these? These and such-like questions are not to be crudely and formally proposed, but are to be used with tact; nor should the critic press for hard and definite answers, but know how skillfully to glean its meaning from an evasion. He is a dull crossexaminer who will invariably follow the scheme which he has thought out and prepared beforehand, and who cannot vary his questions to surprise or beguile the truth from an unwilling witness. But the tact which comes from natural gift and from experience may be well supported by something of method,method well hidden away from the surface and from sight.

This may be termed the psychological method of study. But we may also follow a more objective method. Taking the chief themes with which literature and art are conversant — God, external nature, humanity—we may inquire how our author has dealt with each of these. What is his theology, or his philosophy of the universe? By which we mean no abstract creed or doctrine, but the tides and currents of feeling and of faith, as well as the tendencies and conclusions of the intellect. Under what aspect has this goodly frame of things, in whose midst we are, revealed itself to him? How has he regarded and interpreted the life of man? Under each of these great themes a multitude of subordinate topics are included. And alike in this and in what we have termed the psychological method of study, we shall gain double results if we examine a writer's works in the order of their chronology, and thus become acquainted with the growth and development of his powers, and the widening and deepening of his relations with man, with external nature, and with that Supreme Power, unknown yet well known, of which nature and man are the manifestation. As to the study of an artist's technical qualities, this, by virtue of the fact that he is an artist, is of capital importance; and it may often be associated with the study of that which his technique is employed to express and render the characteristics of his mind, and of the vision. which he has attained of the external universe, of humanity, and of God. Of all our study, the last end and aim should be to ascertain how a great writer or artist has served the life of man; to ascertain this, to bring home to ourselves as large a portion as may be of the gain wherewith he has enriched human life, and to render access to that store of wisdom, passion, and power, easier and surer for others.

A. CONAN DOYLE

(1859-)

HE author of The White Company,' 'The Great Shadow,' and 'Micah Clarke' has been heard to lament the fact that his

introduction to American readers came chiefly through the good offices of his accomplished friend "Sherlock Holmes." Dr. Doyle would prefer to be judged by his more serious and laborious work, as it appears in his historic romances. But he has found it useless to protest. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes' delighted a public which enjoys incident, mystery, and above all that matching of the wits of a clever man against the dumb resistance of the secrecy of inanimate things, which results in the triumph of the human intelligence. Moreover, in Sherlock Holmes himself the reader perceived a new character in fiction. The inventors of the French detective story,that ingenious Chinese puzzle of literature, -have no such wizard as he to show. Even Poe, past master of mystery-making, is more or less empirical in his methods of mystery-solving.

A. CONAN DOYLE

But Sherlock Holmes is a true product of his time. He is an embodiment of the scientific spirit seeing microscopically and applying itself to construct, from material vestiges and psychologic remainders, an unknown body of proof. From the smallest fragments he deduces the whole structure, precisely as the great naturalists do; and so flawless are his reasonings that a course of 'The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes' would not be bad training in a high-school class in logic.

The creator of this eminent personage was born in Edinburgh in 1859, of a line of artists; his grandfather, John Doyle, having been a famous political caricaturist, whose works, under the signature "H. B.," were purchased at a high price by the British Museum. The quaint signature of his father - a capital D, with a little bird perched on top, gained him the affectionate sobriquet of "Dicky Doyle"; and Dicky Doyle's house was the gathering-place of artists and authors, whose talk served to decide the destiny of the lad

Conan. For though he was intended for the medical profession, and after studying in Germany had kept his terms at the Medical College of Edinburgh University, the love of letters drove him forth in his early twenties to try his fortunes in the literary world of London.

Inheriting from his artist ancestry a sense of form and color, a faculty of constructiveness, and a vivid imagination, his studiousness and his industry have turned his capacities into abilities. For his romance of The White Company' he read more than two hundred books, and spent on it more than two years of labor. Micah Clarke' and 'The Great Shadow' involved equal wit and conscience. In his historic fiction he has described the England of Edward III., of James II., and of to-day, the Scotland of George III., the France of Edward III., of Louis XIV., and of Napoleon, and the America of Frontenac; while, in securing this correctness of historic detail, he has not neglected the first duty of a story-teller, which is to be interesting.

THE RED-HEADED LEAGUE

From The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes.' Copyright 1892, by Harper & Brothers

I

HAD called upon my friend Mr. Sherlock Holmes one day in the autumn of last year, and found him in deep conversation with a very stout, florid-faced elderly gentleman, with fiery red hair. With an apology for my intrusion I was about to withdraw, when Holmes pulled me abruptly into the room and closed the door behind me.

"You could not possibly have come at a better time, my dear Watson," he said, cordially.

"I was afraid that you were engaged."

"So I am. Very much so."

"Then I can wait in the next room."

"Not at all.

This gentleman, Mr. Wilson, has been my partner and helper in many of my most successful cases, and I have no doubt that he will be of the utmost use to me in yours also." The stout gentleman half rose from his chair and gave a bob of greeting, with a quick little questioning glance from his small, fat-encircled eyes.

"Try the settee," said Holmes, relapsing into his arm-chair and putting his finger-tips together, as was his custom when in judicial moods. "I know, my dear Watson, that you share my

love of all that is bizarre and outside the conventions and humdrum routine of every-day life. You have shown your relish for it by the enthusiasm which has prompted you to chronicle, and if you will excuse my saying so, somewhat to embellish so many of my own little adventures."

"Your cases have indeed been of the greatest interest to me," I observed.

"You will remember that I remarked the other day, just before we went into the very simple problem presented by Miss. Mary Sutherland, that for strange effects and extraordinary combinations we must go to life itself, which is always far more daring than any effort of the imagination."

"A proposition which I took the liberty of doubting."

"You did, doctor; but none the less you must come round to my view, for otherwise I shall keep on piling fact upon fact on you, until your reason breaks down under them and acknowledges me to be right. Now, Mr. Jabez Wilson here has been good enough to call upon me this morning, and to begin a narrative which promises to be one of the most singular which I have listened to for some time. You have heard me remark that the strangest and most unique things are very often connected not with the larger but with the smaller crimes; and occasionally, indeed, where there is room for doubt whether any positive crime has been committed. As far as I have heard, it is impossible for me to say whether the present case is an instance of crime or not; but the course of events is certainly among the most singular that I have ever listened to. Perhaps, Mr. Wilson, you would have the great kindness to recommence your narrative. I ask you, not merely because my friend Dr. Watson has not heard the opening part, but also because the peculiar nature of the story makes me anxious to have every possible detail from your lips. As a rule, when I have heard some slight indication of the course of events, I am able to guide myself by the thousands of other similar cases which occur to my memory. In the present instance I am forced to admit that the facts are, to the best of my belief, unique."

The portly client puffed out his chest with an appearance of some little pride, and pulled a dirty and wrinkled newspaper from the inside pocket of his great-coat. As he glanced down the advertisement column, with his head thrust forward, and the paper flattened out upon his knee, I took a good look at the man,

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and endeavored, after the fashion of my companion, to read the indications which might be presented by his dress or appearance.

I did not gain very much, however, by my inspection. Our visitor bore every mark of being an average commonplace British. tradesman, obese, pompous, and slow. He wore rather baggy gray shepherd's-check trousers, a not over clean black frock-coat unbuttoned in the front, and a drab waistcoat, with a heavy brassy Albert chain and a square pierced bit of metal dangling down as an ornament. A frayed top-hat and a faded brown overcoat with a wrinkled velvet collar lay upon a chair beside him. Altogether, look as I would, there was nothing remarkable about the man save his blazing red head, and the expression of extreme chagrin and discontent upon his features.

Sherlock Holmes's quick eye took in my occupation, and he shook his head with a smile as he noticed my questioning glances. "Beyond the obvious facts that he has at some time done manual labor, that he takes snuff, that he is a Freemason, that he has been in China, and that he has done a considerable amount of writing lately, I can deduce nothing else."

Mr. Jabez Wilson started up in his chair, with his forefinger upon the paper, but his eyes upon my companion.

"How in the name of good fortune did you know all that, Mr. Holmes?" he asked. "How did you know, for example, that I did manual labor? It's as true as gospel, for I began as

a ship's carpenter."

"Your hands, my dear sir. Your right hand is quite a size larger than your left. You have worked with it, and the muscles are more developed."

"Well, the snuff, then, and the Freemasonry?"

"I won't insult your intelligence by telling you how I read that; especially as, rather against the strict rules of your order, you use an arc-and-compass breastpin."

"Ah, of course, I forgot that. But the writing?»

"What else can be indicated by that right cuff so very shiny for five inches, and the left one with the smooth patch near the elbow where you rest it upon the desk?"

"Well, but China?"

"The fish that you have tattooed immediately above your right wrist could only have been done in China. I have made a small study of tattoo marks, and have even contributed to the literature of the subject. That trick of staining the fishes' scales