there are a few things they pulled out some essays a couple of the better shorts they made a pile of them there at the foot of the stair a dishearteningly small pile which they 've decided will be sent it on to bradley if they do n't find anything better he might want to put out one of those retrospective story collections that sometimes finds its way around all the better known pieces and at the beginning a few of the author 's early works ordained with criticism of the text and reductive synopsizes spilling out theories of the birth of the author 's big themes and so on and so on it hardly seems worth the effort .