xertions and
whose choice of a career is mainly determined by circumstances. From the
very earliest period of his life he had been fond of reading. It was an
inherited taste. The few books he found in his childhood's home would
have been almost swept out of sight in the torrent, largely of trash,
which pours now in a steady stream into the humblest household. But the
books, though few, were of a high quality; and because they were few they
were read much, and their contents became an integral part of his
intellectual equipment. Furthermore, these works of the great masters,
with which he became familiar, set for him a standard by which to test
the value of whatever he read, and saved him even in his earliest years
from having his taste impaired and his judgment misled by the vogue of
meretricious productions which every now and then gain popularity for the
time. They gave him also a distinct bent towards making literature his
profession. But literature, however pleasant and occasionally profitable
as an avocation, was not to be thought of as a vocation. Few there are at
any period who have succeeded in finding it a substantial and permanent
support; at that time and in this country such a prospect was practically
hopeless for any one. It is no matter of surprise, therefore, that
Warner, though often deviating from the direct path, steadily gravitated
toward the profession of law.

Still, even in those early days his natural inclination manifested
itself. The Knickerbocker Magazine was then the chosen organ to which all
young literary aspirants sent their productions. To it even in his
college days Warner contributed to some extent, though it would doubtless
be possible now to gather out of this collection but few pieces which,
lacking his own identification, could be assigned to him positively. At a
later period he contributed articles to Putnam's Magazine, which began
its existence in 1853. Warner himself at one time, in that period of
struggle and uncertainty, expected to become an editor of a monthly which
was to be started in Detroit. But before the magazine was actually set on
foot the inability of the person who projected it to supply the necessary
means for carrying it on prevented the failure which would inevitably
have befallen a venture of that sort, undertaken at that time and in that
place. Yet he showed in a way the native bent of his mind by bringing out
two years after his graduation from college a volume