times, and wherever they are there is unreality, if not melodrama. Unreality, too, there is, in many phases, in the modern tales, and "highfalutinness" everywhere in them. And both unreality and "highfalutinness" offend in these modern tales as they would not in the tales of far times, though in these, as a matter of fact, they are not so much in evidence.
It would almost seem that the approach to reality drove Highland atmosphere from the stories. In "The Sin-Eater," one of the best of his writings that might be classed as a short story, the sin-eater and his confidant are Highlanders, but the description of the scene of his misfortune, the steading of the Blairs, might well have been that nearest to "Silence Farm." It is faithfully described, the scenes about the little home, whose owner lies dead, having the very smack of realism. In the latter part of the story the scene shifts to the coast and the tang of the story turns Gaelic and unreal. Was it thus, I wonder, always to the imagination of William Sharp, Lowland life real, Highland life mystical?
Sharp was handicapped, of course, in coming to the subject material he could best handle late in life, "Pharais" (1894) and "The Mountain Lovers" (1895), the first books published as by "F.M.," being just as definitely 'prenticework in their kind as was "Children of To-morrow" (1890) in its kind. Of the long stories other than "Children of To-morrow" published in his own name, "A Fellowe and his Wife" (1892) and "Wives in Exile" (1896) have no very serious intention, though both are well done after their kind, records of imaginings, respec-
