such adventures as are indicated in the title
GA Little Journey Around the World"
No hint is given of the nature of the sec
ond novel, but it is fair to presume that it
will be something like the first one. 1t is
not exactly accurate to say that Mr. War
ner never wrote a novel until that one
which was published two or three years
ago. Some fifteen years ago he started out
with Mark Twain. more in a spirit of fun
than anything else, to write a story
which was intended to be humor-
ously descriptive of certain scenes of west
ern life. The story was written in very
few weeks, and most remarkable, curious
and absurd production it was. 1t was
called "The Gilded Age" and the powerful
names of Mark Twain and Charles Dudley
Warner could not save it from most
frightful condemnation by the critics,
while the reading public regarded it with
amazement.
Mr.. Warmers friends have always felt
that thisexploit of his was asource of NOR
tifcation to him. He did not even have
Al r. -. NJ g
getting a fortune out of it. Mark Twain
saw that there was the germ of play in
it, and he bought Warmers rights to the
dramatic representation for few hundred
dollars, and Warner for time thought he
had made the best of the bargain. Bot
when John T. Raymond took the charac-
ter of Mulberry Sellers, and adapted it to
the stage and made great hit with it, Mr..
Warner realized that Mark Twain's fore
sight had been better than his own.
Twain's profits on the play were more than
100000.
1t was doubtless this unfortunate ex-
perience which kept Mr.. Warner for ten or
twelve years from making any further eff
fort to write fiction. If ''The Gilded Age"
had been literary and popular success he
probably would have kept at it from the
time that book was written.
Mr.. Warmers first pronounced literary
success came to him about twenty years
ago. He had been for number of years
an editorial writer, part proprietor of the
Hartford Courant, and in certain literary
circles was recognized as writer who had
delightful command of the English Ian
guage, a quaint originality of thought and
very happy humor. 1t occurred to him
that as sort of relaxation from his more
serious editorial duties he would write Il
series of sketches which would depict the
sorrows of those busy persons who under
took to amuse themselves with amateur
gardening. He therefore wrote series of
articles for the Hartford Courant which
he called "My Summer in a Garden" and
attention was at once drawn to them, not
only in Hartford, but elsewhere. Henry
Ward Beecher made a public confession OF
the laughter and joy with which he read
them, and so Mr.. Warner leaped from COM
parative obscurity to wide literary fame.
Other books followed at pretty frequent
intervals, most of them being essays,
sketches of travel, pervaded with the gen
tie humor and delicious literary quality
which were revealed in the Summer in a
Garden" and Mr.. Warner at once took
rank with the best of American littera-
teurs. A few years ago he became con-
nected with Harper's Magazine, still re-
tanning his relations with the Hartford
Courant.
Mr.. Warner, with Mark Twain and Mrs
Harriet Beecher Stowe, both of whom are
near neighbors of his in Hartford, has
given that city the repute of a literary cen
ter, not only in this country, but in Europe.
Each of these writers enjoys great fame
abroad, and Mark Twain is sGd to be es-
teemed more greatly in England even than
he is in this country. Mr.. Andrew Lang
has gone so far as to put Mark Twain
among the writers of greatest genius whom
the Nineteenth century has produced in
America. Mrs. Stoves genius is recog-
nized everywhere, for her "Uncle Toms
Cabin" has been translated into more than
one hundred languages; while in England
Mr. Warmers writings are as greatly ad-
mired as they are here.
E. j. EDWARDS.
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