Fashions in Literature | Page 2

and the flitting of birds. It was simply a report of certain
things which had happened out of doors, made by an observing
neighbor, whose talk seemed to be of a piece with the diffused
fragrance and light and life of the old-fashioned garden. This easy
approach, along natural lines of interest, by quietly putting himself on
common ground with his reader, Mr. Warner never abandoned; he was
so delightful a companion that until he ceased to walk beside them,
many of his friends of the mind did not realize how much he had
enriched them by the way. This charming simplicity, which made it
possible for him to put himself on intimate terms with his readers, was
the result of his sincerity, his clearness of thought, and his ripe culture:
that knowledge of the best which rids a man forever of faith in devices,
dexterities, obscurities, and all other substitutes for the lucid realities of
thinking and of character.
To his love of reality and his sincere interest in men, Mr. Warner added
natural shrewdness and long observation of the psychology of men and
women under the stress and strain of experience. His knowledge of
human nature did not lessen his geniality, but it kept the edge of his
mind keen, and gave his work the variety not only of humor but of
satire. He cared deeply for people, but they did not impose on him; he
loved his country with a passion which was the more genuine because
it was exacting and, at times, sharply critical. There runs through all his
work, as a critic of manners and men, as well as of art, a wisdom of life
born of wide and keen observation; put not into the form of aphorisms,
but of shrewd comment, of keen criticism, of nice discrimination
between the manifold shadings of insincerity, of insight into the action
and reaction of conditions, surroundings, social and ethical aims on
men and women. The stories written in his later years are full of the

evidences of a knowledge of human nature which was singularly
trustworthy and penetrating.
When all has been said, however, it remains true of him, as of so many
of the writers whom we read and love and love as we read, that the
secret of his charm lay in an agreeable personality. At the end of the
analysis, if the work is worth while, there is always a man, and the man
is the explanation of the work. This is pre-eminently true of those
writers whose charm lies less in distinctively intellectual qualities than
in temperament, atmosphere, humor-writers of the quality of Steele,
Goldsmith, Lamb, Irving. It is not only, therefore, a pleasure to recall
Mr. Warner; it is a necessity if one would discover the secret of his
charm, the source of his authority.
He was a New Englander by birth and by long residence, but he was
also a man of the world in the true sense of the phrase; one whose
ethical judgment had been broadened without being lowered; who had
learned that truth, though often strenuously enforced, is never so
convincing as when stated in terms of beauty; and to whom it had been
revealed that to live naturally, sanely, and productively one must live
humanly, with due regard to the earthly as well as to heavenly, with
ease as well as earnestness of spirit, through play no less than through
work, in the large resources of art, society, and humor, as well as with
the ancient and well-tested rectitudes of the fathers.
The harmonious play of his whole nature, the breadth of his interests
and the sanity of his spirit made Mr. Warner a delightful companion,
and kept to the very end the freshness of his mind and the spontaneity
of his humor; life never lost its savor for him, nor did his style part with
its diffused but thoroughly individual humor. This latest collection of
his papers, dealing with a wide range of subjects from the "Education
of the Negro" to "Literature and the Stage," with characteristic
comments on "Truthfulness" and "The Pursuit of Happiness," shows
him at the end of his long and tireless career as a writer still deeply
interested in contemporary events, responsive to the appeal of the
questions of the hour, and sensitive to all things which affected the
dignity and authority of literature. In his interests, his bearing, his

relations to the public life of the country, no less than in his work, he
held fast to the best traditions of literature, and he has taken his place
among the representative American men of Letters.
HAMILTON W. MABIE.

FASHIONS IN LITERATURE
If you examine a collection of prints of costumes of different
generations, you are commonly amused by the ludicrous appearance of