The Project Gutenberg EBook of Side Lights, by James Runciman

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Title: Side Lights

Author: James Runciman

Release Date: May 3, 2005 [EBook #15762]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SIDE LIGHTS ***

Produced by Steven Gibbs and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.

SIDE LIGHTS

By JAMES RUNCIMAN

_WITH MEMOIR BY GRANT ALLEN,
AND INTRODUCTION BY W.T. STEAD.
EDITED BY JOHN F. RUNCIMAN_

London
T. FISHER UNWIN
PATERNOSTER SQUARE
MDCCCXCIII

CONTENTS.

A NOTE ON THE AUTHOR. BY GRANT ALLEN

AN INTRODUCTORY WORD ABOUT THE BOOK. BY W.T. STEAD

I. LETTER-WRITERS

II. ON WRITING ONESELF OUT

III. THE DECLINE OF LITERATURE

IV. COLOUR-BLINDNESS IN LITERATURE

V. THE SURFEIT OF BOOKS

VI. PEOPLE WHO ARE "DOWN"

VII. ILL-ASSORTED MARRIAGES

VIII. HAPPY MARRIAGES

IX. SHREWS

X. ARE WE WEALTHY

XI. THE VALUES OF LABOUR

XII. THE HOPELESS POOR

XIII. WAIFS AND STRAYS

XIV. STAGE-CHILDREN

XV. PUBLIC AND PRIVATE MORALITY: PAST AND PRESENT

XVI. "RAISING THE LEVEL OF AMUSEMENTS"

XVII. A LITTLE SERMON ON FAILURES

XVIII. "VANITY OF VANITIES"

XIX. GAMBLERS

XX. SCOUNDRELS

XXI. QUIET OLD TOWNS

XXII. THE SEA

XXIII. SORROW

XXIV. DEATH

XXV. JOURNALISM

A NOTE ON THE AUTHOR.

BY GRANT ALLEN.

I knew James Runciman but little, and that little for the most part
in the way of business. But no one could know that ardent and eager
soul at all, no matter how slightly, without admiring and respecting
much that was powerful and vigorous in his strangely-compounded
personality. His very look attracted. He had human weaknesses not
a few, but all of the more genial and humane sort; for he was
essentially and above everything a lovable man, a noble, interesting,
and unique specimen of genuine, sincere, whole-hearted manhood.

He was a Northumbrian by birth, "and knew the Northumbrian coast,"
says one of his North-Country friends, "like his mother's face." His
birthplace was at Cresswell, a little village near Morpeth, where he
was born in August, 1852, so that he was not quite thir