A Psychological Counter-Current in Recent Fictionby William Dean HowellsIt is consoling as often as dismaying to find in what seems acataclysmal tide of a certain direction a strong drift to theopposite quarter. It is so divinable, if not so perceptible,that its presence may usually be recognized as a beginning of theturn in every tide which is sure, sooner or later, to come. Inreform, it is the menace of reaction; in reaction, it is thepromise of reform; we may take heart as we must lose heart fromit. A few years ago, when a movement which carried fiction to...　

Man and SupermanA COMEDY AND A PHILOSOPHYBy George Bernard ShawEPISTLE DEDICATORY TO ARTHUR BINGHAM WALKLEYMy dear Walkley:You once asked me why I did not write a Don Juan play. The levitywith which you assumed this frightful responsibility has probablyby this time enabled you to forget it; but the day of reckoninghas arrived: here is your play! I say your play, because quifacit per alium facit per se. Its profits, like its labor, belongto me: its morals, its manners, its philosophy, its influence onthe young, are for you to justify. You were of mature age when...　

The Captivesby Hugh WalpoleTOARNOLD BENNETTWITH DEEP AFFECTION"I confess that I do not see why the very existence of an invisible world may not in part depend on the personal response which any of us may make to the religious appeal. God Himself, in short, may draw vital strength and increase of very being from our fidelity. For my own part I do not know what the sweat and blood and tragedy of this life mean, if they mean anything short of this. If this life be not a real fight, in which something is eternally gained for the universe by success, it is no better than a game of private theatric　

The Three Partnersby Bret HartePROLOGUE.The sun was going down on the Black Spur Range. The red light ithad kindled there was still eating its way along the serried crest,showing through gaps in the ranks of pines, etching out theinterstices of broken boughs, fading away and then flashing suddenlyout again like sparks in burnt-up paper. Then the night wind sweptdown the whole mountain side, and began its usual struggle with theshadows upclimbing from the valley, only to lose itself in the endand be absorbed in the all-conquering darkness. Yet for some time...　

Men, Women and GhostsMen, Women andGhostsby Amy Lowell1- Page 2-Men, Women and GhostsPrefaceThis is a book of stories. For that reason I have excluded all purelylyrical poems. But the word "stories" has been stretched to its fullestapplication. It includes both narrative poems, properly so called; tales...　

PREFACE TOTHE CHARLES DICKENS EDITIONI REMARKED in the original Preface to this Book, that I did notfind it easy to get sufficiently far away from it, in the firstsensations of having finished it, to refer to it with the composurewhich this formal heading would seem to require. My interest in itwas so recent and strong, and my mind was so divided betweenpleasure and regret - pleasure in the achievement of a long design,regret in the separation from many companions - that I was indanger of wearying the reader with personal confidences and private...　

THE SKETCH BOOKA ROYAL POETby Washington IrvingThough your body be confined,And soft love a prisoner bound,Yet the beauty of your mindNeither check nor chain hath found.Look out nobly, then, and dareEven the fetters that you wear.FLETCHER.ON A soft sunny morning in the genial month of May, I made anexcursion to Windsor Castle. It is a place full of storied and...　

Saltbush Bill, J.P., and Other VersesBy A. B. PatersonNoteMajor A. B. Paterson has been on active service in Egyptfor the past eighteen months. The publishers feel it incumbent on them to saythat only a few of the pieces in this volume have been seen by him in proof;and that he is not responsible for the selection, the arrangement or the titleof "Saltbush Bill, J.P., and Other Verses".Table of ContentsSong of the PenNot for the love of women toil we, we of the craft,Song of the Wheat...　

SHERLOCK HOLMESTHE ADVENTURE OF THE GOLDEN PINCE-NEZby Sir Arthur Conan DoyleWhen I look at the three massive manuscript volumes which containour work for the year 1894, I confess that it is very difficult forme, out of such a wealth of material, to select the cases which aremost interesting in themselves, and at the same time most conducive toa display of those peculiar powers for which my friend was famous.As I turn over the pages, I see my notes upon the repulsive story ofthe red leech and the terrible death of Crosby, the banker. Here...　

The Sleeping-Car - A Farceby William D. HowellsI.SCENE: One side of a sleeping-car on the Boston and Albany Road.The curtains are drawn before most of the berths; from the hooks androds hang hats, bonnets, bags, bandboxes, umbrellas, and othertravelling gear; on the floor are boots of both sexes, set out forTHE PORTER to black. THE PORTER is making up the beds in the upperand lower berths adjoining the seats on which a young mother, slenderand pretty, with a baby asleep on the seat beside her, and a stoutold lady, sit confronting each otherMRS. AGNES ROBERTS and her aunt...　

THE CONDUCT OF LIFEby Ralph Waldo EmersonIFATEDelicate omens traced in airTo the lone bard true witness bare;Birds with auguries on their wingsChanted undeceiving thingsHim to beckon, him to warn;Well might then the poet scornTo learn of scribe or courierHints writ in vaster character;And on his mind, at dawn of day,Soft shadows of the evening lay.For the prevision is alliedUnto the thing so signified;...　

Short Stories and Essaysby William Dean HowellsCONTENTS:Worries of a Winter WalkSummer Isles of EdenWild Flowers of the AsphaltA Circus in the SuburbsA She HamletThe Midnight PlatoonThe Beach at RockawaySawdust in the ArenaAt a Dime MuseumAmerican Literature in ExileThe Horse ShowThe Problem of the SummerAesthetic New York Fifty-odd Years AgoFrom New York into New EnglandThe Art of the AdsmithThe Psychology of PlagiarismPuritanism in American Fiction...　

Mary Stuartby Alexandre Dumas, PereCHAPTER ISome royal names are predestined to misfortune: in France, there isthe name "Henry". Henry I was poisoned, Henry II was killed in atournament, Henry III and Henry IV were assassinated. As to Henry V,for whom the past is so fatal already, God alone knows what thefuture has in store for him.In Scotland, the unlucky name is "Stuart". Robert I, founder of therace, died at twenty-eight of a lingering illness. Robert II, themost fortunate of the family, was obliged to pass a part of his life,...　

At the Back of the North Windby George MacDonaldCHAPTER ITHE HAY-LOFTI HAVE been asked to tell you about the back of the north wind.An old Greek writer mentions a people who lived there,and were so comfortable that they could not bear it any longer,and drowned themselves. My story is not the same as his.I do not think Herodotus had got the right account of the place.I am going to tell you how it fared with a boy who went there.He lived in a low room over a coach-house; and that was not by anymeans at the back of the north wind, as his mother very well knew....　

Carmenby Prosper MerimeeTranslated by Lady Mary LoydCHAPTER II had always suspected the geographical authorities did not know what they were talking about when they located the battlefield of Munda in the county of the Bastuli-Poeni, close to the modern Monda, some two leagues north of Marbella.According to my own surmise, founded on the text of the anonymous author of the /Bellum Hispaniense/, and on certain information culled from the excellent library owned by the Duke of Ossuna, I believed the site of the memorable struggle in which Caesar played double or quits, once and for all, with th　

The Iron Puddlerby James J. DavisMY LIFE IN THE ROLLING MILLS AND WHAT CAME OF ITIntroduction by JOSEPH G. CANNONThe man whose life story is here presented between book covers is at the time of writing only forty-eight years old. When I met him many years ago he was a young man full of enthusiasm. I remember saying to him then, "With your enthusiasm and the sparkle which you have in your eyes I am sure you will make good."Why should so young a man, one so recently elevated to official prominence, write his memoirs? That question will occur to those who do not know Jim Davis. His elevation to