The Relation of Literature to Life | Page 8

out on the first of his five trips across the Atlantic. He was absent nearly a year. Yet even then he cannot be said to have neglected his special work. Articles were sent weekly from the other side, describing what he saw and experienced abroad. His active connection with the paper he never gave up absolutely, nor did his interest in it ever cease. But after he became connected with the editorial staff of Harpers Magazine the contributions he made to his journal were only occasional and what may be called accidental.
When 1870 came, forty years of Warner's life had gone by, and nearly twenty years since he had left college. During the latter ten years of this period he had been a most effective and forcible leader-writer on political and social questions, never more so than during the storm and stress of the Civil War. Outside of these topics he had devoted a great deal of attention to matters connected with literature and art. His varied abilities were fully recognized by the readers of the journal he edited.
But as yet there was little or no recognition outside. It is no easy matter to tell what are the influences, what the circumstances, which determine the success of a particular writer or of a particular work. Hitherto Warner's repute was mainly confined to the inhabitants of a provincial capital and its outlying and dependent towns. However cultivated the class to which his writings appealed--and as a class it was distinctly cultivated--their number was necessarily not great. To the country at large what he did or what he was capable of doing was not known at all. Some slight efforts he had occasionally put forth to secure the publication of matter he had prepared. He experienced the usual fate of authors who seek to introduce into the market literary wares of a new and better sort. His productions did not follow conventional lines. Publishers were ready to examine what he offered, and were just as ready to declare that these new wares were of a nature in which they were not inclined to deal.
But during 1870 a series of humorous articles appeared in the Hartford Courant, detailing his experiences in the cultivation of a garden. Warner had become the owner of a small place then almost on the outskirts of the city. With the dwelling-house went the possession of three acres of land. The opportunity thus presented itself of turning into a blessing the primeval curse of tilling the soil, in this instance not with a hoe, but with a pen. These articles detailing his experiences excited so much amusement and so much admiration that a general desire was manifested that they should receive a more permanent life than that accorded to articles appearing in the columns of newspapers, and should reach a circle larger than that to be found in the society of the Connecticut capital. Warner's previous experience had not disposed him to try his fortunes with the members of the publishing fraternity. In fact he did not lay so much stress upon the articles as did his readers and friends. He always insisted that he had previously written other articles which in his eyes certainly were just as good as they, if not better.
It so chanced that about this time Henry Ward Beecher came to Hartford to visit his sister, Harriet Beecher Stowe. Warner was invited to meet him. In the course of the conversation the articles just mentioned were referred to by some one of those present. Beecher's curiosity was aroused and he expressed a desire to see them. To him they were accordingly sent for perusal. No sooner had he run through them than he recognized in them the presence of a rare and delicate humor which struck a distinctly new note in American literature. It was something he felt which should not be confined to the knowledge of any limited circle. He wrote at once to the publisher James T. Fields, urging the production of these articles in book form. Beecher's recommendation in those days was sufficient to insure the acceptance of any book by any publisher. Mr. Fields agreed to bring out the work, provided the great preacher would prefix an introduction. This he promised to do and did; though in place of the somewhat more formal piece he was asked to write, he sent what he called an introductory letter.
The series of papers published under the title of "My Summer in a Garden" came out at the very end of 1870, with the date of 1871 on the title- page. The volume met with instantaneous success. It was the subject of comment and conversation everywhere and passed rapidly through several editions. There was a general feeling that a new writer had suddenly appeared, with