13 AUGUST 1898, Page 26

Byeways. By Robert lichens. (Methuen and Co.)—Here we have nine

stories, most of them of a somewhat weird kind. When the writer would relieve the strain with a little humour, as in " A Boudoir Boy," we do not know that we are much better pleased. Byeways is another instance of the unaccountable passion which nowadays possesses writers, and, we presume, readers—for there must be demand if there is supply—for painful, not to say ghastly, effects in literature.