est" and the account of Southern
California which goes under the name of "Our Italy." They are the outcome
of journeys made expressly with the intent of investigating and reporting
upon the actual situation and apparent prospects of the places and
regions described. As they were written to serve an immediate purpose,
much of the information contained in them tends to grow more and more out
of date as time goes on; and though of value to the student of history,
these volumes must necessarily become of steadily diminishing interest to
the ordinary reader. Yet it is to be said of them that while the pill of
useful information is there, it has at least been sugar-coated. Nor can
we afford to lose sight of the fact that the widely-circulated articles,
collected under the title of "South and West," by the spirit pervading
them as well as by the information they gave, had a marked effect in
bringing the various sections of the country into a better understanding
of one another, and in imparting to all a fuller sense of the community
they possessed in profit and loss, in honor and dishonor.

It is a somewhat singular fact that these sketches of travel led Warner
incidentally to enter into an entirely new field of literary exertion.
This was novel-writing. Something of this nature he had attempted in
conjunction with Mark Twain in the composition of "The Gilded Age," which
appeared in 1873. The result, however, was unsatisfactory to both the
collaborators. Each had humor, but the humor of each was fundamentally
different. But the magazine with which Warner had become connected was
desirous that he should prepare for it an account of some of the
principal watering-places and summer resorts of the country. Each was to
be visited in turn and its salient features were to be described. It was
finally suggested that this could be done most 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 entitl