Brief Candles

Brief Candles is the fifth collection of short fiction written by Aldous Huxley, published in 1930. The book consists of three short stories and a novella. Brief Candles takes its title from a line in William Shakespeare's Macbeth, from Macbeth's famous soliloquy: Out, out, brief candle! Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more: it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.