"The Apple Tree" (1934) is one of Galsworthy's most popular stories. A man returns to the moors of Devonshire, where many years before he had loved and abandoned a farm girl. He learns that she was so distraught at having been jilted by him that she drowned herself. He thus comes to resent his sterile and conventional life and evokes her as a figure of both Aphrodite and Eve, recalling their time together as having been Endemic in Its beauty and innocence.

"Miss Brill" (1922) by Katherine Mansfield is a story of an elderly woman who enjoys a crisp fall day in the park. Her contentment and illusions of community are shattered, however, when she becomes an object of derision by two young lovers.

"The Secret Sharer" (1909) by Joseph Conrad is the tale of a young ship's captain who harbors a stowaway...