e reader's attention, by securing his interest and
enlisting his sympathies for the matter in hand, whatever it may be,
within the limits of the visible world and within the boundaries of
human emotions.

I may safely say that Falk is absolutely true to my experience of
certain straightforward characters combining a perfectly natural
ruthlessness with a certain amount of moral delicacy. Falk obeys the law
of self-preservation without the slightest misgivings as to right, but
at a crucial turn of that ruthlessly preserved life he will not
condescend to dodge the truth. As he is presented as sensitive enough to
be affected permanently by a certain unusual experience, that experience
had to be set by me before the reader vividly; but it is not the subject
of the tale. If we go by mere facts then the subject is Falk's attempt
to get married; in which the narrator of the tale finds himself
unexpectedly involved both on its ruthless and its delicate side.

Falk shares with one other of my stories (The Return in the "Tales of
Unrest" volume) the distinction of never having been serialized. I think
the copy was shown to the editor of some magazine who rejected it
indignantly on the sole ground that "the girl never says anything." This
is perfectly true. From first to last Hermann's niece utters no word in
the tale--and it is not because she is dumb, but for the simple reason
that whenever she happens to come under the observation of the narrator
she has either no occasion or is too profoundly moved to speak. The
editor, who obviously had read the story, might have perceived that for
himself. Apparently he did not, and I refrained from pointing out the
impossibility to him because, since he did not venture to say that "the
girl" did not live, I felt no concern at his indignation.

All the other stories were serialized. "Typhoon" appeared in the early
numbers of the _Pall Mall Magazine_, then under the direction of the
late Mr. Halkett. It was on that occasion too, that I saw for the first
time my conceptions rendered by an artist in another medium. Mr. Maurice
Greiffenhagen knew how to combine in his illustrations the effect of
his own most distinguished personal vision with an absolute fidelity to
the inspiration of the writer. Amy Foster was published in _The
Illustrated London News_ with a fine drawing of Amy on her day out
giving tea to the children at her home in a hat with a big feather.
To-morrow appeared first in the _