What is the device by which writers of romance obtain their} most striking effects? Ts it not} that of the dilemma—that of getting somebody out of a tight place? When Homer, the real inventor of the "thriller," got Ulysses out of the cave of Polyphemus under the belly of a sheep at a time when that giant was annoyed at having had his eye bored out with a fire-brand, he set an example for countless imtators of all times and lands, Such, for example, were the great unknown writers who told the tales of the Arabian Nights. Sindbad escaping from the Valley of Dia-mands lashed to the lump of meat in the claws of the gigantic eagle is the forerunner.of many a hero of Rider Haggard or Dumas—of Edmund Dantes, for example, "The Count of' Monte Cristo," when he sewed himself up in the dead man's sack in order to be thrown fro" the castle tower into the sea, Indeed, every man in prison is a man in a dilemma.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.