storm, in
which Satan finally came for all that was left of Thrawn Janet. Into
this story of a few pages are condensed a power of forcible expression
and a weirdness of theme which have not been surpassed in any of the
larger books.

_The Merry Men_ is a story of wreck and wickedness on a desolate West
Highland island where the rocks called 'the Merry Men,' as the tides
boil and foam among them, make, as it were, an undercurrent of mad
laughter that forms a fitting accompaniment to the hideous passions of
greed and murder and the dead level of human misery that are the
prevailing atmosphere of the tale. It is one of the best of the stories
forming the volume, to which it gives its name, published by Messrs
Chatto & Windus in 1887.

In another collection of short tales Mr Stevenson also deals with the
seamy side of life, and _The New Arabian Nights_ published in 1882, and
which contains the reprint of such stories as _The Suicide Club_, _The
Rajah's Diamond_, _The Sire de Maletroit's Door_, and _The Pavilion on
the Links_, is quite as gruesome and by no means less interesting than
_The Merry Men_.

_The Sire de Maletroit's Door_ and _The Pavilion on the Links_, are most
graphically written, especially the latter with its splendid description
of the dreary sea and the wide and wind-swept stretch of drearier links
where the curious characters play their mysterious parts. It is
interesting to know that Mr Stevenson wrote _The Pavilion on the Links_
while he was very ill in California. All the stories in the two volumes
are favourites, and many readers give a preference to _The Suicide
Club_, _The Rajah's Diamond_, or _Prince Florizel_.

_Providence and the Guitar_ is also one of his best stories. _Prince
Otto_, the first draft of which was written at Monterey, is the peculiar
but very beautifully written story of a prince with no fancy for
princedom and no talent for governing, who leaves his vain young wife
and his unscrupulous prime minister in power and goes roaming among his
subjects only to hear some far from complimentary opinions of himself.
In the end both prince and princess learn love and wisdom and find
happiness in spite of the revolution that drives them from their tiny
kingdom. It is a fanciful tale, the charm of which lies less in the
rather vague characters, who have the haziness of motive and of
personality of the figures in some old play, than in the absolute
perfection of style and of description th