Excerpt from Gallegher, and Other Stories It is so impossible not to think first of the man, as the testimony of every one who knew him shows, that those who have long had occasion to watch and follow his work, not merely with enjoyment but somewhat critically, may well look upon any de tailed discussion of it as something to be kept till later. But there is more to be said than to recall the unfailing zest of it, the extraordinary freshness of eye, the indomitable youthfulness and health of spirit - all the qualities that we associate with Davis himself. It was serious work in a sense that only the more thoughtful of its critics had begun of late to comprehend. It had not inspired a body of disciples like Kipling's, but it had helped to clear the air and to give a new proof of the vitality of certain ideals - even of a few of the simpler ones now outmoded in current masterpieces; and it was at its best far truer in an artistic sense than it was the fashion of its easy critics to allow. Whether Davis could or would have written a novel of the higher rank is a useless question now; he himself, who was a critic of his own work without illusions or affectation, used to say that he could not; but it is certain that in the early part of Captain Mack lin he displayed a power really Thackerayan in kind. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.