a Jesuit college in northern France, where he acquired little religion but a great knowledge of French. During his school days he lost the sight of his left eye through an accident in a game. At sixteen he quarrelled with his aunt, who had been supporting him, and was forced in consequence to live for three years in a state of poverty as abject as that which converted Johnson into a bear. In 1869 he appeared without money or friends in New York. Thence he drifted to Cincinnati and New Orleans, in both cities doing brilliant journalistic work, especially in the interpretation of Pierre Loti and Theophile Gautier. These labors were interrupted by a journey to Japan, which he undertook in behalf of Harper's Magazine. He was to have been gone one year, but he never returned. Japan fascinated him and he understood Japan. He found it an Oriental nation of the fourteenth century; he saw it made over by western ideas. As a teacher of English in a Japanese college he had no small share in producing this transformation; as a writer he interpreted Japan to the western world. He married a Japanese woman of high rank, became a Japanese citizen, and so won the confidence of his adopted countrymen that one of them said: "We could better afford to lose two or three battleships at Port Arthur than Lafcadio Hearn." Upon his tomb his pupils placed this inscription: "In memory of Lafcadio Hearn, whose pen was mightier than the sword of that victorious nation which he loved and lived among and whose highest honor it is to have given him citizenship and alas! a grave." As a letter-writer, Hearn ranks with Stevenson.

H. G. Wells (1868– ) in his youth pursued the study of French and bookkeeping, which he never effectually overtook, his tutor being an elderly gentleman who explained nothing and used a cane with dexterity. This training, coupled with the study of biology, enabled him 1895 to produce a book called " The Time Machine," which shows the earth 802,701 a.d. This brilliant fantasy was followed 1897 by "The Invisible Man," in which an effort is made to show what man could do if he could not be seen. "The War of the Worlds " 1898 describes a contest between the Martians and the English. The former are physically like octopi but mentally surpass men as much as men surpass cows. The English escape because the invaders suc

cumb to terrestrial microbes. It is a fascinating story told with great skill. In "When the Sleeper Awakes " 1899 and " In the Days of the Comet " 1906 Mr. Wells discusses the differences of capital and labor. The War in the Air " 1908 is a prophetic account of the destruction of civilization due to a world war, written with a clear understanding of the stupidity of war. In "Kipps " 1905, " Tono-Bungay " 1909, "Ann Veronica " 1909, and "The World Set Free" 1914, Mr. Wells has produced literature of a still higher quality but of less interest to young people. His last book, "Mr. Britling Sees It Through," 1916, deals with the world war. That he is a great writer, a writer whose work will live, there is little doubt.

Arnold Bennett (1865

) is the author of several novels about

a locality known as the five towns, where pottery is made. One of his best stories is his "The Old Wives' Tales," in which he tells a simple story of two women in a fashion that cannot be overlooked. He is best known in the United States by a volume which is called in America" Your United States " and elsewhere" Those United States." Among other good things this contains an unenthusiastic account of a cold morning in a cold Pullman car in Toledo, Ohio; a description of an American telephone exchange which is calculated to make one regard telephone girls with charity instead of hostility; and a picture of a crowd of American high school boys and girls that makes one willing to take his hand and call him brother. Listen:

"A number of young men and maids came out of a high school and unconsciously assumed possession of the street. It was a great and impressive sight; it was a delightful sight. They were so sure of themselves, the maids particularly; so interested in themselves, so happy, so eager, so convinced (without any conceit) that their importance transcended all other importances, so gently pitiful toward men and women of forty-five, and so positive that the main function of the elders was to pay school fees, that I was thrilled thereby. Seldom has a human spectacle given me such exciting pleasure as this gave. (And they never suspected it, those preoccupied demigods.)" Bennett says this of American art and literature:

"Their poor inartistic Philistine country did provide, inter alia, the great writer who has influenced French imaginative writers more

deeply than any other foreign writer since Byron-Edgar Allan Poe; did produce one of the world's supreme poets-Whitman; did produce the greatest pure humorist of modern times; did produce the miraculous Henry James; did produce Stanford White and the incomparable McKim; and did produce the only two Anglo-Saxon personalities who in graphic art have been able to impose themselves on modern Europe Whistler and John Sargent."

Thomas Hardy (1840- ) is regarded by some critics as the greatest poet and novelist of the day. His best works are " Far from the Madding Crowd" 1874, "Tess of the d'Urbervilles" 1891, and "Wessex Poems 1898. His latest publication is a book of poems, "Satires of Circumstance " 1914. The first of these appeared anonymously and was ascribed by some to George Eliot, while others denied the possibility of this on the ground that it was too good for her to have produced. Hardy is most original, as a stylist occupies a high place, and is careful above all things else to paint life accurately. His pictures of peasants surpass all others except those in "Hamlet" and "A Winter's Tale."

Joseph Conrad (1857

), as an author of sea stories, told in a style that rivals Stevenson's, often recalls Sterne, and is as full of dash at times as Kipling's, has won for himself high rank among contemporary novelists. Gouverneur Morris says of him: "More and more I hear people say, ' Have you read Conrad's latest? Those who haven't read him are not well read. Those who don't intend to read him are of a foolish and slovenly mental habit. As for those who are engaged in reading him-for the first time-oh, my word, how I envy them!" His first book was "Almayer's Folly" 1895; his latest is " Victory" 1915; his best perhaps "Lord Jim" 1900.

Hall Caine (1853- ) is the author of several powerful and gloomy novels. The best of these are "The Deemster " 1887, "The Bondman" 1890, " The Manxman " 1894, " The Eternal City" 1901. He has dramatized several of these with conspicuous success. His latest book, "The Drama of 365 Days," 1915, depicts scenes in the great war.

Sir Walter Raleigh (1861- ), Professor of English Literature at Oxford since 1904, is the author of the volume on Shakespeare in

the English Men of Letters series. This is the most brilliant, scholarly, and readable study of the poet ever written. Among his other publications are "The English Novel " 1894, "Robert Louis Stevenson" 1895, "Style" 1897, "Milton" 1900, "Wordsworth" 1907, "Six Essays on Johnson" 1910. He was made a baronet in 1911.

Augustine Birrell (1850

) in 1884 and 1887 distinguished himself by the publication of " Obiter Dicta," first and second series, two volumes of brilliant essays on literary subjects. The best of these is that on Edmund Burke.

Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874- ) in 1904 contributed to the English Men of Letters series the volume on Browning, which is almost as brilliant and readable as Raleigh's "Shakespeare." He is also the author of several volumes of stories and essays, among which "" Tremendous Trifles 1909 is perhaps as clever as any. Here are a few of his observations: "I will lift up my eyes to the hills, from whence cometh my help; but I will not lift up my carcass to the hills, unless it is absolutely necessary." "Once I planned to write a book of poems entirely about the things in my pockets. But I found it would be too long." "Cleanliness is not next to godliness nowadays, for cleanliness is made an essential and godliness is regarded as an offence."

George Bernard Shaw (1856- ) is also a playwright. His method is to turn preconceived and accepted notions upside down and inside out. He does this so cleverly that he seldom fails to be amusing. In" Man and Superman," for instance, his theme is the idea that woman is the huntsman and man is her game. In "Cæsar and Cleopatra " he tells the story of Cæsar's visit to Alexandria, not in the key of Shakespeare's " Antony and Cleopatra," but in that of Goldsmith's "She Stoops to Conquer." In " Androcles and the Lion " he expands the old story into a comedy replete with fun and overflowing with human nature. Among the ideas which Mr. Shaw's love of humor and paradox cause him most persistently to obtrude on the public are the notion that he is himself a greater playwright than Shakespeare and the equally absurd proposition that all property should be held in common. Oliver Herford satirizes his egotism thus:

"I called George Bernard Shaw in rhyme
The greatest playwright of his time.
Next day Shaw cabled: 'Incorrect.
For his read all. Signed, Shaw. Collect.'"

Israel Zangwill (1864- ) is best known as author of "Children of the Ghetto," "Ghetto Tragedies," " Dreamers of the Ghetto," and other stories that reveal a deep insight into the Jewish character. His play, “The Melting Pot," shows the United States as a crucible in which all nations are being fused into one superior race.

Sir Arthur Wing Pinero (1855– ) is a playwright of great power. His chief dramas are "The Magistrate," "The Schoolmistress," "The Second Mrs. Tanqueray," "The Notorious Mrs. Ebbsmith," "Trelawney of the Wells," "The Gay Lord Quex," " His House in Order," "The Thunderbolt," and "Mid-Channel." Of these, “The Second Mrs. Tanqueray" is probably the most powerful tragedy written in the English language since "Lear." All of Pinero's plays are well-constructed, but this and "The Thunderbolt are preeminently good in this respect.

John Millington Synge was born near Dublin, 1871; graduated at Trinity College, 1892; spent much time in Paris and elsewhere on the Continent; was associated with Yeats in the direction of the Abbey Theatre at Dublin; died in Dublin, March 24, 1909. He was the author of two descriptive works, “The Aran Islands" and "Kerry and Wicklow,” but it is as a dramatist that he is best known. His principal dramatic works are "Riders to the Sea," "The Well of the Saints," "The Tinker's Wedding," "In the Shadow of the Glen," "The Playboy of the Western World," and " Deirdre of the Sorrows." Of these "The Playboy" is undoubtedly the most famous, but "The Well of the Saints " probably the better drama.

Stephen Phillips (1868-1916) is best known by his play Ulysses," in which he turned a portion of the "Odyssey" into a poetic English drama. It is a good stage play and contains some memorable lines. His "Paolo and Francesca " is also admirable. Rupert Brooke (1887-1915) owes both his fame and his death to the present war. When hostilities began he went as a soldier to Belgium. In the spring of 1915 he sailed for the Dardanelles. There he was wounded. He died on a French hospital ship at Scyros,