So I finished reading Samuel Clemens this week and I especially enjoyed' "The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg." I really like stories like this one that give a little moral at the end and yet don't turn out anything like what you would have expected. I won't spoil the story for anyone who chooses to read it but I will say that it goes to show what a guilty heart can do to a person. I have to say that I had never really read much of Clemens stuff other than the Huck Finn standards and I think that I became a new fan now that I've read his other work. I also really liked "The War Prayer" and the message it was conveying. Clemens is a great story teller, able to draw you into his stories and make you hang on every word, and they have such great endings. A little moral truth to give you food for thought. I'm going to have to add some of his other stuff to my reading "wish" list.



I also read "Daisy Miller" and "The Art of Fiction" and I am now a Henry James fan. I found Daisy to be a free spirit who spit in the eye of convention to the dismay of "society". I was a little let down at the end because it wasn't exactly a happy ending which I'm a sucker for...but it had it's own sense of morality. I think James was trying to show Mr. Winterbourne as a guy who realized too late that this socially unconventional girl just wanted his attentions and he should have stopped caring about what everyone else thought and just be with her. I could be wrong on my interpretation because it was, or seemed, like an abrupt end to the story. If anyone sees it differently I welcome your thoughts.