e 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