He is with those who advocate progress in its most advanced form. He is opposed to everything that means the enslavement of any class of people. In Russia, where one may not express freely views which are not in accord with the sentiments of the governing class, authors have to resort frequently to the form of allegory, fable, or distant allusion, instead of the more direct way of writers in constitutional countries. For these reasons pure literature is generally something more to the Russians than mere artistic productions. The novel takes frequently the place of a political pamphlet, of an essay on social questions. The stories of the Judeo-German authors share naturally the same fate with those of the Russians, and, consequently, cannot be free of 'tendencies' whenever the writers have in mind the treatment of subjects which would be dealt with severely by the censor. Much of the alleged obscurity of Perez's writings is just due to the desire of avoiding the censor's blue pencil, and the more dangerous a more direct approach becomes, the more delicate must be the allegory. The best of that class of literature is contained in this volume in a series entitled 'Little Stories for Big Men.' The first of these is called 'The Stagnant Pool.' We are introduced here to the world of worms who live in the pool, who regard the green scum as their heaven, and pieces of eggshells that have fallen into it as the stars and the moon upon it. A number of cows stepping into the pool tear their heaven and kill all who are not hidden away in the slime. Only one worm survives to tell the story of the catastrophe, and he suggests to his fellows that that was not the heaven that was destroyed, that there is another heaven which exists eternally. For this the narrator was thought to be insane and was sent to an insane asylum. The second sketch, 'The Sermon of the Lamps,' in which the hanging lamp instructs a small table lamp to send its flame heavenwards and not to flicker in anarchistic fashion, is a fine allegory in which the social order of things is criticised. There are altogether ten such excellent allegories, or fables, in the collection, all of the same value. The last of Perez's articles in the book is a popular discussion of what constitutes property; it is written in the same style as his scientific works spoken of before.