THE teller of strange tales is not the least among benefactors of men. His cup of Lethe is welcome at times even to the strongest, when the _tædium vito_ of the commonplace is in its meridian. To the aching victim of evil fortune, it is ofttimes the divine anaesthetic. To-day a bitter critic calls down to the storyteller, bidding him turn out with the hewers of wood and the drawers of water, for the reason that there is no new thing, and the pieces with which he seeks to build are ancient and well worn. "At best," he cries, "the great one among you can produce but combinations of the old, some quaint, some monstrous, and all weary." But the writer does not turn out, and the world swings mer…
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