effectively by weaving into a love story occurrences that might happen at a number of these places which were made the subjects of description.  The principal characters were to take their tours under the personal conduct of the novelist.  They were to go to the particular spots selected North and South, according to the varying seasons of the year.  It was a somewhat novel way of, visiting resorts of this nature; there are those to whom it will seem altogether more agreeable than would be the visiting of them in person.  Hence appeared in 1886 the articles which were collected later in the volume entitled “Their Pilgrimage.”

Warner executed the task which had been assigned him with his wonted skill.  The completed work met with success—­with so much success indeed that he was led later to try his fortune further in the same field and bring out the trilogy of novels which go under the names respectively of “A Little Journey in the World,” “The Golden House,” and “That Fortune.”  Each of these is complete in itself, each can be read by itself; but the effect of each and of the whole series can be best secured by reading them in succession.  In the first it is the story of how a great fortune was made in the stock market; in the second, how it was fraudulently diverted from the object for which it was intended; and in the third, how it was most beneficially and satisfactorily lost.  The scene of the last novel was laid in part in Warner’s early home in Charlemont.  These works were produced with considerable intervals of time between their respective appearances, the first coming out in 1889 and the third ten years later.  This detracted to some extent from the popularity which they would have attained had the different members followed one another rapidly.  Still, they met with distinct success, though it has always been a question whether this success was due so much to the story as to the shrewd observation and caustic wit which were brought to bear upon what was essentially a serious study of one side of American social life.

The work with which Warner himself was least satisfied was his life of Captain John Smith, which came out in 18881.  It was originally intended to be one of a series of biographies of noted men, which were to give the facts accurately but to treat them humorously.  History and comedy, however, have never been blended successfully, though desperate attempts have occasionally been made to achieve that result.  Warner had not long been engaged in the task before he recognized its hopelessness.  For its preparation it required a special study of the man and the period, and the more time he spent upon the preliminary work, the more the humorous element tended to recede.  Thus acted on by two impulses, one of a light and one of a grave nature, he moved for a while in a sort of diagonal between the two to nowhere in particular; but finally ended in treating the subject seriously.