When the manuscript was received at the office of the Atlantic, Fields submitted it to Howells for his opinion. Howells read it, and when asked whether he would accept it, he replied, "Yes, and all the stories you can get from that writer." "One is much securer of one's judgment," writes Howells, "at twenty-nine than, say, at forty-five; but if there was a mistake, I am not yet old enough to regret it. The story was called 'Poor Richard' and it dealt with the conscience of a man very much in love with a woman who loved his rival. He told the rival a lie, which sent him away to his death on the field, but poor Richard's lie did not win his love. It seems to me that the situation was strongly and finely felt. One's pity went, as it should, with the liar; but the whole story has a pathos which lingers in my mind equally with a sense of the new literary qualities which gave me much delight in it."
The final story of this volume, "A Most Extraordinary Case," was first published in the Atlantic Monthly for April, 1868, when Howells was still on the editorial staff.
I am sure these first efforts of James' pen will be welcomed by his American admirers. They are in every way worthy of James at his best, and so worthy of being preserved. The only regret the reader may feel is that the author should in his later works have seen fit to adopt an elaborate, com-
