The Complete Essays of Charles Dudley Warner

It should be remembered, however, that the creative faculty in man has not ceased, nor has puny man drawn all there is to be drawn out of the eternal wisdom. We are probably onl...

Those who are anxious about the fate of Christmas, whether it is not becoming too worldly and too expensive a holiday to be indulged in except by the very poor, mark with pleasu...

One of the Biminis that have always been looked for is an American Literature. There was an impression that there must be such a thing somewhere on a continent that has everythi...

It would hardly be worth while to refer to this taste in the apparel of our fiction did it not have deep and esoteric suggestions, and could not the novelists themselves get a h...

I do not know how it has come about that in so large a proportion of recent fiction it is held to be artistic to look almost altogether upon the shady and the seamy side of life...

I will close this portion of our sketch of English manners with an extract from the travels of Hentzner, who visited England in 1598, and saw the great queen go in state to chap...

This is true, but is it the last analysis of the subject? Is it a sufficient account of the genius of Cervantes and Scott that they combined in their romances a representation o...

Pipes in the garden, lutes in the palace, paganism, Revolution--the situation was becoming mixed, and I should not have been surprised at a ghostly procession from the Place de...

The majority of mankind reverses this order of interests, and therefore it sets literature to one side as of no practical account in human life. More than this, it not only drop...

The Italians are industrious; they are compelled to be in order to pay their taxes for the army and navy and get macaroni enough to live on. But see what a long civilization has...

This unsettled period of his life lasted for several years. He was resident for a while in various places. Part of the time he seems to have been in Cazenovia; part of the time...

This is not a portrait statue. There is no likeness of Nathan Hale extant. The only known miniature of his face, in the possession of the lady to whom he was betrothed at the ti...

AS WE WERE SAYING ROSE AND CHRYSANTHEMUM THE RED BONNET THE LOSS IN CIVILIZATION SOCIAL SCREAMING DOES REFINEMENT KILL INDIVIDUALITY? THE DIRECTOIRE GOWN THE MYSTERY OF THE SEX...

The Pilgrims of Plymouth could see no way of shaping their lives in accordance with the higher law except by separating themselves from the world. We have their problem, how to...

“The mistake which Europeans often make in considering questions of negro improvement and the future of Africa is in supposing that the negro is the European in embryo, in the u...

It is fortunate that a passion for display is implanted in human nature; and if we owe a debt of gratitude to anybody, it is to those who make the display for us. It would be su...

Whether these anticipations will ever be realized, and whether increased leisure will make us all happy, is a subject of importance; but it is secondary, and in a manner inciden...

When the indeterminate sentence has been spoken of with a view to legislation, the question has been raised whether it should be applied to prisoners on the first, second, or th...

Of these productions in which the personal element predominates, and where the necessity of intruding information is not felt as a burden, those of Warner's works which deal wit...

This is not only a fashion, it is an art. People have to train for it, and as it is a unique amusement, it is worth some trouble to be able to succeed in it. Men, by reason of t...

As a layman, I cannot but notice another great advance in the medical profession. It is not alone in it. It is rather expected that the lawyers will divide the oyster between th...

The inference is that education--book fashion--will unfit the man for useful work. Mr. Froude here again stops at a half-truth. As a general thing, intelligence is useful in any...

Conversely, take the workman settled down to work in the mill, at the best wages attainable at the time. He has a house and family. He has given pledges to society. His employer...

In order to remove this peril, by transforming the negro into an industrial, law-abiding citizen, identified with the prosperity of his country, the cordial assistance of the So...

And we the more readily pardon it, because of the inability we have to understand English conditions, and the English dialect, which has more and more diverged from the language...

How many times has the face of Europe been changed--and parts of Africa, and Asia Minor too, for that matter--by conquests and crusades, and the rise and fall of civilizations a...

It was a nebulous but suggestive remark that the newspaper occupies the borderland between literature and common sense. Literature it certainly is not, and in the popular appreh...

According to Hentzner (1598), the English are serious, like the Germans, and love show and to be followed by troops of servants wearing the arms of their masters; they excel in...

And what gross absurdity is the copyright law which limits even this poor defense of author's property to a brief term of years, after the expiration of which he or his children...

But this difficulty of travel and liability to be detained long on the road were cheered by good inns, such as did not exist in the world elsewhere. All the literature of the pe...

Not what is the use of Greek, of any culture in art or literature, but what is the good to me of your knowing Greek, is the latest question of the ditch-digger to the scholar--w...

But to return to education. It should always be fitted to the stage of development. It should always mean discipline, the training of the powers and capacities. The early pionee...

Perhaps these women were great beauties in their day, but scarcely so serenely beautiful as now when age has refined all that was most attractive. Perhaps they were plain; but i...

But this is not all as to climate and comfort. We have climates of all sorts within easy reach, and in quantity, both good and bad, enough to export more in fact than we need of...

It is the belief of some shrewd observers that editorials, the long editorials, are not much read, except by editors themselves. A cynic says that, if you have a secret you are...

What would be the effect upon the masculine character and comfort if this shyness should become general, as it may in a contingency that is already on the horizon? We refer, of...

Sometimes wandering in a primeval forest, in all the witchery of the woods, besought by the kindliest solicitations of nature, wild flowers in the trail, the call of the squirre...

We need, however, to go a little further in this question of simplicity. Nausicaa was “clad royally.” There was a distinction, then, between her and her handmaidens. She was cla...

The simple truth is that the dogmas of the Declaration were not put into the fundamental law. The Constitution is the most practical state document ever made. It announces no do...

At the North, thanks to a free press and periodicals, to a dozen reform agitations, and to the intellectual stir generally accompanying industries and commerce, we have been dev...

Not the least of these is the consideration whether the cap-and-gown habit is becoming. If it is not becoming, it will not go, not even by an amendment to the Constitution of th...

Millions of dollars have been invested in the higher education of the negro, while this primary education has been, taking the whole mass, wholly inadequate to his needs. This h...

Dancing was the daily occupation rather than the amusement at court and elsewhere, and the names of dances exceeded the list of the virtues--such as the French brawl, the pavon,...

In Harrison's time the greater part of the building in cities and towns was of timber, only a few of the houses of the commonalty being of stone. In an old plate giving a view o...

We may without impropriety take for an illustration of the comparative value of literature to human needs the career of a man now living. In the opinion of many, Mr. Gladstone i...

It has been demonstrated by experiment that it is as easy to begin with good literature as with the sort of reading described. It makes little difference where the beginning is...

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...

The celebration in New York, in 1889, of the inauguration of Washington was an instructive spectacle. How much of privilege had been gathered and perpetuated in a century? Was i...

In the first place, it is not true, and probably never was true even when hens were at their lowest. We doubts its Sanscrit antiquity. It is perhaps of Puritan origin, and rhyme...

The times of Elizabeth and James were visited by some awful casualties and portents. From December, 1602, to the December following, the plague destroyed 30,518 persons in Londo...

Let us come a little closer to our subject in details. For a hundred years the South was developed on its own lines, with astonishingly little exterior bias. This comparative is...

Were I indeed compelled to select any one word which would best give the impression, both social and literary, of Warner's personality, I should be disposed to designate it as u...

But does society--that is, the intercourse of congenial people--depend upon the elaborate system of exchanging calls with hundreds of people who are not congenial? Such thoughts...

This suggestion is interesting in the view that we find in the characters of the Elizabethan drama not types and qualities, but individuals strongly projected, with all their id...