ought and attention. Once only during that early period was his labor
interrupted for any considerable length of time. In May, 1868, he set 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