CHARLES DUDLEY WARNERCHARLES DUDLEY WARNERIN HARTFORD
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER
Three-quarters of a mile west of the railway station, in an angle which Farmington Avenue makes with Forest Street, and where the town looks out into the country, livedMr.Warner, with Harriet Beecher Stowe and Mark Twain for his near neighbors. The houses where they once lived are but a stone’s throw apart. No stones were thrown between them, however, the three authors having been not on stone-throwing terms, but very far otherwise.Mr.Warner’s house is a spacious, attractive dwelling, of the colonial style. It stands, unenclosed, several rods back from the street, in a grove of noble chestnuts, having no other grounds nor needing any other. Close behind it, at the foot of a steep, bushy bank, sweeps the bend of a considerable stream.
The Garden, whichMr.Warner has made so famous, will be looked for in vain on the premises. Indoors, indeed, the sage “Calvin†is found enjoying, on a mantel, such immortality as a bronze bust can confer; but nowhere the Garden. It pertained to another house, whereMr.Warnerlived when “My Summer in a Garden†was written; the fireside of which, also, is celebrated in his “Back-log Studies,†to not a few of his readers the most delightful of his books,—a house dear to the recollection of many a friend and guest. While it is true thatMr.Warner’s experiment of horticulture was, in the time of it, something of a reality, its main success, it may be owned without disparagement, was literary; and with the ripening of its literary product, the impulse to it expired.
As one would anticipate, the interior ofMr.Warner’s house is genial and homelike. A cheerful drawing-room opens into a wide, bright music-room, making, with it, one shapely apartment of generous, hospitable proportions. The furnishing is simple, but in every item pleasing. The hand of modern decorative art is there, though under rational restraint. A chimney-piece of Oriental design rises above the fireplace of the music-room set with antique tiles brought byMr.Warner from Damascus. Other spoils of travel are displayed here and there, with pictures and engravings of the best. In the nook of a bow-window is a lovely cast of the Venus of Milo, which, when it was made a birthday present in the family, was inscribed “The Venus of my-h’eye.†The house is full of books. Every part of it is more or less of a library. Laden shelves flank the landings ofthe broad stairway, and so on all the way up to the work-room in the third story, where the statuette of Thackeray on our author’s table seems to survey with amusement the accumulated miscellaneous mass of literature stacked and piled around. Upon any volume of this collectionMr.Warner could lay his hand in an instant—when he found where it was. This opulence of books was partly due to the fact thatMr.Warner was a newspaper editor, and in that capacity had the general issue of the press precipitated upon him. Not that he kept it all. The theological works and Biblical commentaries mostly went to the minister. And there are a score of children about, whose juvenile libraries are largely made up of contributions from “Uncle Charley.†His home was a thoroughly charming one in every way, and whoever may have had the pleasure of an evening there must have come away wishing that he might write an article on the mistress of that house.
HereMr.Warner spent his forenoons and did his literary work. He was very industrious, and was an unusually rapid writer. Some of his most enjoyed sketches that are apt to be quoted as specimens of his best work, peculiarly exhibiting his delicate and amiable humor and the characteristic merits of his style, were finished at a sitting. In the afternoon he was “down town†on duty as editor-in-chief ofThe Hartford Courant—theoldest newspaper in continuous existence in this country, having been founded in 1764. His associate editor-in-chief was Gen. Joseph R. Hawley, of the United States Senate. The main pursuit ofMr.Warner’s life was journalism. His native turn was literary. The ink began to stir in his veins when he was a boy. In his youth he was a contributor to the oldKnickerbockerandPutnam’s Magazine. But circumstances did not permit him to follow his bent. After graduating at college, he engaged for awhile in railroad surveying in the West; then studied, and for a short time practised, law; but finally, at the call of his friend Hawley, came to Hartford and settled down to the work of an editor, devoting his whole strength to it, with marked success from the outset, and so continued for the years before, during and after the War, supposing that as a journalist he had found his place and his career. His editorial work, however, was such as to give him a distinctly literary reputation; and a share of it was literary in form and motive. People used to preserve his Christmas stories and letters of travel in their scrap-books. The chapters of “My Summer in a Garden†were originally a series of articles written for his paper, without a thought of further publication. It was in response to numerous suggestions coming to him from various quarters that they were madeinto a book. The extraordinary favor with which the little volume was received was a surprise toMr.Warner, who insisted that there was nothing in it better than he had been accustomed to write. He was much disposed to view the hit he had made as an accident, and to doubt if it would lead to anything further in the line of authorship. But he was mistaken. The purveyors of literature were after him at once. That was in 1870. Since then his published works have grown to a considerable list.
His stock of material was ample and was constantly replenished. His mind was eminently of the inquiring and acquisitive order. His travels were fruitful of large information to him. He returned from his journey to the East, which produced “My Winter on the Nile†and “In the Levant,†with a knowledge of Egyptian art and history such as few travellers gain, and with a rare insight into the intricate ins and outs of the Eastern question, past and present. Though not an orator, hardly a season passed that he was not invited to give an address at some college anniversary—an invitation which he several times accepted. He once also delivered, in various colleges, a course of lectures of great interest and value, on “The Relation of Literature to Life.†He was an enthusiastic believer in the classic culture, and has repeatedly written and spoken in its defense.His humor was in his grain, and was the humor of a man of very deep convictions and earnest character.Mr.Warner was highly esteemed among his fellow-citizens, and was often called to serve in one public capacity or another. He was for a number of years a member of the Park Commission of the city of Hartford; and he at one time rendered a report to the Connecticut Legislature, as chairman of a special Prison Commission appointed by the State. He was a communicant in the Congregational Church, and until his death in 1900, a constant attendant on public worship.
Mr.Warner was a good-looking man; tall, spare, and erect in frame, with a strong countenance indicative of thought and refinement. His head was capacious, his forehead high and clear, and the kindly eyes behind his eye-glasses were noticeably wide-open. He was remarked anywhere as a person of decidedly striking appearance. The years powdered his full beard and abundant clustering hair, but he walked with a quick, energetic step, with his head thrown back, and pushing on as if he were after something. In going back and forth daily between his house and his editorial room in theCourantBuilding, he disdained the street railway service, habitually making the trip of something over a mile each way afoot, in all weathers. His pedestrian powers were first-rate, and he took great pleasure in exerting them. He liked toshoulder a knapsack and go off on a week’s tramp through the Catskill or White Mountains, and whoever went with him was sure of enough exercise. He was fond of exploration, and once made, in successive seasons, two quite extensive horseback excursions—with Prof. T. R. Lounsbury, of the Sheffield Scientific School at Yale, for his companion—through the unfrequented parts of Pennsylvania, Tennessee and North Carolina. Of the second of these excursions he prepared an account in a series of articles forThe Atlantic. He had the keenest relish for outdoor life, especially in the woods. His favorite vacation resort was the Adirondack region, where, first and last, he has camped out a great many weeks. His delectable little book, “In the Wilderness,†came of studies of human and other nature there made. He was an expert and patient angler, but enjoyed nothing so much as following all day a forest trail through some before-unvisited tract, halting to bivouac under the open sky, wherever overtaken by night. He was easily companionable with anybody he chanced to be with, and under such circumstances, while luxuriating around the camp-fire, smoking his moderate pipe, would be not unlikely to keep his guide up half the night, drawing him out and getting at his views and notions on all sorts of subjects.
Joseph H. Twichell.