IMAGINARY INTERVIEWS BY W.D. HOWELLS 1910 CONTENTS IMAGINARY INTERVIEWS The Restoration of the Easy Chair by Way of Introduction A Year of Spring and a Life of Youth Sclerosis of the Tastes The Practices and Precepts of Vaudeville Intimations of Italian Opera The Superiority of Our Inferiors Unimportance of Women in Republics Having Just Got Home New York To the Home-comer's Eye Cheapness of the Costliest City on Earth Ways and Means of Living in New York The Quality of Boston and the Quantity of New York The Whirl of Life in Our First Circles The Magazine Muse Comparative Luxuries of Travel Qualities Without Defects A Wasted Opportunity A Niece's Literary Advice To Her Uncle A Search for Celebrity Practical Immortality on Earth Around a Rainy-day Fire The Advantages of Quotational Criticism Reading for a Grandfather Some Moments With the Muse A Normal Hero and Heroine Out of Work OTHER ESSAYS Autumn in the Country and City Personal and Epistolary Addresses Dressing for Hotel Dinner The Counsel of Literary Age to Literary Youth The Unsatisfactoriness of Unfriendly Criticism The Fickleness of Age The Renewal of Inspiration The Summer Sojourn of Florindo and Lindora To Have the Honor of Meeting A Day at Bronx Park ILLUSTRATIONS AT THE OPERA FIFTH AVENUE AT THIRTY-FOURTH STREET FIFTH AVENUE FROM THE TOP OF A MOTOR-BUS CHARLES EMBANKMENT, BELOW HARVARD BRIDGE THE MALL, CENTRAL PARK BROADWAY AT NIGHT ELECTION-NIGHT CROWDS ZOÖLOGICAL GARDENS, BRONX PARK THE DAUGHTER OF THE STORAGE WILLIAM DEAN HOWELLS THE DAUGHTER OF THE STORAGE AND OTHER THINGS IN PROSE AND VERSE W. D. HOWELLS HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS NEW YORK AND LONDON CONTENTS PAGE I The Daughter of the Storage 3 II A Presentiment 45 III Captain Dunlevy's Last Trip 67 IV The Return to Favor 81 V Somebody's Mother 93 VI The Face at the Window 107 VII An Experience 117 VIII The Boarders 127 IX Breakfast Is My Best Meal 141 X The Mother-Bird 151 XI The Amigo 161 XII Black Cross Farm 173 XIII The Critical Bookstore 185 XIV A Feast of Reason 227 XV City and Country in the Fall 243 XVI Table Talk 253 XVII The Escapade of a Grandfather 269 XVIII Self-Sacrifice: A Farce-tragedy 285 XIX The Night before Christmas 319 THE QUALITY OF MERCY A NOVEL BY W. D. HOWELLS 1892 CONTENTS PART FIRST.