P.S.  As for the sum total of the work left by L——­, its very best, it might be said that although he was not a great psychologist, still, owing to a certain pretentiousness of assertion at times, one might unthinkingly suppose he was.  Neither had he, as yet, any fixed theories of art or definite style of his own, imitating as he was now de Maupassant, now O. Henry, now Poe; but also it must be said that slowly and surely he was approximating one, original and forceful and water-clear in expression and naturalness.  At times he veered to a rather showy technique, at others to a cold and even harsh simplicity.  Yet always in the main he had color, beauty, emotion, poignance when necessary.  Like his idol, de Maupassant, he had no moral or strong social prejudices, no really great or disturbing imagination, no wealth of perplexing ideas.  He saw America and life as something to be painted as all masters see life and paint it.  Gifted with a true vein of satire, he had not, at the time of his death, quite mastered its possibilities.  He still retained prejudice of one type or another, which he permitted to interfere with the very smooth arrangement of his colors.  At the same time, had he not been disturbed by so many of the things which in America, as elsewhere, ordinarily assail an ambitious and earnest writer—­the prejudice against naturalness and sincerity in matters of the intellect and the facts of life, and the consequent difficulty of any one so gifted in obtaining funds at any time—­he might have done much better sooner.  He was certain to come into his own eventually had he lived.  His very accurate and sensitive powers of observation, his literary taste, his energy and pride in his work, were destined to carry him there.  It could not have been otherwise.  Ten years more, judging by the rate at which he worked, his annual product and that which he did leave, one might say that in the pantheon of American letters it is certain that he would have proved a durable if not one of its great figures, and he might well have been that.  As it stands, it is not impossible that he will be so recognized, if for no more than the sure promise of his genius.

The Village Feudists

In a certain Connecticut fishing-town sometime since, where, besides lobstering, a shipyard and some sail-boat-building there existed the several shops and stores which catered to the wants of those who labored in those lines, there dwelt a groceryman by the name of Elihu Burridge, whose life and methods strongly point the moral and social successes and failures of the rural man.