CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER.
HUMORIST AND JOURNALIST.
HARLES DUDLEY WARNER belongs to a class of writers which has been aptly called the meditative school in American literature, but few of the so-called meditative writers so sparkle with humor as does the genial and humane author of “My Summer in a Garden,” and few writers of any school have so succeeded in presenting wholesome truth and lofty thought in the pleasing form of humorous conversation on such common subjects as gardening, back-log fires, and the every-day life of the farmer-boy.
He is one of our leading apostles of culture, and he is himself a glowing example of the worth of culture, for he has steadily raised himself from the flat levels of life to a lofty pinnacle of influence and power simply because he possessed in high degree a keen insight, a dainty lightness of touch, a delicacy of thought and style, a kindly humor, and a racy scent for “human nature.” It was a long time before he discovered his own powers and he labored at a distasteful profession until his nature cried out for its true sphere, but his early life in many respects was imperceptibly ministering to the man that was to be.
He was born of English non-conformist stock, in the hill country of Plainfield, Massachusetts, in 1829—a lineal descendent of a “Pilgrim Father” and the son of a well-to-do farmer, of more than ordinary mental parts. He had his period in the New England district school, and in 1851 he was graduated from Hamilton College, New York, where he had gained a college reputation as a writer.
Had he not been a “born writer” the next period of his life would have made a literary career impossible for him. A winter in Michigan, ending in dismal failure, two years of frontier life as a surveyor, and then the pursuit of legal studies, followed by the practice of law in Chicago seemed to have been hostages to fortune against the pursuit of fame in the field of pure literature.
But he had the blood of the “Brahman caste” and it was certain to assert itself. In 1860, his friend Hawley (now United States Senator from Connecticut) invited him to accept the position of assistant editor on the Hartford “Press,” and his talents for successful journalism were at once apparent, from which he stepped quite naturally into the narrower circle—“the brotherhood of authors.”
“My Summer in a Garden” (1870), his first literary work, was first written as a series of weekly articles for the Hartford “Courant,” and their reception at once made him a man of note.
This work is a delightful prose pastoral, in which the author described his experiences with gardening and finds quaint and subtle connections between “pusley” and “original sin,” while its humorous touches of nature and human nature give it a peculiar charm. “Saunterings,” a volume of reminiscences of European travel, was also published the same year.
“Back-Log Studies” (1872), written in praise of the sweet and kindly influences of the home fireside, appeared first as a series in “Scribner’s Magazine” and added much to the author’s reputation, as it marked a decided advance in style and elegance of diction.
His carefully prepared occasional addresses, on such subjects as Education, Culture and Progress, show that he has deep convictions and an earnestness of heart, as well as the delicate fancy and playful humor which first made him a favorite author. If he is an apostle of culture, he is no less the herald of the truth that “the scholar must make his poetry and learning subserve the wants of the toiling and aspiring multitude.”
“Baddeck, and That Sort of Thing” (1874) is a delightful sketch of travels, a field of literature in which Warner is a master. “My Winter on the Nile” (1876), “In the Levant” (1877), “In the Wilderness” (1878), “Roundabout Journey” (1883), and “Their Pilgrimage” (1886) are his other contributions to this department of literature.
In 1884 he became coeditor of “Harper’s Magazine,” to which he has contributed a valuable series of papers on “Studies in the South,” “Studies in the Great West,” and “Mexican Papers,” critically discussing the educational, political, and social condition of these states.
He is the author of “Captain John Smith,” and of “Washington Irving” in the “Men of Letters Series” of which he is editor.
Nowhere is his humor more free and unrestrained than in “Being A Boy” and in “How I Shot the Bear.”
His home is at Hartford, Conn.
THE MORAL QUALITY OF VEGETABLES.[¹]
FROM “MY SUMMER IN A GARDEN.”
[¹] Copyright, Houghton, Mifflin & Co.
AM more and more impressed with the moral qualities of vegetables, and contemplate forming a science which shall rank with comparative philology—the science of comparative vegetable morality. We live in an age of Protoplasm. And, if life matter is essentially the same in all forms of life, I propose to begin early, and ascertain the nature of the plants for which I am responsible. I will not associate with any vegetable which is disreputable, or has not some quality which can contribute to my moral growth....
Why do we respect some vegetables and despise others, when all of them come to an equal honor or ignominy on the table? The bean is a graceful, confiding, engaging vine; but you never can put beans into poetry nor into the highest sort of prose. There is no dignity in the bean. Corn—which in my garden grows alongside the bean, and, so far as I can see, with no affectation of superiority—is, however, the child of song. It waves in all literature. But mix it with beans, and its high tone is gone. Succotash is vulgar. It is the bean in it. The bean is a vulgar vegetable, without culture, or any flavor of high society among vegetables.
Then there is the cool cucumber—like so many people, good for nothing when its ripe and the wildness has gone out of it. How inferior to the melon, which grows upon a similar vine, is of a like watery consistency, but is not half so valuable! The cucumber is a sort of low comedian in a company where the melon is a minor gentleman. I might also contrast the celery with the potato. The associations are as opposite as the dining-room of the duchess and the cabin of the peasant. I admire the potato both in vine and blossom; but it is not aristocratic....
The lettuce is to me a most interesting study. Lettuce is like conversation: it must be fresh and crisp, so sparkling that you scarcely notice the bitter in it. Lettuce, like most talkers, is however apt to run rapidly to seed. Blessed is that sort which comes to a head, and so remains—like a few people I know—growing more solid and satisfactory and tender at the same time, and whiter at the centre, and crisp in their maturity. Lettuce, like conversation, requires a good deal of oil, to avoid friction, and keep the company smooth; a pinch of Attic Salt, a dash of pepper, a quantity of mustard and vinegar, by all means—but so mixed that you will notice no sharp contrast—and a trifle of sugar. You can put anything—and the more things the better—into salad, as into conversation; but everything depends upon the skill in mixing. I feel that I am in the best society when I am with lettuce. It is in the select circle of vegetables. The tomato appears well on the table; but you do not want to ask its origin. It is a most agreeable parvenu.
Of course, I have said nothing about the berries. They live in another and more ideal region; except perhaps the currant. Here we see that even among berries there are degrees of breeding. The currant is well enough, clear as truth, and exquisite in color; but I ask you to notice how far it is from the exclusive hauteur of the aristocratic strawberry, and the native refinement of the quietly elegant raspberry.
Talk about the Darwinian theory of development, and the principle of natural selection! I should like to see a garden let to run in accordance with it. If I had left my vegetables and weeds to a free fight, in which the strongest specimens only should come to maturity, and the weaker go to the wall, I can clearly see that I should have had a pretty mess of it. It would have been a scene of passion and license and brutality. The “pusley” would have strangled the strawberry; the upright corn, which has now ears to hear the guilty beating of the hearts of the children who steal the raspberries, would have been dragged to the earth by the wandering bean; the snakegrass would have left no place for the potatoes under ground; and the tomatoes would have been swamped by the lusty weeds. With a firm hand I have had to make my own “natural selection.”
