Undiscovered Country (1880); A Fearful Responsibil ity, and other Tales (1882); Dr. Breen's Practice and A Modern Instance (1883); A Woman's Reason (1884); Three Villages, The Rise of Silas Lapham, and Tuscan Cities (1885); A Little Girl among the Old Masters, The Minister's Charge, and Indian Summer (1886); Modern Italian Poets and April Hopes (1887). He has published several amusing dialogues: The Parlor Car (1877); The Sleeping Car (1883); The Register (1884); The Elevator and The Garroters (1885); Five O'clock Tea (1887); A Hazard of New Fortunes (1889); The Shadow of a Dream (1890); An Imperative Duty (1891); Christmas Every Day and Other Stories (1892); A Letter of Introduction, a farce (1892); A Little Swiss Sojourn (1892); The Quality of Mercy (1891); The Coast of Bohemia (1893); Evening Dress, a farce (1893); My Year in a Log Cabin (1893); The Unexpected Guests, a farce (1893); The World of Chance (1893); A Traveller from Altruria (1894); The Day of their Wedding (1895); Stops of Various Quills, poems (1895).

The following general criticism of Howells's writings is from the Saturday Review: "He has many admirable qualities, not the least of which is that he draws from models and not 'out of his own head;' the result is that his people, whether we like them or not have always the great merit of absolute reality. Next, he is true to his characters; they go whither they are bound to go, up or down, taking the natural consequences of their actions and their lives. This recognition by writers of necessity or consequence in fiction is almost as rare as its perception by ordinary people

to real life. If we add that he is the possessor of a style which is always pleasing and unstudied, though certainly the result of study, we have already assigned him qualities which insure success. He has certain defects; he lacks gaité de cœur, the natural liveliness which goes far to redeem almost every other fault. Yet he is not cynical; if he does not laugh much, he never sneers; his stories. have no plot, no situations to speak of, and not many incidents, yet they interest; his conversations are sometimes flippant and sometimes in bad taste, yet they are natural."

THANKSGIVING.

Lord, for the erring thought
Not into evil wrought :

Lord, for the wicked will
Betrayed and baffled still;
For the heart from itself kept,
Our thanksgiving accept.

For ignorant hopes that were
Broken to our blind prayer:
For pain, death, sorrow, sent
Unto our chastisement :
For all loss of seeming good,
Quicken our gratitude.

THE MYSTERIES.

Once on my mother's breast, a child, I crept,
Holding my breath;

There, safe and sad, lay shuddering, and wept
At the dark mystery of Death.

Weary and weak, and worn with all unrest,
Spent with the strife-

O mother, let me weep upon thy breast

At the sad mystery of Life!

THE SONG THE ORIOLE SINGS.

There is a bird that comes and sings
In the Professor's garden-trees;
Upon the English oak he swings,

And tilts and tosses in the breeze.

I know his name, I know his note,
That so with rapture takes my soul;
Like flame the gold beneath his throat,
His glossy cape is black as coal.

O Oriole, it is the song

You sang me from the cotton-wood, Too young to feel that I was young, Too glad to guess if life were good.

And while I hark, before my door,
Adown the dusty Concord Road,
The blue Miami flows once more

As by the cotton-wood it flowed.

And on the bank that rises steep,

And pours a thousand tiny rills,
From death and absence laugh and leap
My school-mates to their flutter-mills.

The blackbirds jangle in the tops
Of hoary-antlered sycamores;
The timorous killdee starts and stops
Among the drift-wood on the shores.

Below, the bridge—a noonday fear

Of dust and shadow shot with sunStretches its gloom from pier to pier, Far unto alien coasts unknown.

And on those alien coasts, above,
Where silver ripples break the streams
Long blue, from some roof-sheltering grove
A hidden parrot scolds and screams.