in length. Many are little more than epigrams, and give one the idea that they were probably written at the oddest moments, between courses at dinner, whilst waiting for an answer to a riddle, in bed, in cabs. The author is notoriously eccentric in life.
Most of these stories were originally published in Russian newspapers, and only after some time collected into volumes. The Russian newspapers give the hospitality of their columns to many short stories and sketches. Long-winded serials are almost unknown in the press, and indeed the public demands a type of literature much higher than that which commonly adorns the columns of our British daily papers. The feuilleton of the Russian newspaper is generally either a quarter-page article written by one of the brilliant publicists of the day, such as Rozanof or Merezhkovsky, or a short tale by Sologub or Kuprin or Gorky, or one or other of the great Russian tale-writers. A great number of Sologub's stories have, for instance, appeared in the Retch. Of those given in the present volume, "Lohengrin," "Who art Thou?" and "The Hungry
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