In giving himself up to a biography in which he had no special interest, Warner felt conscious that he could not interest others.  His forebodings were realized.  The work, though made from a careful study of original sources, did not please him, nor did it attract the public.  The attempt was all the more unfortunate because the time and toil he spent upon it diverted him from carrying out a scheme which had then taken full possession of his thoughts.  This was the production of a series of essays to be entitled “Conversations on Horseback.”  Had it been worked up as he sketched it in his mind, it would have been the outdoor counterpart of his “Backlog Studies.”  Though in a measure based upon a horseback ride which he took in Pennsylvania in 1880, the incidents of travel as he outlined its intended treatment would have barely furnished the slightest of backgrounds.  Captain John Smith, however, interfered with a project specially suited to his abilities and congenial to his tastes.  That he did so possibly led the author of his life to exhibit a somewhat hostile attitude towards his hero.  When the biography was finished, other engagements were pressing upon his attention.  The opportunity of taking up and completing the projected series of essays never presented itself, though the subject lay in his mind for a long time and he himself believed that it would have turned out one of the best pieces of work he ever did.

It was unfortunate.  For to me—­and very likely to many others if not to most—­Warner’s strength lay above all in essay-writing.  What he accomplished in this line was almost invariably pervaded by that genial grace which makes work of the kind attractive, and he exhibited everywhere in it the delicate but sure touch which preserves the just mean between saying too much and too little.  The essay was in his nature, and his occupation as a journalist had developed the tendency towards this form of literary activity, as well as skill in its manipulation.  Whether he wrote sketches of travel, or whether he wrote fiction, the scene depicted was from the point of view of the essayist rather than from that of the tourist or of the novelist.  It is this characteristic which gives to his work in the former field its enduring interest.  Again in his novels, it was not so much the story that was in his thoughts as the opportunity the varying scenes afforded for amusing observations upon manners, for comments upon life, sometimes good-natured, sometimes severe, but always entertaining, and above all, for serious study of the social problems which present themselves on every side for examination.  This is distinctly the province of the essayist, and in it Warner always displayed his fullest strength.