Hawthorne in solitude -- Whitman : the poet and the mask -- The real Horatio Alger story -- The two Henry Jameses -- Lafcadio Herun-san -- A natural history of American naturalism -- Sister Carrie's brother -- Sherwood Anderson's Book of moments -- Pound reweighed -- A weekend with Eugene O'Neill -- Robert Frost : a dissenting opinion -- Van Wyck Brooks's "usable past" -- Three cycles of myth in American writing -- Criticism: a many-windowed house.