Emma Goldman gave this laconic epithet to this latest pearl of scandal-literature. Mylord is very much in earnest, hence his pitiful failure to see the humorous side of his pathetic self-spanking. The modest title of the book obviously suggests the two-fold purpose of the titular harlequin--his own aggrandizement and the dethronement of the Prince of Paradoxes. He excellently succeeds in obtaining the reverse result of his first endeavor; not even his pugilistic father, the Marquis of Queensbury, could have given him a more thorough boxing than the one he so earnestly performs over his own ears. As to his other ambition, that of vying with the laurels of Herostrates in his attempt to belittle the dead lion, we must admit his success in one point, in proving the morbid vanity of Wilde. What but the passion for titular acquaintances could have induced the author of _Salome_ to chum with Bosie Douglas, this burlesque snob, so utterly shallow, petty, so hopelessly stupid and arrogant? I don't know what to admire more: the "ethics" of the publisher or the sense of humor of the author. K. A New Short Story Writer _Life Is a Dream_, by Richard Curle. [Doubleday, Page and Company, New York.] It is to be hoped that Richard Curle will not long remain a name unfamiliar to American readers, for he is a writer of marked and unusual talent. _Life Is a Dream_ is the first of his books to be published in this country, and, consisting as it does of short stories, it can scarcely find as large an audience as it deserves. For there can be no doubt that volumes of short stories have only a modest sale--Kipling and O. Henry to the contrary notwithstanding. In Curle's case this is a great pity, for the stories in _Life Is a Dream_ are every one of them remarkable and they have not been printed elsewhere. They are not what we are accustomed to; almost any magazine editor would reject them, if only because they have none of that "punch" which so largely characterizes the work of Kipling and O. Henry, not to mention the other and far smaller people. It is difficult for the man who writes stories without "punch" to procure a hearing; the great popular magazines will have none of him; style, craftsmanship, subtle psychology, exquisite color--none of these (and Curle is a master of them all) can quite atone for lack of that predominant American quality. And that is why Richard Curle, working as he has thus far in a genre that appeals, however strongly, still to only a few, may be long in securing the recognition that is already quite his due.