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PN 3373.E74W9
Writing the short-stpi
OF PUBLIC DISCOURSE
TWELVEMOPrice
$1.00
Postpaid CLOTH
Writing
the
Short-Story
A PRACTICAL HANDBOOK ON THE RISE, STRUCTURE, WRITING, AND SALE OF THE MODERN SHORT-STORY
BY
J.
BERG ESENWEIN,
A.M., Lit.D
HINDS, NOBLE & ELDREDGE, Publishers 31-33-35 West Fifteenth Street, New York City
Copyright, 1908,
By
J.
Berg Esenwein
Berg Esenwein
Copyright, 1909,
By
J.
TO MY WIFE
INSPIRER
THIS
:
CRITIC
IS
FRIEND
WORK
INSCRIBED
TABLE OF CONTENTS
PAGE
FOREWOBD To Teachers
Historical Introduction
I.
xi
xiii
i
THE
RISE OF
THE SHORT-STORY
i
1.
2. 3.
4.
5. 6.
7.
8.
The Story-Teller The Epic The Ancient and Medieval Tale The Sacred Books of the East The Drama The Novel Other Literary Forms The Perfecters of the Short-Story
n. ITS PRESENT PLACE
4
S
6
6 8
AND POWER
10
11
1.
2. 3.
The Short-Story and the Novel Reasons for Popularity The Influence of
the Short-Story
12
II.
Chapter I. What is a Short-Storv a Short-Story is Not 1. Not a Condensed Novel 2. Not an Episode 3. Not a Scenario 4. Not a Biography 5. Not a Sketch 6. Not a Tale What a Short-Story is
What
17
19
....
...
....
23 24 24 25 26
Exercises
30 32
Chapter
1.
II.
Kinds of
V
Short- Story
35
2.
3.
36 36
VI
CONTENTS
PAGE
4.
5. 6.
7.
on on on on
Locality
Wonder
Social Classes
.
Emotion
in the Story
Exercises
36 37 37 37 37
PART
II. THE
Chapter
1.
Choosing a
Theme
42 44 45 49
2.
3.
Exercises
Chapter
1.
II.
2.
3. 4.
S-
52 54 56
Reading
Discussion
6. 7.
Taking Notes
Exercises
...
III.
57 58 59 60
61
Chapter
1.
Fact in Fiction
64
Types of Fiction
(a) Realistic (b) Romantic
(c) Idealistic
2.
Exercises
...
is
67 70
I.
What
1.
Plot
71
II.
Kinds of Plot
Surprise
2.
3.
76 77 7g 7g
gi
4.
5.
82
g.
6.
Symbolism
CONTENTS
Vll
PAGE
III.
What
1.
2. 3. 4.
5.
Climax
Interest
84 84 8s 87 8g 89
91
Exercises
Chapter V.
I.
Plot
Development
93
Sources of Plot
1.
Characters
II.
94 95 97 100
107
Exercises
Chapter VI.
1.
How
2.
3. 4.
5.
120 120
121
Exercises
124
I.
2.
II.
Bad Usage
Chapter VIII. The Setting of the Story
146 148
Exercises
I.
II.
150 152
154 156 157 157 157 157 158 159
By Epithet By Hint
Direct
4.
5.
By
Effects
.
6.
7.
8.
VUl
CONTENTS
PAGE
III.
The Elements
1.
of Setting
i6o
i6i
Time
Place Occupations Conditions
2. 3.
163
5^68
4.
5.
Exercises
The Body of
the Story
I74
181
1.
Incident
2.
Interest
Pathos Mirth
Exercises
Chapter X.
3.
4. 56.
The
Concluded
199 201 203 205
Crisis
Suspense Climax
Denouement
Conclusion Exercises
7.
210 2l6
Chapter XI.
I. 1.
Characters
Characters
and Characterization
221 221
The Characters
Selecting the Characters
2. 3. 4. 5.
Number of
11.
Characterization
1.
230 230
231
2. 3.
General Methods
Specific
Methods
Chapter XII.
Exercises
237 241
Dialogue
245 247 251 252
261
1.
Proportion
Office
2. 3. 4.
Subject Matter
Manner
Exercises
CONTENTS
Chaptes XIII.
1.
IX
The Title
PAGE
264 266 270
273
Functions
2. 3.
Good
Titles
Titles to
Avoid
Exercises
Chapter XIV.
General View
Exercises
Style
275 282
Chapter XV.
1.
Some
Story
2. 3.
of Tone Proportion
Simplicity
Harmony
4.
Compression
Exercises
296
PART
1.
III.
Chapter
2.
What
is
Originality
300 303
305
Exercises
...
Chapter
II.
Chapter
1.
III.
Acquiring a Vocabulary
318 318 318
321 322
2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7.
Study of Short-Story Models The Dictionary Habit Synonyms and Antonyms Conversations on Words Translating Languages Study of Etymology Broad Usage
322 322
Chapter IV.
Critical Estimates of the Author Studied " The Necklace," by Guy de Maupassant
Exercises
i:
CONTENTS
MARKET
Chapter
1.
I.
Writing the
. .
Story
p^^^g
2.
3.
Chapter
1.
II.
2. 3. 4.
Chapter
Rejected
Colloquy
PART v. APPENDICES
Collections of Short-Stories, Sketches, and Tales 375 Appendix B. One Hundred Representative Short-Stories 382 Appendix C. The Plots of Twenty Short-Stories 389 Appendix D. Digest of Rhetorical Rules Applicable to Short- Story Writing 414 Appendix E. Abbreviations of Publishers' Addresses 424
Appendix A.
. .
.
Appendix F. Books for a Fiction- Writer's Library Appendix G. Bibliography Genblal Index
426
427
432
FOREWORD
The
short-story,
now
is
in-
Its art is
grad-
ually crystallizing,
significance
is
study.
This
American and British magazine editors, and as practised by authors whose products are judged to be of the first order. At the same time, the body of sound scholarship has not been lost sight of in considering the popular and marketable short-story, so
structure as recognized by
that the treatise
is
professional,
and guide the individual writer, amateur or who wishes to improve his art. Its prepara-
now
available in print,
and many
seasoned with an
its
best
worst to-day.
and
of
The
invaluable
assistance
of Lippincott's Magazine,
xi
is
gratefully ac-
Xll
FOREWORD
is
knowledged; as
who
The Author
Philadelphia,
March
21, 1909.
TO TEACHERS
This
tions:
treatise
is
confidently
commended
to
you for
inspirational
method and
covers the
it is
the
whose scholarship previously commanded attention in the college class-room and whose profession it has been for
years to examine, purchase, edit and publish the shortstory, as well as other literary
forms
its
analytical
meth-
od
at
his conclusions,
and leaves a
clear impression
upon the
student;
its
each chapter, are not confined merely to the text, but will
inspire
and
the class-room;
analytical
which such study may be followed, both in and out of its comprehensive table of contents, and
summaries
and
its
in part;
"Laborais
Method for
the
XIV
original,
TO TEACHERS
ume expanding
ready at work;
subject and
is al-
manner as to facilitate lesson assignments, recitations and individual research; it actually teaches short-story writing, and not
its
there
The
is
not a the-
editorial
Publishers
HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION
THE
RISE OF
THE SHORT-STORY
iJriet tales
since tne
worm
was first attempted, since the Cave-men the long evenings around the smoking fire with narratives
brought back episodic accounts of one or another of their misadventures, commingled of fact and of fiction. Bkandek Mat-
It is
why
primitive
men
and why the teller of such stories had a crowd about him in the streets of Bagdad and Damascus and why medieval men and
story
;
women
cluded in the Gesta Romanorum. To the earliest men experience preceded reflection, the story of life began to unroll itself before
there were any glossaries or commentaries; the things which happened were the only real things; and when the imagination
began to open the windows and look out on the landscape of life, it saw everything from the standpoint of what had already happened. Hamilton W. Mabie, Stories New and Old.
XVI
The Story-Teller
the lineal descendant of the story-
The
teller.
story-writer
is
was committed to tablet or papyrus, the spinner of yarns was recounting the deeds of gods and heroes, celebrating the glories of ancestors, and inciting warriors to valor. It was the spoken story
Before the
earliest tale
that whiled
away
made
summer
narration?
of stories
market-place, and enhomes of prince and peasant. were these first attempts at
is
precisely pic-
whose lives reflection was not yet a force fanunhampered by the sober limits of fact; wonder-stories wedded the unknown to the known. To our early forebears the world seemed peopled with untasy could fly
I
men
THE
RISE OF
THE SHORT-STORY
couth forces, mysterious presences, and supernatural beings, all delightfully free
from present-day
limitations.
or disEvery natural object, every natiu-al power, hid some god-like personality who might do the most surprising things upon the instant. So, born of this
closed
Roman and
Oriental
myths.
With such materials ready to hand, with such fears, and fancies thronging the mind and coloring life, what imaginative soul could refrain from weaving all this into story? The border-land between the known and the imagined was wide and its confines debatable, and if the protean story-teller had himself traveled, or warred,
faiths
yam-spinner of to-day
invention.
less
will
fantasy and of spirit which were closed to the uninstructed eye of the primitive story-teller.
2.
The Epic
Loose and free and of slow growth, the epic poem was
for centuries the dominant story-form.
It
of material in which the ancient world abounded and strung the scattered stories upon a strand of personality.
Thus a Ulysses or an
.^Eneas
THE
originally told of
RISE OF
THE SHORT-STORY
down
teller
to the years
many another. From prehistoric times when the printed page spread the tale
was almost the only purveyor of fiction, and he was welcome as is a visitor with recent magazines to a lighthouse on some distant and lonely island." Sometimes the story-teller dealt in prose forms, some" as
may
the
continued-ballad
form,
and,
in
feudal
of
some
So we
epics
^
many
famous
of
though in form they are primitive when compared with the developed modern short-story. Not until the spoken
story
was
set
down
revised,
and printed, did we get the forms to which we are The able accurately to trace our present artistic product. " a-boming," and its line of modern short-story was long
ancestry
1 '
is
For a concise
The
oldest
recorded story
that
Papyrus.
4
3.
THE
RISE OF
THE SHORT-STORY
the
Medieval Tale
"
Professor Baldwin* has pointed out that ancient and anec: the simple
the
real
short-story.
To
this
classification
might be
added the
dotes,
With here
we
modem
short-
story.
And
is
there
ranging
from 4000
500 A. D.,
to 1000 B.
C, down through
tales of
the Hebrew,
to
Roman
from 1000 B. C.
we
The same
Dark Ages, between and the dawn of the Renaissance, which gave us all the fantastic legends and devotional tales of what we may call the French; and after
is
em
The modem
short-story is allied
3 For a full discussion, with exhaustive lists and some specimens in translation, see Jessup and Canby's The Book of the Short Story. Also the Introduction to The Short-Story^ Mat-
thews.
*
American Short
Stories, p. 26.
THE
to
all
RISE OF
THE SHORT-STORY
simple, direct,
As specimens
the East
The
directly
Many
by most
permeate
readers
unsuspected.
The
rich
color,
the fascinating
them with a
feel in the
charm often
we
The
tales to
Bible contains
When
that
be found anywhere, whether ancient or modern. we examine the dramatic account of " The Prodi-
gal Son,"
and the
art
idyllic tale
is
of " Ruth,"
we must
confess
modern
many
minds,
it is
striving after
as
standards.
See chap. i. For a summary of " The Sacred Books of the East " (the Bible excepted) see Summaries of Noted Books, in Charles Dudley Warner's Library of the World's Best Literature.
*
THE
RISE OF
THE SHORT-STORY
earlier centuries,
remain
They
prophet-
they
may
be said to belong.
the honored forebears of the short-story
fail
Among
must not
we
to
name
also
5.
The Drama
children
Primitive men, in
common with
and
adults
thoughts and emotions. Indeed, the and through thousands act out a almost as old as the of years for the drama
act
who
live
much
out
their
story,
is
tale
fic-
and
short.
The
no
modem
It
short-story; but
it
took yam-spinstill
many
refuse to
must be left to a later chapter to dwell upon the service which the play and the playwright
may
6.
The Novel
It is
no more exact
" the
germ of American
THE
literature to
RISE OF
THE SHORT-STORY
assert either
is
come."
it
To
to assert too
much.
must appear to all that the short-story and the novel meet at more points than any other two forms
of narration.
But
Of
course they
owe much
to each other,
more than the short-story has thus far helped the novel. But the critic a hundred years hence will scarcely so pronounce.
story
often
to
their advantage,
not
come
individual
savor.
Not only are the novel and the short-story more nearly alike than any other two fictional forms, but for this very reason the novel has more strongly influenced the modern short-story than has any other literary type, not excepting the drama. While the short-story is essentially by far the older, the novel came to its own long before the short-story was recognized as a distinct species. Irving, Poe and Hawthorne; Maupassant, Gautier and Merimee; Stevenson, Barrie and Kipling; and all that
brilliant Continental school that
made luminous
the
lit-
more
more incompar than they ever did or could have done from
earlier novelists,
who
preceded them.
Upon
the
short-story foothills.
THE
RISE OF
THE SHORT-STORY
7.
of the older
all
the others.
the short-
instance,
many short-stories (some of Hawthorne's, for and some of Irving's tales) contain much essay material, while now and then an essay is cast in story form. The Spectator essay really embodied, now and again, so much narrative material as to make it a suggestive theme for study to-day. But all in all the kinship
of the essay with the short-story
is
The
peal,
lyric also
all
has
made
its
and
8.
The Perfecters of
the Short-Story
a few words
may
gen-
See The Book of the Short Story, Jessup and Canby, p. 17. For fuller discussions see the Introduction to Baldwin's American Short Stories, and to The Book of the Short Story.
ITS
erally,
rather than a
In 1835
article
Poe produced
" Berenice,"
and
in 1842, in
an
on Hawthorne's
tales.^o
he im-
garded as a
distinct species.
Though more
or less per-
fect short-stories
at intervals for
many
centuries, Poe's
ing,
thus originating
American short-story. In France, Nodier, M6rimee and Balzac and in a less degree Gautier and Musset were rendering much the same service for the French short-story, though on somewhat different lines.
a distinctive type of
man,
in
later
France and
must be accorded to America, France named, if we consider the importance of the work produced and the clear workingthe present genre
and Germany
theories evolved.
II.
ITS
no apologist. It has won for itself an honorable and honored place among literary forms and, what is more valuable, in the public heart. Evidently it has come to stay, and to stay in a class by itself.
The
short-story needs
I"
184a.
lO
ITS
I.
Novel
diffi-
though he
The
it
from
theirs
only in magnitude.
It involves, if possible, a
more
sensi-
dramatic values."
"
"Although as a form of fiction the Short-story is not inferior to the Novel, and although it is not easier, all things considered, yet its brevity makes its composition simpler for the 'prentice hand."" In concluding his admirable brochure, The Short Story, ^* Mr. Henry Seidel Canby says
" Except in one instance, which
of single incidents or detached
is
movements
the
Short Story
its
is
but in
and for a satisfying exposition of the power of words, it is much superior to the novel, and can rank only below the poem. But the novel and
ination in means,
full
the
11
differently
12
Life and Letters, Vol. II, p. 227. Hamilton W. Mabie, in the Introduction to Masterpieces
p. 51.
ITS
II
And
view
it is
sition to
These opinions are representative, and indicate the powhich the short-story has attained in seventyIndeed,
critical
it
five years.
may
up a clearer
garding the
short-story
ideal novel.
2.
It is
The
human
suit
it
appeal and the concise directness of the not only to our energetic and easily jaded
former
modem
spirit,
We
when
are performed
is
in
a masterly manner.
This, of course,
the
mood
The novel
As touching
tiplication of
popular magazines
increasing
at
an
effect.
The
demand
12
ITS
Natm^ally, so
much
writing means
much
poor writing; still, the tendency is upward, and magazine editors are becoming more and more critical of the stories offered to them, though it must be admitted that when called upon to choose between popularity and literary quality the present-day editor
popularity.
is still likely
to choose
and
a marked advance in
quality.
appreciation broadens.
Further-
more, the growing love for art in all its forms stimulates
the
short-story.
The same
artistic
sense
which
in the
pubUc
work
and so pubart
this fascinating
we must
c
work
its
ours.
In the humor
;hort-story, as in
I
adventm
its
love appeals,
millions take
life
daUy
recreation, an
life
3.
The
who
life.
ITS PRESENT
all
However, only a very small percentage of stories presented to magazine editors are of such objectionable
The
writer's
search to-day
for reality
and
truth,
and
this responsibility
he bears
takes
is
its
short-stories seriously
The public
re-
a humorist.
Any
tell
the
truth.^''
The
and,
upon the novel has power is even more evinewspaper, which serves up
In the
is
it is
reporter's
parlance everything
a " story,"
and the
that
newspaper /follows as
our most vivid
methods of
in the
may be answered
newspaper
But the fact remains, whatever be cause Even the contemporary essay, the travel sketch, and the hybrid magazine article, have nursed at the short-story bottle, and are sprightly " in precise proportion." Thus the latest literary form to
field.
and what
effect.
come
to
its
own
is
ture and our life. In the words of Professor Albert E. Hancock, " it now holds chief attention and consumes
15
14
ITS
most energy."
its
The most
make room
for
ers,
sale.
in their pages, it is welcomed by a myriad readand vast commercial concerns are interested in its
OUTLINE SUMMARY
I.
THE
1.
RISE OF
THE SHORT-STORY
2. 3.
4.
5. 6. 7. 8.
Story-Teller
Drama
Novel
the Short-Story
The Perfecters of
II. ITS
1.
2. 3.
The Short-Story and the Novel Reasons for Popularity The InHuence of the Short-Story
PART
15
of exquisite
Clear cut, with occasional plastic inspirations and moments descriptive genius, Maupassant made himself the
foremost master of the art of short-story writing in a group of writers who seemed to know instinctively the limitations and the resources of a literary form which exacts the nicest perceptions and the surest skill. He almost unerringly selected a
single
situation,
all
related
detail
vitally
to
it,
suppressed
that
not
contribute to
portraiture,
character, situation,
sketched a background with a few telling strokes, knit plot, and denouement strongly together to secure
unity of effect.
1908.
Hamilton
W.
25,
In the short-story of the first rank, power, skill, and invention combine to produce, with few materials, an eflfect similar in definiteness and intensity to that which lies within reach of the masters of fiction alone. It deals, as a rule, with an
episode rather than a complete movement of experience ; with- a. situation rather than with a series of events; with a single
character rather than with a group; it must be condensed without sacrifice of shading or atmosphere; it must move swiftly to
climax, without any appearance of haste; it must omit the great mass of details, and yet leave nothing essential unsaid. It is not a study for a longer tale, nor is it a long story abbreviated it is a work of art which has its own laws, its special qualities, its individual sources of charm; it must stand complete
its
;
in itself.
Hamilton
W. Mabie,
Introduction to Masterpieces of
Fiction.
16
PART
CHAPTER
WHAT
Now
tions.
It
IS
A SHORT-STORY
more than
incidents
is
and descrip-
...
It
a
F.
man who
definite impression.
'A
is
a dangerous thing.
resilient
its
a thing
is,
the
about, to fix
limitations
short-story
vented.
formed itself experimentally; it was not inPoe and Hawthorne were heirs of all that had
gone before.
the short-story
tion.
So we may
we
I.
WHAT A SHORT-STORY
caution.
is
IS
NOT
that a certain
is
To deny
a short-story
not to
l8
WHAT
it.
IS
A SHORT-STORY
altogether
condemn
kind.
track, but If
It
may be
admirable of
its
it couldn't crack a nut. It wasn't intended to. an author prefers to write something other than short-stories, let him do so; he may write that one
it,
but he
must not complain when he fails to sell his product as a short-story. There may be a market for his wares,
but
it is
The
are
cases
the
on
this score
contents
of which
is
really
a short-story. a
tale, so
Now, no one
hasf^exan,'
anec-
dote,
and the
tale
all
may
what their authors never designed them to be, and what the editors knew perfectly well that they were not short-stories. Not all blackfteathmistake any or
for
to find
a literary narrativ^ in a
by a famous author, does not imply that it purports to be a short-story. Wilat shall we do, then? Simply press our inquiry as to what a
high-class magazine, signed
short-story
is
and what
it is
when we come
vidual use.
to decide
not, using our own judgment upon the form best for our' indi-
WHAT
I.
IS
A SHORT-STORY
I9
The Short-Story
Is
Not
a Condensed
Novel
which
differ
in
Thirty-five thousand
little
words
while
some shorter nowadays the full-grown novel runs from eighty to a hundred thousand words. Many are still shorter, whereas only a few reach the old ordinary length of one hundred and fifty thousand words and upward. The day of the two- and three-volume novel
novels
some
more it would still be say to within half its present compass a condensed novel and not a long short-story.^ The real
But
if
difference
is
in kind,
not in length.
" Hawthorne's
(a)
The
ta
denied
Tales,'"'
me
novel.
In
his
essay,
Poe writes
as follows:
1 The matter of nomenclature is always diflScuIt when names have long been loosely used. There is one sort of so-called jwjvel which in character is really only a long short-story. The Port :af). Missing Men, by Meredith Nicholson, and The Filigree Bt^hy Anna Katharine Green, may serve as examples. This s ort jia s' scarcely any of the characteristics of the novel, except compression, and aH^ji^^fofo nature of the short-story scope. It lacks the breadth of the one withboth of plot iM
concentration of the other. The greater are of this type light, ephemeral, episodic, improbable stories, intended to while away four idle hours. Quite the same is true of many novelettes.
out
^ attaining^^^e
20
" As._
ting,
it
WHAT
IS
A SHORT-STORY
cannot
be
reacL_at- one
sit-
it^lhe_ novel)
deprives
itself,
of course, of the
immense force
derivable
from
totality.
Worldly
interests intervening
during the pauses of perusal modify, annul or contract, in a greater or less degree, the impressions of the book.
to
In the brief
tale,'
it
what
may.
is
If
resulting
"
accommowith
de-
date
his
incidents;
care,
but
having
conceived,
liberate
wrought
out,
he
then
may
best aid
If
him
in establishinitial
effect.
his
ve^
sen-
first step.
As by
is at
a picture
of
mind
The
By
is
WHAT
and
this is
is
IS
A SHORT-STORY
novel.*
21
Undue
poem;
brevity
more
to be avoided."
Growing out of
of effect,
is
this
need for
this further
demand upon
the short-story
from
short-story intensive.
The
life,
upon a
special
The canvas on which the true novelist paints is broader, accommodating more characters, who stand out upon a larger and more varied background. Thus in the real novel the reader is- enabled "to see life whole," in Matthew Arnold's expressive phrase. Such a broad fictional outlook was Goethe's, rather than Poe's. Not any number of shortincident, or experience.
stories,
skilfully
related, could
by Balzac in
Comedie Humaine.
is
The
ploits
and contributory
a
single
sub-plots,
whereas
* Certain novels also leave a single compact impression upon the mind. Compare " The Fall of the House of Usher," which leaves a weird impression of a decaying family come to its final with Romola, whose general impression is simply the disaster degeneration of Tito Melema. Both create unified impressions, but the novel also presents a broad cross-section of life. The unity of the one is composed of an infinite and wonderfully organized diversity, while that of the other is simple. The one is a diamond of many facets, the other a pearl.
22
Other
incidents
WHAT
IS
A SHORT-STORY
if
few,
any
must
be
subordinate
and
directly contributory."
Finally,
the greater
mean a more
leisurely
move-
ment than
els,
is
possible in
and certainly not models in any sense) crowd incident upon incident with tremendous speed. But usually the
realistic novelist takes plenty
of time to
make
his charsetting,
acters philosophize
or to advocate a cause, or to expose a condition. Not so the short-story. Since it must " move swiftly
to its climax," all its
mechanism
is
simplified
and
di-
At first this necessity for compression may seem to hamper the writer, but in reality it ofifers greater freedom. Themes too slight for
vested of clogging parts.
the sustained spirit of the novel, light bits of fantasy, in-
life,
all
make admirable
realistic, is
nearly
all
novels,
whether romantic or
The
details
ates with a
which
must be
its
all
the
more
Thus, in
singleness of effect, in
more minute
" In his interesting Philosophy of the Short-Story, p. 16, Prof, " A Short-story deals with a single\, Brander Matthews says
:
'
a single event, a_ single emotion, or the series of emotions called forth by a single situation." This is a suggestive but extreme statement.
character,
WHAT
scope,
IS
A SHORT-STORY sf "rtnrp
23
the short-story
and
in
jts^sim plicity o f^
proves
itself to
condensed novel.
2.
The Short-Story
Is
Not an Episode
We
works of the
episodes.
later century
in
from the
and
the introduction of
erick
Tom
Jones,
tale.
Do
many a
In neither case,
plot, the sense
To make
it.
first-class
short-story
readev feels the conlonger would clusion and would not turn the page of the magaziHe
be to spoil
The
While the episode fits which it was parenthetically inserted to illustrate some phase of character or of conduct, the short-story is not meant to dovetail into a novel which is to appear later.
to see if there is anything
more.
To
stories
are linked in series but in each part nowadays the story comes to a full stop, a satisfying resolution The connection with the other to use a musical figure.
;
notably
detective
any
3-
The Short-Story
is
Is
Not a
Scenario, or Synopsis
This
said
Yet there
emphasize.
.
will, suffice to
may make
a scenario.
Or
a synopsis
may
But such a skeleton would lack red blood as surely as it would be awkward and unhas been completed.
interesting, if not actually repellent.
acter, the
The
play of char-
pungency of conversation, the photography of Many of the tales of the description, would be absent. Decameron suffer for lack of these qualities. Compression
is essential,
but
it
will not
do to squeeze a story to
death.
4. It Is
Not a Biography
to
justify
number of life-stories, complete from no central incident, no unified ef" Johnny Shark " ' is their writing.
such a biography
"
a diverting
fish.
Marse Chan," by Thomas Nelson Page, one of the finest of our modern fictions, is a fictive biography
rather than a short-story.
Here
biography
may
not be
From The
by T. Jenkins Hains.
WHAT
ing, because
it
IS
A SHORT-STORY
25
Stevenson's
is
Mill " must be generally considered as quite the equal of " Marse Chan," yet it is not purely, or
o'
" Will
the
even
as
chiefly,
a short-story
magnificent work of
fiction
it is.
5. It
Is
drawings by Michelangelo.
beauty will enchant you.
General, only general.
with,
will
suggestive
They
The
and prophets, wonderful as they are as examples of pose, movement, and foreshortening,
do not possess a narrative value.
to the
For
that
we must
look
by
this
Again,
studies of
tures,
when Ruskin
criticised
the
brilliant
color
Turner he refused to consider them as picand though they hang to-day in the basement of
to be
mere records of
they remain
color,
and
many do have an
them
short-stories, for in
26
WHAT
IS
A SHORT-STORY
nothing happens; they have neither essential beginning nor necessary ending; the^^eave no single completed
.impression
;
Poe so constantly
What more
exquisite piece
of descriptive prose narrative does the English language hold than Lafcadio Hearn's " Chita "? And it perfectly
illustrates
the fictional
sketch which
is
not a
short-
story.
6.
Once more the matter of nomenclature raises a difficulty. The ternis " tale " and " short-story " are commonly used interchangeably. Poe so uses them, Mr. Henry James loosely refers to novels as tales, and Professor Brander Matthews now and then indulges a free
transfer of the expressions.
Indeed,
it
will not
do
to
be too precise here, for the tale readily drifts over into
the short-story, and the latter into the former.
ever, for the purposes of a treatise
Howseems
of
this
scope
it
necessary to
crimination
make between these close kindred a diswhich is more than academic, for to deny
is
tale
particularly as to
definition:
its
volume, but
tale
now we need a
A
little
its interest
WHAT
Upon
IS
A SHORT-STORY
upon
plot
27
of character.
Here
is
an attempt
at a
grouping of
KINDS OF TALE ^
(Classified as to
Purpose
fFable
Didactic
Parable
Allegory
Moral
Sporting
Adventure
Entertaining
Strange Experience
Humorous
Myth
Legend
Anecdote
Either Didactic
Travel
Historical
or Entertaining
.True Story
Whether designed
entertainment,
cast in the
all
to teach a lesson or to
tell
a story for
when
narrative.
^
all
form of the tale, will be found to be simple Fundamentally they do not conform to Poe's
This classification must not be understood as implying that short fictions on these general themes are tales and not
short-stories.
28
WHAT
IS
A SHORT-STORY
all
The
reflec-
tions,
The
reader feels
and comrelated
more of which of
similar kind
might be
Now it must be borne constantly in mind that the magazines to-day are printing many excellent tales,
which touch
this in one, two,
more
fully they
become
a hair
becomes
like
too thin
The
Washington Irving. Here and same may be said of Chaucer's poetic Canterbury Tales and the stories of Boccaccio. In his Introduction to the Tales of a Traveler, Irving says: " For my part, I consider a story merely as a frame upon which to stretch my materials. It is the play of thought, and sentiment, and language; the weaving in
short-story, are those of
at,
felicitate
myself in proportion as
think I succeed."
WHAT
IS
A SHORT-STORY
art,
29
first
story.
" It
tale
and
pression,
is
show and by an
;
interest in situation, as
Also through
source,
which
is
;
usually of a situation
a story.
'
Ruth
'
'
will
tale,
The
Purloined Letter
and
Markheim,'
^*
"
Coward,'
"
or
'
Without Benefit
If
it is
of Clergy,'
neces-
now
being written,
an attempt
largely
at greater vividness,
and
this attempt is
made
into
common
8
use."
The Book of
the Short
Story.
9
Maupassant.
10
^1
Poe. Stevenson.
12 Kipling.
30
WHAT
IS
A SHORT-STORY
II.
WHAT A SHORT-STORY
in
IS
Having seen
differ
from the
short-
will
be a
much
tive qualities.
The
istics
true short-story
is
marked by seven
character-/
1.
2.
3.
A A
Imagination.
4. Plot.
5.
Compression.
Organization.
6.
7.
Unity of Impression.
All of these either have been discussedjn the negative exposition or will be touched
it
upon
laterll
Perhaps, then,
is
Short-Story
is
brief,
are so compressed,
its
is
to say
and comharmo-
WheiTTiwo " chief " characters are chi-e-f-. coordinate, as is rarely the case, the exception will merely sustain this element in the definition.
Note the word
strictly
WHAT
niously and effectively,
IS
A SHORT-STORY
great.
it is
its brilliant
qualities
may
defec-
tive parts.
Thus
criticism
must be
and unpreju-
diced.
Do
of
all
is
sum
parts.
The completed
it
must possess a
And who
secret?
must be almost a living personality. and lay bare its vital At every stage of our inquiry we must feel
own,
will analyze that for us
it is
how
impossible
to
to nail
saw up a story and find anything and glue its parts together
Unless the writer
is
The
story, the
yam,
tell
is
have a story to
diction.
the telling of
foolish contra-
"
But "
"
if
the
short-story
is
and
is all that, I
am
in despair.
How
so
shall I
of
many
fences
"
For reassuring reply look at the painter of pictures. Having passed through the times of thou-shalt-not and thou-shalt, he is all the freer to express his ideals with individuality. The body of rules he has learned is not so much with him consciously while he works, as that
it
ability
to criticise himself.
Beyond
that, rules
have no value,
re-
and,
when
produce wooden
32
suits.
WHAT
The canons of
IS
A SHORT-STORY
lights,
not as destructive
OUTLINE SUMMARY
I.
WHAT A
1.
SHORT-STORY
IS
NOT
Not
2.
3.
4. 5.
6.
an Episode
a Scenario a Biography a Mere Sketch a Tale SHORT-STORY
IS
II.
WHAT A
Seven
characteristics,
and
definition.
cause
ary.)
6.
Is
method between
Tfie Vicar
WHAT
7.
IS
A SHORT-STORY
33
a tale, or a
short-story?
8.
ble,
dote.
9.
an allegory, (e) a myth, (f) a legend, (g) an anec(See dictionary.) Is it always possible to put into words the final impression
Illustrate.
of a short-story?
10.
Write (a) a brief fairy story, (b) a parable, (c) a fable, (d) an anecdote, (e) a tale in imitation of a myth. 11. Write a tale based upon (a) an adventure, (b) or travel, (c) or a legend, (d) or a psychic experience. Write a sketch showing (a) a phase of character, (b) or 12. a bit of home life, (c) or an emotion.
Just now, do not bother about the later instructions of volume, but write according to your present standards. All written work should be preserved, so that rewriting and development may be called for in connection with later study.
this
Note:
CHAPTER
II
KINDS OF SHORT-STORY
and exacting as are its requirements, up as many kinds of mirrors as life demands for the reflection of its numberless aspects and experiences. It affords, too, ample opportunity for subtle and penetrating analysis; for close and merciless study of morbid temperaments or vitally sympathetic portraitures of great natures contending with tragic conditions for the segregation of a bit of significant experience and a finished presentation of its aspects and effects; for the detachment of a single figure from the dramatic movement, and a striking sketch of its features and gestures; for the dissection of a motive so searching and skilful
Narrow
as are
its
limits
the
short-story
holds
its deepest roots are laid bare; for effectiveness in bringing a series of actions into clear light in a sudden and brief crisis, and telling a complete story by suggestion; for the delicate im-
that
pressionism which by vividness or charm of phrase and diffusion of atmosphere, magically conveys the sense of landscape; for
the touch of
Hamilton W.
it
impossible as
would be useless
the
to compile a
descriptive catalogue of
all
He
Be-
who
sides,
does
not recognize
scarcely produce
kinds of story
to their profit.
spirit
may mate
much
upon by the
KINDS OF SHORT-STORY
tears.
35
As
romance
do
known
varieties.
Thus
must be
re-
garded as general
spirits,
by no
and
Itheans exhaustive
may
may
say in
closely as
A SHORT-STORY CLASSIFICATION
Children
for Children
{
'
for Adults
School
College
Youth
I.
Stories
Adventure
Start in Life
Based on
Types of
Humanity.
Women
{
'
Love
Politics
Men
War
Adventure
^ Whitcomb, in The Study of a Novel, appendix, differentiates over two hundred "types of prose fiction," without classifying them, however.
36
KINDS OF SHORT-STORY
KINDS OF SHORT-STORY
37
38
KINDS OF SHORT-STORY
4
fication
(a)
Try
to
classi-
(b) Criticise the classification. Construct at least five combinations from the foregoing 5. list, thus: character-trades-comedy; a children's-adventure-
fairy story.
material?
Draw up a short plan for such a story. From memory what kind of stories does Kipling generally write? W. W. Jacobs? "O. Henry"? Mary Wilkins Freeman ? Henry James ? " Anthony Hope " ? " Mark Twain " ? Name your favorite short-story writer and tell the sort of 9.
8.
Why
What
Does
do you
adays ?
12.
seem to you
to be
a bad or a good
sign,
and
why?
39
In literary as in all other art, structure is all-important, felt, that architectural conception or painfully missed, everywhere of work, which foresees the end in the beginning and never loses sight of it, and in every part is conscious of all the rest, till the last sentence does but, with undiminished vigor, unfold and
justify the
first
mind
in style.
Walter
...
Patek.
do not believe in hard and fast rules for the construction Methods of work must vary with individual temperaments. My own way of work naturally seems to me the most logical, but I realize that this is a question which each writer must decide for himself. Personally, I find it necessary to know the general course of a story, and above all to know Aklo Bates. the end before I can begin it.
I
of stories.
PART
II
CHAPTER I
CHOOSING A THEME
First of all (I would say), choose a truly American subject.
essential.
my young
friend,
you should
is
Americanism is what the age demands and it must be produced even if we have to invent a machine to do it. Do not go abroad for your theme. Do not trifle with the effete European nightingale or ramble among Roman ruins. Take a theme from the great Republic; something that comes close to the business and bosoms of the Democracy; something unconventional and virile. Take, for example, the Clam the native,
American, free-born, little-neck Clam. We all know it. We all love it. Deal originally and vividly with the Clam. Henry Van Dyke, Some Reflections on the Magazines: a humorous
address delivered before the Periodical Publishers' Association of America, Washington, D. C, April 17, 1904,
The
short-story
is
modern world,
our land,
form of literature is adequate to their expression and we have only begun the development of its infinite resources. There are no limits to the range of theme suitable to the short-story, except only propriety
41
42
CHOOSING A THEME
and bigness. One might fill volumes in attempting name the unending varieties of life, and their infir
interplay,
which
preter's pen.
sis
of character,
brilliant
portraiture
march of
the free
2
achievement
all
unmeasured sweep of a myriad-sided nation dwelli in a young land of swiftly-changing color comes to
is
American story-artist, clamoring for delineation. Th no lack of fresh themes. But from this embarrassment of riches how does writer select a theme? Doubtless, no two just alii yet all methods of selection may roughly be incluc under either of two. For some writers
:
I.
The Theme
Is
Born Spontaneously
into
That
is, it
may
just "
is
pop
your mind."
Now
so vivid as to
amount to the
You may
sleeping,
be doing anything
wl
<
waking or
alert or apathetic,
suddenly a
cries
:
spirit arises
" Sir,
Madame,
no
am
a Story.
Write
me
up
Then
there
is
upon paper.
Naturally, a well-furnished
mind
is
produce
story-germs in this
manner, hence
the pot
CHOOSING A THEME
in the succeeding chapter
It
43
to determine just
how
theme
is
ing upon the mass of materials already a part of the author's mental, moral,
At other times
to
its
we may
source-spring.
look, a
word dropped
in conin the
versation,
an incident on the
street, a
paragraph
from any of
flash
may
There
is
a story in this!
more slowly
and
much
who
pa-
Wise
is
that writer
want to add
call.
in
won.
But inspiration
that likened his
is
not always on
to a
Who
was
it
mind
it
mule which
So,
if
habitually ran
to
stop
to run?
due
on Tuesday after next, and no obliging theme has presented itself, or those which have applied have not been found worthy, then the author has no
other recourse than
4
2.
CHOOSING A THEME
Here invention
Iriven
put to
it
for originality.
Writers
ha'
me has
and
Then
the
sevi
sevent
pos!
Still
no theme.
Every
and unprofitable." At k why is the head more inventive when under a h n the open air?) a walk abroad brings the decision
stale,
flat
pronounced "
focus: the theme is found! " I know one writer," says George
W.
Cable, "
w
j
and tension
at the
DOwers,
knowing only
^
was
in the
The
author's brain
all
is
it o'
i
which he puts
The
Pie
"
Bug"
(Poe),
fanuary, 1894. 3 Naturally, the writer's purpose in telling a story whethei please, instruct, chastise, tickle the public, or just to expr something worthy of expresssion will bear strongly upon
theme
selection.
See
p. 284.
CHOOSING A THEME
45
titles
of
hats, but, as
the
stories.
How
fascinating
it
would be
each of a dozen
well-loved writers would give us the intimate life-history of his best fiction, from inspiration
lisher's
down
to pub-
when
its
what notl
3.
Themes Barred
Since nearly
all
it
would
is
Occasionally one
is
accepted,
either
the
story because
is
its
subject.
little chance with an editor. Only a general grouping of subjects which are taboo
Themes.
46
CHOOSING A THEME
whole story above the commonplace level, but that is performance too unusual for even a genius to dally wi Editors and public tired long ago of the poor b often.
whose industry
at last
ei
off the
whose heroism in stamping out a fire enabled her to p mortgage the recovery of the missing will ; t cruel step-mother; answering a prayer which has be
;
child's
influenc
Naturally, nothii
I knc
common
know
the
him.
If
review(
tell
But
tl
rarely so
he has
su
scribed for
parentage.
If
titles,
Now
it
is
this
very qu<
certa
themes from
magazines, and
it is
CHOOSING A THEME
recognize these magazine reputations as
reader.*
It is
it
47
is
for the
not for
me
to decide as to
story
should
sex.
deal
and
it
Some
in the
form of
some bravery to say certain needful things fiction but by common consent the Ameri;
may
be
offense, while
a conventional subject
gestiveness.
may
The magazines
few and
:
unspeakable.
One
thing
quite intolerable
with
levity.
Speaking to
"
this subject.
Dr. Frederic
M. Bird
is
says:
Then
there
is
the improper
tale,
which
of
two
classes.
ladies of
expose the
or
th'e
wickedness of men,
some other abuse of sexual attractions or affections. The public, which takes less account of intentions than
* See Part IV, chap.
ii.
48
of results,
is
CHOOSING A THEME
apt to merge these in one
"
common
con-
meant
to be merely monitory."
(c) Polemic
Themes.
freely take up
the cudgel in defense of a sect, a party, a cult, or a " crankism," but the short-story writer had better avoid
polemics.
and
an unwelcome
pill
but in nineteen
if it
were made up
of
By
this I
is
who
fly
know
not of,
is
legion.
in where
you are
Time
spent on
in-
when you
actually write.
it.
field.
Don't be tempted
to
about
dis-
It is
tinguish between
that
is
curiosity
and an
interest
genuine.
usually.
scenes
life
The stay-at-home cannot write battle The recluse cannot depict societybe
the
usually.
You may
exception,
but
the
1894.
CHOOSING A THEME
chances are that you are not.
of what you
It is better to
49
write well
Some
"
this
writer doesn't
know
his field."
OUTLINE SUMMARY
Choosing a Theme
1.
2.
3.
The Theme Born Spontaneously The Theme Sought Out Themes Barred
(o) Trite
(6) Improper
(c)
(rf)
Polemic Unfamiliar
bloom in this way.) and perfect the statement of them in not more than a sentence or two each, preserving them for use in connection with the chapters on plot. Examine the chains of ideas to discover, if possible, what 3.
startlingly original ideas to
2.
Select
two of
these
gave
4.
Make
list
neyed.
5. 6.
Have you
Where?
collection.
7.
Is
it
well handled?
so
8.
CHOOSING A Theme
If possible,
show how a
fresher treatment
would make
it
more
readable.
Does the moral impropriety of a theme consist in the 9. theme itself or rather in its handling? Discuss. Make a list of polemic themes which seem to you unsuited 10. to the short-story form. Be prepared to give your reasons in
each instance.
CHAPTER
II
and
letters this
is
said
knowledge which was at hand. If books were at his elbow, he read them; if pictures, engravings, gems were within reach, he studied them; if nature was within walking distance, he watched nature; if men were about him, he learned the secrets of their temperaments, tastes, and skills if he were on shipboard, he knew the dialect of the vessel in the briefest possible time; if he traveled by stage, he sat with the driver and learned all about the route, the country, the people, and the art of his companion; if he had a spare hour in a village in which there was a manufactory, he went through it with keen eyes, and learned the mechanical processes used in it." Hamilton W. Mabie, Essays on Books and Culture.
habitually fed himself with any kind of
;
He
The
writer
is first
of
all
its
and
its
No
Next,
he studies books.
let
it
be the
Once convinced
would seem
ically,
that
somewhere
in
step
Log-
To do
so would be to igis
now
a fine art,
52
and badly-told
as
even
that preparation
succeeding chapters,^
successful authorship
must be looked
at with
an eye to
their possible
may become
a daily stor-
when some chosen theme will call forth its utmost resources. So bear in mind, in all that follows, that your
gathering will have either a particular or a general object.
first
is
I.
Observation
at first hand.
Get the
facts.
If
They
will hit
readers harder,
you have gone straight to the original Ruskin took a common rock-crys-
and saw hidden within its stolid heart a world of Thoreau sat so still in the shadowy woods that birds and insects came and opened up their secret lives
interest.
to his eye.
1
life of
Part
III.
'
S3
child-
mind.
Sir
Waher
Guy
at this minuteness of study, the Wizard " in nature' herself no two scenes were exreplied that
wondered
actly alike,
truly
what was
corded;
whereas
whoever
trusted
to
imagination,
would soon
tracted to a
find his
own mind
few favorite images." ^ Whoever has done literary work," says Arlo Bates,^ " is likely to have discovered how constantly the literary mind must be on the alert. The daughters of the horse"
leech that in the Scriptures are said^ continually to cry
'
Give
Give
'
is
the greedy
it
has
He who makes
his
tireless
literature a profession
at high tide.
As
and
grasping,
grasping, grasping
facts,
accumulation of ideas, of
is
of impres-
sions,
literary material,
p. 20.
54
And
"
Professor
spirit
this:
The
is
general, outer
and
. .
is
practically identical
with
what
called
bom
observer."*
will find quite as much suggestive human nature as in studying the of creation. With the works of the great
lower orders
emulation,
surely
indeed
other.
is
field for
Myriads of interesting men and women are waiting for some master hand to pluck out the heart
of their mystery.
Holman Day, Mary Wilkins Freeman, and " O. Henry," have not " used up " all the
unique characters in America.
It
may be
urged that
all
this elaborate
and minute
Not
so.
No
one can
all the
who
has not
first
nonessentials.
The work of
work of
rejection.
2.
Expcrieuce
"
Mark Twain
deliberately
p. 397.
55
He made
five
hundred dollars
this simple inci-
who
The
results
were observable.
In
Tommy
and
Grizel,
Tommy
the sentimentalist-author,
Doubtless
all
Experience
may
be de-
of the authors of
Toils,''
The
;
Workers,''
The
Woman Who
and similar books but for the most part the really valuable experience is that into which our daily walk
leads us.
There we
*
shall find
lit-
eratesque,"
s " '
The Short-Story,
Professor Walter Wyckoflf. Marie Van Vorst and Mrs. John Van Vorst. 8 " There should be a word in the language of literary art to express what the word 'picturesque' expresses for the fine arts. Picturesque means fit to be put into a picture; we want a word literatesque, 'fit to be put into a book.' An artist goes through a hundred different country scenes, rich with beauties, charms and merits* but he does not paint any of them. He leaves them alone; he idles on till he finds the hundred-and-first a scene which many observers would not think much of, but which he knows by virtue of his art will look well on canvas, and this Literature he paints and preserves. the painting of words has the same quality, but wants the analogous word. The word ' literatesque ' would mean, if we possessed it, that perfect combination in the subject-matter of literature, which As a painter must not only suits the art of literature. have a hand to execute, but an eye to distinguish as he must go here and there through the real world to catch the picturesque man, the picturesque scene, which is to live on his canvas so
...
as sources
3.
Self-study
saying,
'
had a
Looke
it
'
in thy heart
write
'
e
If
human
' ;
by studying myknowledge
all his
human understanding was derived from studying own mind. " * One peril lies along this path, however, and to it the med author of Childe Harold fell a victim; its avoidthe
'
All that Byron ever was so tinctured with his own personality that the ader must see the author's portrait in his characters. tiey all do and think and say very nearly what Byron ould, under like conditions. Maupassant fell into the me trap, as did Poe and Hawthorne, though in less igree.^" All morbid and self-centered artists are peice is
mark
of real greatness.
rote
iliarly liable
certain
amount of
this self-
and undress
one's
poet must find in that reality, the Uteratesque man, the literasque scene which nature intends for him, and which will live his page." Bagehot, Literary Studies, Vol. II, pp. 341, 343, 345. From the Author's to Attract and Hold an Audience, (Hinds, Noble & Eldredge, New York.) 55.
e
How
" See
p. 248.
57
short-stories
to
have Pee,
Hawas
thorne,
morbid
The
golden
middle-path,
Horace put
is
if
such
4. Reflection
habit than
mor-
Reflection
in a figure.
is
placid and clear the mind must be to summon to its magic mirror images of past days and find them projected there in all their pristine color, form and detail. Memory is the soul
meaning
How
re-image gives
to
This its limbs and members. withdraw oneself from the hurly-burly and
.
Imagination
calls
up
adding to the real the touch of fantasy, and even creating beings and cycles the like of which " never was on
sea or land."
and imagination both need to be nurtured with the food of solitude and humored by oft-practice ; and both repay the time and care beReflection
stowed.
In
Afterthoughts
:
of
Story-Teller,'^^
George
W.
Cable says
"
No
may
American Review,
158:16.
58
having
in his
the most of
life."
it
and apprehended
life
it
all,
own
inner
sense be vicarious
the
5.
You
see,
" inner
Reading
man,' said much-quoted Bawill
full
be
full
of
other men's
little.
dynamic store of
fact
and fancy.
digest too
and
But to be the
is
slavish imitator
inferi-
of those
ority.
whom you
read
the sign-manual of
Here
is
Bossuet read
'
read Spenser's
Faerie Queene
as the preliminary to
The
favorites of Milton
were Homer
classics
and Euripides.
promiscuously.
to
composing.
Pope read Dryden as his habitual Corneille read Tacitus and Livy.
.
aid
. .
With great
erally
facile
method of educating
their
of
original creation."
p. 303.
59
"Books are
What
all
is
\Miat
is
means go to effect? They are for nothing but to inspire. I had better never see a book than to be warped by its attraction dean out of my own orbit, and made a satellite instead of a system." Emerson here " uses the enthusiast's license to exaggerate, but it is a wholesome hyperbole and will not frighten
the sensible reader out of a respect for the information
In the
same
essay, a
:
little
word
"
One must be an
'
As
He
that
There
ing."
is
field for
the gather-
6. Discussion
Sometimes he
teU
Many a litmany a " Bohemian " garret, could fascinating tales of how stories were bom and brought
" The
"See
American Scholar.
Part III, chap.
i.
iticism.
As
there
is
to
the
It
om
the
put
But how
;ction,
we
observation,
and
reis
The answer
7.
Taking Notes
Let
)e
it
only in some
way
loosely
on your
your own random thoughts and the facts and you get from every source. See what even a newsiper item may mean to you
eserve
eas
"
t
A
of
its
structure a plot, a
brief
;wspaper paragraph.
He
[Richard Harding
description
meat of his story, weaves around it and dialogue, until a complete story
the result."
1
"
An Interview with F. HopHerald, quoted in Current Litera-
How
to
nson Smith
re,
June, 1896.
6l
OUTLINE SUMMARY
Gathering the Materials
1.
2. 3. 4.
5.
Reading
Discussion
6.
7.
Taking Notes
ent objects as
2.
3.
After one glance out of a window, set down as many differyou remember seeing, going minutely into detail. Take a longer look and correct your paper.
In
what
respects
differ
(a)
in dress,
(b)
tests of the
made by asking the pupils to tell the color of a friend's eyes, how many rungs are in the front of his chair, how many steps lead up to the piazza, the kind of numerals on the face of his
watch, and the like
4.
all without specially looking. Search for evidences of superficial observation in the shortstories of any current magazine. Write out any unusual experiences which seem to you to 5. be " literatesque." 6. Discussion: Should the writer deliberately go out after adventures and experiences, or simply be observant of what he meets in the usual course? Give reasons "pro and con." Write about two hundred words showing how " self-aware7. ness " is a good source of fictional material. 8. Write several paragraphs reporting accurately what you are now thinking. Continuously press in upon yourself the question. What am I now thinking? Do an hour's deliberate reading, following your own 9. choice, and report the result, carefully noting such materials as
not seek for quantity, but for quality. 10. General report: What kinds of reading proved most history, essays, poetry, drama>, fiction? imulating 11. Let the instructor assign to the students, individually, e task of suggesting hovir scrap-books, card-indexes, etc., may
Do
kept.
12.
Gather at least
five
CHAPTER
III
FACT IN FICTION
Prefer an impossibility which seems probable, which seems impossible. Aristotle.
to a probability
be said boldly that fiction is truer than fact. Half the difference of opinion on the whole subject rests upon a mental confusion between two things, fact and truth fact, the mass
It
may
of particular and individual dtetails; truth, that is of general and universal import fact, the raw material; truth, the finished article into which it is to be made up, with hundreds of chances
R.
G.
Reading.
AH
its
fiction is fabricated
from
fact.
Running through
warp and woof, it would fall apart at the reader's touch. If only some master of fiction would frankly speak out and tell us in what precise proportions fact and figment should be mixed in weaving the short-story. But the
wisest author cannot prescribe a fixed formula.
It is a
with the
and
is
setting, to
make a good
ation; but
local color,
and
63
64
FACT IN FICTION
photographically reproduced and yet result in a good perhaps never. It is the old short-story? Rarely
The one
is
not a respecter
is.
I.
and ideaUsm; but it is both difficult and undedam up all the sociable little water-courses that insinuate their way across Mesopotamia and lightly
sirable to
Romance
gains
when
tinc-
and tiresome.
The
may
in the-
the utmost he
may
safely do
is
to give preeminence
to
He
that
is
for mere
theory's sake.
It is quite
to
discuss
schools
it
will be
enough
briefly.
is
(a) "Realism,"
1
nothing more
For adequate
tion, Bliss
studies of Realism see A Study of Prose FicPerry, chap, ix; The Limits of Realism in Fiction, Gosse, in Questions at Issue; Criticism and Fiction,
FACT IN FICTION
or
less
65
^
This
statement
we
This he
"
men
as they are
and denies that the author should present his own point
of view in a story, or even attempt to interpret the words
and actions of his characters, who should be neither championed nor denounced by the author, but judged
by the reader
evidently are.
solely
from what they think, do, say, and " That fiction which lacks romantic atis realistic.
No mafaithful
so long as he
life.
makes a
transcript of contemporary
(b) Romanticism
" is
as untrammeled as realism
is cir-
cumscribed.
it
of what material
will,
reality.
being well content with only a general seeming of With one of its accepted apostles it says, " Ficnot nature,
it is it is
tion
is
not character,
it is
not imagined a
lie
history;
if
you
like,
true
a beautiful
lie
that
*
is
at once false
and
Criticism
and
Fiction, p. 73.
In
Le Roman Experimental.
Study of Prose Fiction, p. 229. See the chapter on The Romantic Novel, in The Evolution of the Novel, Francis Hovey Stoddard; The Domain of Romance, Maurice Thompson, Forum, 8 328. * The New Watchwords of Fiction, Hall Caine, Contemporary Review, April, 189a
^
:
*A
66
FACT IN FICTIOK
more or
or else lays
down
method is illustrated by Eugene Sue. In Poe's criticism of The Mysteries of Paris, he remarks that the incidents which follow upon
truthfully thereupon.
the premises are perfectly credible, but the premises themselves "are laughably impossible.
Yet
this
very device
its
has
made
the success of
many a
wonder-story, for in
work.
Of romance, Evelyn May Albright says,^ " But a commoner interpretation of the term seems to include an element of remoteness of place or time or an element of the
;
abnormal or unusual inexperience, of the frankly impossible; or the element of the supernatural, including
intangible
The
might more
implies,
name
born of an
ideal,
which
what,
it
seeks to express.
A characcertain
ter is conceived
of as living
in
conditions.
Now
is
circumstances,
might,
The answer
partial (realistic)
<
8
The Short-Story,
i8o.
See The InRuence of Idealism tn Fiction, Ingrad Harting, Humanitarium, Vol. VI.
FACT IN FICTION
as by the ideals held by the author.
as the author thinks
it
67
life
Idealism pictures
and
is
must be emphasized that leisurely and full find any one of these
in the shortall
which Jin
its
three elementSr*
lineation
From
realism
takes
its
faithful deit
it
from
idealism
how
cer-
or
how a
mould
his
own
is
final
environ-
ment.
An
" Twenty-Six
series."
Maxim
Gorky's vagabond
Rudyard
Kipling's "
The Man
Who Would Be
King."
So much for
distinctions,
time
now
fiction.
is
" This Every editor knows these sentences by heart it occurred exactly as I have written it, a true story
title
(J.
F. Taylor
&
Co.,
New
York).
58
the
FACT IN FICTION
ny
"
not at
all
over-
drawn as
daughter ran
Thus ambitious realists think that the single quality of Edelity to fact must give any incident a passport to roam
it will
realists,
authors and
critics
letter
maketh
alive.
Unless
is
fiction
ing as
of a gory, gushy, ghoulish sort which is as shockit intends to be, " succeeds " in proportion as it
departs
from
truth,
and glories
in its degeneracy.
is
But
a teaching power.
Your
of life
it
obligation to
tell
that
is,
to
which
is
If you trifle with you ought to fail in fiction, and probably you will. Even farce must not mislead morally in its efforts to enis
immeasurably profound.
tertain.
Let
it
still
be-
neath the solemn cassock, or the suit of heroic armor, it must slyly disclose its cap and bells, as if to say, " See,
" Mark Twain " is never so philowhen he is side-splitting. " When anybody's Speaking now of serious fiction work lacks, verisimilitude' when it impresses you as beI
am
sophical as
life,
FACT IN FICTION
sonable probability
talent,
69
it
we have
feel
^
little
use for
think and
and
talk
and
would
in real life."
When
of
Antony and Brutus he wrote history. Not that in any words of these orators he would not copied them had their words been extant; but have so in that with consummate understanding he wrote out
sense he copied the
;
the spirit of the orators. This it is to " found the story on fact," to " hold the mirror up to nature," to " speak
truth as though
it
were
fiction
and
fiction as
though
it
were truth."
Figment and fact, then, must become a composite neither of them so prominent as to spoil the story. Only
the characteristic, the delineative, the salient in situation,
in emotion, in character, in conversation, in
denouement,
must be selected
in the
most highly
combining
must
vitalize fact
He must
which
in
The
in
'
Pit
De
the
Maupassant does
force
1
The
Necklace,' or secure
all
narrative,
1895.
70
as
FACT IN FICTION
in
'
The Man
Who Would
Be
King,' or
he has done in
American
critic
OUTLINE SUMMARY
Fact in Fiction
;
Fiction
Composite Method
in Fiction
2.
Discussion:
Is the practice of
realistic
writing robbing
fiction?
the
2.
Discussion: Is idealism a practical philosophy of life? Discussion, or paper: Ought a short-story writer take 4. iides for or against his characters, or ought he remain neutral? (See Part II, chap, xi.)
3.
5.
istic
Describe, in fiction form, the street you live on, with realattention to detail.
6.
life.
Write an absolutely
homely
Rewrite 5 and 6 in a romantic spirit. Rewrite them in an idealistic spirit. Make a list of facts which might be used in fiction. 9. Construct an incident from one of these and embellish 10. n romantic form.
7.
8.
it
1'
CHAPTER
PLOT
IV
My
of us
model
is
stories, entitled
Euclid, whose justly celebrated book of short The Elements of Geometry, will live when most
scribbling
who
are
to-day are
forgotten.
Euclid
lays
down
work
no incident creep in that does not bear relation to the climax, using no unnecessary word, always keeping his one end in view, and the moment he reaches the culmination he stops. Robert Bass, The Bookman, March, 1897.
We
able to recognize
many
clear general
For
this
dogmatic and
comprehensive
final,
exposition.
subject
chapters.
discussed.
This
is
now
to be
I.
WHAT
IS
A SHORT-STORY PLOT
is
In
its
argument or action of the story^/ But these are general many varieties of plot as to be more
7\
^2
brief
PLOT
than
illuminating.
Professor Bliss Perry says, rather vaguely, that plot is " that which happens to the
characters."
applied to
Some one else has loosely called it life." To hazard an exact definition
^
:
" design
Plot in
characters.
it is
More
simply,
it is
itself,
divested of
characterization
and conversation.
Not
used in
modern
short-story, and,
if
we
ex-
is itself
a recent development.^
drift of
The
go
to
events in
make up a
arranged
so
Thus
stories of
made
(artificially) to follow
it is
a simple
natural.
The
arti-
touch
may
the artificiality is there. In this treatise the word " plot " is regarded as having a narrower meaning than that of the word " theme," ^
which always stands for the subject-idea of the story, without any elaboration. It is out of the theme that the
^ 2
3
p.
129.
PLOT
plot
73
is
embryonic, or potential
How
stated
mere
theme
now
illustrate.
The
theme of "
The
Reformation of Calliope," by " O. Henry," * may be stated as, How the " Terror" Calliope Catesby, came to
serve as city marshal.
the
title.
This
tells
us
little
title
might serve as a
Compare
this
with the
full
is a Westerner at best a nui" terror " who habitually hangs out sance, at worst a
low
spirits,"
and these
"
the denizens of
The
in
drink,
and
nickname.
is
attacked
Cal-
Bupk
train
follows
and
is
shot.
little
Just
now
the
westbound
comes
in
and a
She
is
Calliope's
In a flash the
and pins
it
on
his
own
shirt.
He
mother that he
is city
the pros-
74
PLOT
revives, she pleads with
As Buck
less habits.
him to give up his reckWith a glance of understanding at Calliope^ Buck promises. The old lady then leaves the waitingroom to look after her trunk, and Buck, assured of the
mother by allowing him to pose as
city
to
marshal during the week of her visit, and goes out post the " boys " as to this novel state of affairs.
true plot
ity,
But now we must look for one essential featur^ofa complication, by which I mean not complex-
but a happening, a
crisis.
out crises are without plots, and, as has been said, are
tales
that happening starts, or sometimes actually constitutes, the plot. The rival interferes with the lover, or the " villain " carries out his
'hidden condition
up,
is
disclosed;
tied
suspense
until
the denouement
'
the
untying, as the
word
really sig-
nifies.
'"^tfnless
in-
wardly,
we can have no
and no
short-storj^
You
it
and
sketches-
records of
life
element of fantasy.
subtle of
Mr. Henry
PLOT
75
in
must
the
characters
the
literator
lineated,
and
in observing the
movement of
sort.
in natural channels.
terest is of
an entirely different
not aroused
by,
it is
and
devices, is
to this
art.
used largely
if
In
his
He
says:
"
mere succession of
most
spir-
ited, will
of zeros, even the most infinite, will result in the production of a unit.
will
admit
but
few trouble
notion seems
-The
common
plot,
properly
understood,
is
we
shall find
or disarrange any
This
we
say
is
a point never
Prac-
76
tically,
PLOT
we may
its
wh
no one of
component parts
II.
KINDS OF PLOT
all
Various
to a
critics
plots
may
be reduc
few general
classifications,
may
be,
in
dv
grateful.
doubtless an
:
imperfect groupi
will
now
be briefly examined
prise;
Problem; Mystery; Mood or Emotion or Sen ment; Contrast; and Symbolism. Let it be remember
that these are only general groupings,
is likely
and that a
stc
more than one element as well as a one of a thousand minor variations.* The danger is tl
to exhibit
Nothing could be mc
ribbons at the
show
for
Dane.
PLOT
I.
'J'J
That
is
the
sound sense
to devise
make
the de^
in "
Marjorie Daw,"
for
the three-cornered
plot
is
used:'
A
One
is
young woman
pass.
new
land, she
Her
him
He
meet frequently.
accepts him,
He
when
all,
it
not her
old lover at
The
31:407.
in Barrett's Short Story Writing coninteresting examples of the prevalence of the threecornered, or "three-leaved clover," plot. Mistaken identity is a very old device.
78
2.
PLOT
This
full of
is
a self-explanatory term.
stories
problem
some
serious,
Though not
more
the characters
Sometimes the writer leaves the reader wondering how met the issue a dangerous device. Not
For months after that ingenious hoax was perpetrated upon the public, smart writers bombarded weary editors with one imitation after another until newspaper notices began to appear, warning young story-tellers that no such plots could be conthe Tiger."
^*
"
The Lady or
sidered.
Now
tackles a
problem which
is
off the
The
that the
interesting;
likely to
be apparent
by the master.
The problem
10
:
up a character and
con-
Century, 25 83. In Rupert of Hentzau any other ending than the death of Rudolf would have forced an unpleasant decision upon the
"
PLOT
centrates a white light
79
typical life-crisis, with
upon some
downward path
Somethe
away from
is
shown
in the
made long
as
Then
in "
The Delusion
of Gideon Snell."
"
Most
stories dealing
The
mystery story,
here be given.
Whether Poe modeled Monsieur Dupin's deductions upon the reasoning of Voltaire's clever Zadig is open
to question, but
it
is
They
all
last.
ment
closer
is
woven
with
the author's
less
you
see.
of delineation
1=*
hut
when he
8o
as does Sherlock
PLOT
know him
quite well.
In the detective
in full
cai
to the reader at
proper moment.
the
Of course, the detective always p winning game against the author, and this pie
murder
is
the reader.
If a
must
fully,
j
Then,
so interes
i
But you know the conventii enough; to invest the old problems
^
invention.
single
comment, and
".
ghost
story
can
be
brought
into
charmed and charming circle only if we have made our minds to believe in the ghosts; otherwise their troduction would not be a square deal. It would
be
fair, in
PLOT
Tell
8
is
;
me
to include both
I
make
scope.
simply attune
I
my mind
to the
more extensive
But
rebel at
tale is
As
tion.
its
name
is its
exposi-
enjoys
all
until
the
close
by
plot.^*
4.
The Plot
of
Mood, Emotion,
or Sentiment
Do
man
may
There
is
an action
When
you have a powerful combination. Here is a fine Hawthorne and Poe are the field for delicate treatment. masters in America, as yet unapproached Maupassant
;
among
the Frenchi
In stories
and
by a dominant mood
like the
Fall of the
in "
House of Usher
^
" or an emotion
;
The
like fear,
Coward,"
like
ment
1*
82
PLOT
All of these great stories, and mc
i
Great Carbuncle."
cle
mood
stc
of incident.
5.
is
yiel
and two dissolute women, having been driven c of Poker Flat, a western mining camp, fall in with unsophisticated young man and the young girl whc
he
is
about to marry.
They
are
all
snowed
in
by a
t(
rible blizzard,
their privations
down
a masterpi(
Contrast of characters
may
serve as foundation
d
c<
v
(
be found
is
full
whose
PLOT
6.
83
The
fictions
lofty
stories is
in his
symbolic
Yet
this
purpose in Haw[as]
thorne "
is
the
The
The
Birth-
mark
form
"
'
Such an idea
is
jotted
down
To
might appear
out.' "
i
in
sin,
this to
be
brought
The
story
plot of
which plainly seeks to teach a lesson. To be worth reading it must be very well done indeed. Few writers possess the skill, sincerity and power of Bunyan
and Hawthorne.
to be
one
symbolism always
in a didactic
is
more ready
coated as fiction,
failures.
Speaking generally,
lesson
teach
its
very
delicately
"
They
"
may
safely be taken as a
^*
59,
quoted in
Albright, p. 43. See this author's suggestive chapters Motive as the Source of Plot," and " Plot."
84
PLOT
III.
demands of art, is adequate to the purpose of the author, and satisfactorily impresses the reader. Judged by this standard good plots might seem to be few, but this is not the case. Without doubt most short-stories fail of acceptance because of some defect other than that of an unsatisfactory
By
this I
plot.
Usually, plot
is
better than
workmanship.
I.
its
vehicle.
One
hundred
words are enough in which to compact a statement of the plot of almost any first-rate short-story. You cannot
atone for the feebleness of situation by multiplying
dent.
inci-
called),
Avoid wheels within wheels (sub-plots, they are for they divert from the power of the main situation. But, it is objected, some of the greatest
triumphantly use sub-plots, double-plots, and
Granted, but not because they
epi-
artists
sodes.
know no
better.
Only
swift
and
then
sometimes
lose.
Be
Remember
PLOT
be so cleverly handled that
85
read with pleasure
we
and
;
and enraged
for
we thought
ful
and
lo,
there
is
not."
"
A simple plot is
ashamed
and^ritated.
Simplicity consorts with unity. panions.
Let unity
fiction
must be
Glass,
White Queen in Through a Looking who by practice was at length able to believe
like the
so
many
is
Some
but
hours.
is
mind
Even
true, still to
fishes are
If little in
com-
Plausibility
tionist.
the adept
all
fic-
things are
believable,
silenced,
even
if
86
unconvinced.
PLOT
In ancient times tales dealt with the impossible," then they took up possibilities, next they essayed improbable situations, later they depicted the prob<rable, sist
and nowadays Messrs. Howells, James upon limiting our themes to the inevitable.
change from romance to realism
is
&
Co.
in-
Whether
this
is
or
is
not progress
It is a tendency to be reckoned
with in story-telling.
You must
re-
No
matter
how
impos-
plausibility of
at this point.
lie
The primary
necessity
When
the author
G.
asserts that
Mars
is
accepts
So far, all is easy. But now these Marmust behave in such a manner as to justify themThere is no objection to selves and become realities.
creating a wonder-island, or a
can
fly,
is
objection to constructing
perform
Upon
will not
do to introduce
1' modification of Professor Brander Matthews' statement, that, " Fiction dealt first with the Impossible, then with the Im-
now
at
last
with
the
PLOT
wonder-plot into
thereto.
87
is
an atmosphere which
not suited
condition,
logical con-
The
tion
effect,
idea of plot
its
is
inherent in the
human mind.
Fic-
found
germs
in nature.
tiny
ples.
these
it
among
civilized peo-
than
Now
and then
is
accident,
or what seems such to be, crops up, but the general reader does not want to feel that chance
pets of the characters in the story.
making pupplausi-
In extravaganza he
demands a
is
You may
"~niegreat
sistent
truth-seeming
when they
words
final
in their story-telling
issue,
or, at least,
portents.
which his followers afterwards knew to have had reference to coming events.
3.
Originality'^^
" It
is
^
sight "
^
is
the ever-increasing
See chapter on Originality, Part III, chap. i. ^"After-thoughts of a Story-Teller, George W. Cable, North
American Review,
Jan., 1894.
88
cry.
pujT
Nor
is this
Poe says:
" Originality, properly considered,
is,
is
threefold.
There
first,
by which the thesis is developed; and, thirdly, that of the manner or tone, by which means alone an old Subject, even when
developed through hackneyed incidents or thoughts, may
which,
after
is
is also
We
are content
the
among Hall
readers.
steadily
spirit
army of
He
follows the
Fortnightly Review, LVII N. S., p. 187. Also compare the of these three short-stories: (a) "The Cask pf Amontillado," by Poe, in which a revengeful man lures his enemy to some ancient wine vaults and walls him up in a niche alive, (b) "La Grande Breteche," by Balzac, in which a husband learns that an intruder is hiding in a closet and has him walled up alive before his wife's eyes, (c) "The Duchess at Prayer," by Edith' Wharton, in which a cruel and neglectful husband learns that his wife has been intriguing with a cousin in a crypt of the famil; chapef, and entombs the cousin alive by placing a heavy marble statue of his wife over the only entrance to the crynt
''>
f<Iots
PLOT
89
Mr. Leslie
W.
Quirk
cites 'in
inter-
4.
y
Toward
There
its
is
and summit the reader lingers in suspense for a longer or shorter moment. From thence the plot swiftly falls away to its
steadily progress, directly
without episode or
digression.
On
that
full close.
we
5-
Interest
^
it
'KiUhJ^tt
must touch the
like
sort.
The good
plot
must be
interesting,
The remote,
editor takes
out-of-date, feeble,
Remember
-against
that
when an
up your manuscript
it
you
you
must win
interest,
is
not waiting
for
you ready-made.
others.
it
Your story is in competition with Your judge knows a good story when he meets
looking for good points in yours
and
is
with
this
:
an
But be sure of
what
does
in-
it fails if it
human
II,
go
PLOT
like " Br'er Rabbit " and " Br'er Fox." human guise Make up your mind that human interest cannot be
" faked."
lay hold of
Get close
it,
to the
it,
pulsating
life
know
it,
feel
believe in
sympathize with
it
do something for it, live it, and as pours through the channels of your own being it will
qualify
you
and
interestingly.
Take Wilkie
fiction-writing, "
Make 'em laugh make 'em cry make 'em wait." At the same time, "mix your paint with brains." The great life-forces which compel men's in;
sacrifice,
and
all
the rest
convincing power.
fiction will
awake
to
life.
OUTLINE SUMMARY
I.
WHAT
1.
IS
A SHORT-STORY PLOT
II.
KINDS OF PLOT
Surprise Plot
2. 3.
4.
5. 6.
III.
WHAT
1.
Simplicity
Plausibility
2. 3.
Originality
4. 5.
Clifnax
Interest
PLOT
91
What
differences
is
and
similarities
plot which
2.
Do you
any peculiar
fitness
The long
Construct a simple plot from one of these themes; (a) self-reproach of a man who thinks he has committed a crime but at length discovers that appearances deceived him.
3.
(b) How the double meaning of a remark caused a complication in the affairs of a conceited man. (c)
humorous
How
her
neighbor caused such a change in the thought and bearing of a woman that she finally believed she had actually committed the injury. The consequences. Select from the current magazines at least four stories 4. illustrating the different kinds of plot named on page 90.
projected
injury
to
Briefly
summarize the
plots,
in
the
manner shown
in
Apmost you
pendix C.
Which of the six kinds of plot do you find 5. common? How many stories, and what magazines,
the did
examine in coming to a conclusion? 6. Do certain magazines seem to prefer certain kinds of plot? If so, specify; and assign reasons. Name as many minor kinds of plot as you can which 7. might be included under the six general kinds. Point out the main complication (crisis) in each of the 8.
first
four plots in
Appendix
C.
Try
to
substitute a
different
Do
Try
10.
you see any weak points in any of these four plots? to find a story that has no complication in the course
Is
it
of
its
a tale, a sketch,
or a short-story?
11.
story for
12.
act
plot.
13.
Suggest a possible complication and say how on the interest of the plot if you think there
it
would
a
real
is
Criticise
the
plot
of
story
selected
from
current
92
magazine,
14.
PLOT
with
regard
to
simplicity,
plausibility,
originality,
of
"An
Error of Judgment,"
p. 214, perfectly
pladsible
15.
Construct a simple plot for (a) a recent a novel) whose plot is really an (b) short-story whose plot is
16.
overgrown short-story
plot?
form?
17.
plot of
"The
Note:
reserved
CHAPTER V
PLOT DEVELOPMENT
Let him
[the
fiction
writer]
part
Humble Remonstrance.
s
ter
The foregoing quotation from the great Scottish masmay serve to link the preceding chapter on " Plot
The chapters on " Choosing a Theme," " Gathering the Materials," and " Fact in Fiction " have pointed out
the general sources of literary material,
wrorth while to look
plot-sources, as being
still
it
seems
somewhat
94
^{\
PLOT DEVELOPMENT
I.
The Characters
''
Here
to-wbethef-eircum-
stances govern
to fiction,
men
or
men
that
the
man
plot
seems to me,
is that
make
events.
When
circum-
much
man on to his destiny, we But not all life is tragic. Now and again the hero's hand disposes of affairs and he arises
pile up, irresistibly driving
have tragedy.^
victorious.
"
To many men,
work
doubtless, there
is
far
tion in conceiving a
group of characters
in toiling
and then
more
fascinaset-
ting to
to discover a narrative
than
which
plot,
When
What God in
"
1 2
want
is
to
make a
See chap, xi, Characters and Characterisation. study of Professor Moulton's Shakespeare as a Dramatic Artist will abundantly repay the student. 5 How to Write Fiction, anon., p. 46.
PLOT DEVELOPMENT
95
pompous men,
and
at ease
To
of
whose
is
lightest
word
^
is
What
a field
man comes
upon
to be his contingent
his entire
reformation:
how
does he act?
man
how would he
?
among
his associates
A light woman
will
she
by means of
2.
Dramatic Incidents
Marion Crawford has called the novel a pocket stage.' The same may be said even more truly of the short-story. It is patent to the observer that these two are now influencing each other profoundly. The dramatist and the short-story writer labor with the same materials, under nearly like conditions, and often seek similar effects.
Introduction to Vanity Fair, Biographical Edition. See Hawthorne's American Note Books for many germ-plots based upon conceptions of character.
*
It Is.
96
PLOT DEVELOPMENT
exhibits " characters in action "
The drama
drama
same requirements as
does
is
are
eflfect;
likeness
might be
multi-
and expanded.
time and
place.'
is
The
none of these;
effect,
or impression.
At
the
same time
to
it is
well to
re-
member
which Comeille
called the
It is also
unity of intrigue,
good
plot.
locality
of
which more
charac-
From
ters
the foregoing
it
will
and dramatic
This idea
is
of a Lady, Mr.
of
am much
and the Drama," in A Study of Prose Fiction. For a thorough discussion of the dramatic unities see Art and Literature, A. W. von Schlegel, p. 232. matic
" Fiction
PLOT DEVELOPMENT
Ivan Turgenev
*
97
experience of the
It
In regard to his
own
'
some person or persons, who hovered before him. . He saw them subject to the chances, the com.
.
plications of existence,
relations,
those that
situations
would be most
likely to
3.
Impressionism
One never
tires
of quoting Stevenson.
The
following
characters, dramatic
is
incidents,
and impressionism.
" I
Balfour
speaking
'
:
There remember very distinctly his saying to me are, so far as I know, three ways, and three ways only, of writing a story. You may take a plot and fit
characters to
incidents
it,
or you
may
or lastly
you
'
me
while I try to
make
it
this clear
if
made a
he were
and form)
' *"
igo8.
Compare
is
p. 94.
atmosphere "
given in chap.
viii.
98
PLOT DEVELOPMENT
to express
and persons
example The
land,
and
realize
it.
I'll
give you an
the
Merry Men.
There
began with
on
and
Stevenson's experience
calls (as
is
what
!Mr.
H.
S.
Canby^'
gained totality only when the story grew out of his somewhat vagfue " feeling " of atmosphere. He first received
an impression, and then sought to convey that impression by means of the story
.and he
did.^^
is
Of
the
may wish
to
convey through
specific feeling
medium
of the short-story.
The more
a character
what
not
may
be just as
effectively
theme in
his brochure.
'
The Luck
Camp may
'
figfure,
with a
plot,
baby
in
its
remains longest
'^^ The Short Story, Yale Studies in English, p.- 15. i'The same results may be attained in the sketch,
l.alf
Smith
amples in point.
PLOT DEVELOPMENT
with the reader.
ism] the process,
Story,
99
According
if
leave
my room
As
gutter.
and stumbles
story, and,
may, the
upon the
felt
all
when
Not
ment as
easily as this
is
one
may
many
'
the process
Nearly every
titles
conte of Maupassant
Fear,'
*
Happiness,'
'
lead you to
suspect as much.
stories,
some
utilized later,
in
American
in
Note-Books, there
noted at the
moment
of
II.
its
inception.
is
'
Here
the
American Note-Books,
town,'
176,
The
print in blood
'
13,
now
is
applied in
'
also,
'
stranger, dy-
ing, is buried
in
and after many years two strangers come search of his grave and open it.' In Henry
...
lOO
James's story,
'
PLOT DEVELOPMENT
Flickerbridge,'
which appeared
in Scrib-
ner's for February, 1902, the action of the story can only
hero,
which impression
to the reader;
it is
II.
But not
all
To some
Here
it
a concrete instance of
:
how
easily conversation
may
on
"
my
There
a professor of Psychology at
col-
who
society for $15,000. His head is of unique form and," he chuckled, " the society thinks it may be even more
it is
now."
of
When
is
the
money
is
to
The professor
000, and " But," interposed a third, " " should be lost at sea ?
if
he
PLOT DEVELOPMENT
lOI
life in their
wonder if the society has insured his favor ? " pondered the first gentleman.
" I
And
so the conversation
went
on.
No
one of the
group has yet made a short-story out of the germ, but the query " what would happen ? " holds several ingenious answers awaiting development.
At
must
of
be taken up in earnest.
follow,
how
the* master
we long for some practical demonstration workman sets about his task.
h6w
interesting a
magazine
to say,
who
could
who would
that
ulti-
detail, step
by
but perhaps the authorial vanity has had more do with omission than any one other cause. Most writers prefer having understood that they poets compose by a frenzy an of the pub and would shudder take a peep behind the the elaborate and of thought the true purposes only the moment the innumerable glimpses of idea that arrived not the maturity of view the fully-matured fancies discarded despair unmanageable at the cautious and the painful erasures and interpolations
been given to the world, I
Why
am much
a loss to say
to
the
in especial
it
species
fine
ecstatic intui-
tion
lic
positively
at letting
scenes, at at
vacillating crudities
seized
at
last
at
at
full
at
in
as
selections
re-
jections
in
at
>
I02
scen'e- shifting,
PLOT DEVELOPMENT
the
step-ladders
the
cock's
feathers,
which
de-
work-shops.^*
their
novelists,
it
is
tfue, but
words are
first
The
conductor
He
"
is
Woman
in White.
My
proceeding
is
to get
my
central idea
the
The
central idea in
in
The Woman
life,
in
White
'
is
private
in
to
woman of her identity, by confounding her with another woman sufficiently like her in personal appearrob a
The
destruction
My
ters.
"
clever devil
The
^*
Autobiography.
PLOT DEVELOPMENT
IO3
Count Fosco
his
faintly
shows himself
to
me
before I
know
name.
two women.
esting.
him wait, and begin to think about the They must be both innocent and both interLady Glyde dawns on me as one of the innocent
I let
I try to
victims.
what a walk
evening to a
will
do for
effort^
new
to
me and and
and
it,
fail.
I try
fail.
devote the
tells
fail.
Experience
me
to take
come of her own accord. The next morning before I have been awake in my bed for more than ten minutes, my perverse brains set to work without consulting me. Poor Anne Catherick comes into the room, and says, Try me.' " I have now got an idea, and three of my characother
'
woman
ters.
is
What
is
there to do
now?
story.
My
next proceeding
to begin building
up the
Here
my
favorite
three efforts
begin at
must be encountered. First effort: To the beginning. Second effort: To keep the
paying the smallest
at-
book
in
volumes.
is
Third
effort
To
decide on
All this
done as
my
skies in his
I
famous sea-pictures
details; I
this, the
all
at
one heat.
set
As
yet
merely
up
my
land-
marks.
main
present themselves in
discoveries
sorts of
new
aspects.
These
lead
me
right end.
go back again
eye,
at
it
with a
new
and
fail
with
I04
PLOT DEVELOPMENT
the
inci-
must and
will follow.
These pests of
fiction, to
way.
to begin at in White,'
the beginning.
I
The Woman
set the
of the story.
going, having,
story
in
let
new
novel
than an outline of
and characters before me, and leaving the details For a week, as
work
An
At
unpleasant
the beginre-
The
Woman
is
in
White
'
yet.
The
Miss
scene of
Fairlie
my
opening
chapters
in
;
Cumberland.
(afterwards
Lady Glyde)
like
Mr. Fairlie, with his irritable nerves and Miss Halcombe (discovered suddenly,
all
Anne
Catherick), are
young drawing master, Walter Hartwright. No; this won't do. The person to be first introduced is Anne Catherick. She must already be a familiar figure to the reader when the reader accompanies me to Cumberland. This is what must be done, but I don't see how to do it no new idea comes to me; I and my MS. have quarreled, and don't speak to each other. One evening I
happen to read of a lunatic who has escaped from an
PLOT DEVELOPMENT
asylum
paper.
I05
paragraph of a few
Anne
in
Catherick escaped
'
'
The
Woman
and nobody
will ever
be half as
much
I
now
as I am.
From
that
moment
my
For the next six months the pen goes on. It is work, hard work but the harder the better, for this excellent reason: the work is its own exceeding great reward. As an example of the gradual manner in which
miseries.
;
may
return
for a
moment
;
to Fosco.
The making
and
his white
of
him was an
all,
afterthought
his canaries
its rise
in a conviction
shall
Consider
say,
it
be no interest in
it.
the robbery
little
no
shop-lifting
whose
one to
whom
the robbery
all-important.
She
^'On
372.
I06
PLOT DEVELOPMENT
with an overweening pride in her jewels, and
if
woman
lost.
of
they are
only on
at
They must be
so valuable as to be
worn
home.
who
has strong-rooms.
You
now, growing.
You
How
it
That expedient will not do. Can the diamonds be taken from the lady while she is wearing them? That would have done in the days of the gallant Claude Duval, but it will not do now. Might the house be
cannot.
rest with
They
must be taken back to their guardian the same night. Thus the only vulnerable point in the care of the diamonds seems their carriage to and from their guardian. They must be stolen between the jeweler's and the owner's
house.
Then by whom?
some-
how be
that
is
com-
plicity
in
it
that
is
how is that to be managed ? " The story is getting on in earnest. The only way or the best way seems, on consideration, to make the lover be the person who is entrusted with the
This, however,
is
not a very
dis-
PLOT DEVELOPMENT
tinguished role to play;
it
IO7
skilled
wants a very
hand
to
We must therefore
position.
give this
Force of
him
to accept the
He
man; he may be a
"The
girl to
he is engaged must be lovable must be of the same station in life that is to say, of the middle class, and
whom
As
to her
home
that
must be
distinctive
and interesting."
is
And
so on to the end.
This
enough, however, to
examination.
OUTLINE SUMMARY
Plot Development
i.
The Characters
Dramatic Incidents Impressionism
2.
3.
II.
(a)
Briefly describe
at
least
three
characters
novels.
known
to
Do
the
I08
PLOT DEVELOPMENT
2. Construct a plot based upon one of the three, in cases a and b (above). Paper: Compare and contrast the dramatic form witli 3. the short-story form. Can you discover any flaws in Sir Walter Besant's reason4. ing, or method, on p. 106. Look over the outlines of chapters shown in the Table 5. of Contents, and make a list of the sources of plot-material. Which of these seem to you to be the most fertile? Why? 6. Build a simple plot from one such source. 7. Does environment limit plot? Give reasons. 8. Outline a plot, original or borrowed, whose incidents 9. could not have happened in any given locality you choose to name. 10. Outline one that could be set anywhere. 11. Rewrite "The Necklace," p. 326, setting the incidents in New York, or some other American city. 12. Construct a short-story plot from a newspaper account, adhering closely to facts. Construct a plot from the same item, giving free play to 13.
the imagination.
14.
Select
first
entirely change
the
15.
half
or engraving.
Note: Other exercises in plot-development may be by building plots of any or all the kinds grouped in the on " Kinds of Short-Story."
devised
chapter
CHAPTER
HOW
American Drama.
VI
Imitation.
Poe,
The
How
ways
ditions
shall I tell
if
my
you
is
can.
The
Any Way
against
good
if it is artistic;
That, however,
no argument
realize
fully
how
Art can and prosaic method and breathe into it the breath of life. But are you an artist ? In making your decision you must be frank with yourself Are you
difficulty
take a time-worn
a past-master of
form?
all
If not,
is it
most
such
difficult
skill
of
tasks
to handle an old
;
method with
story until
the
make it virtually new to work over your you have invested its old style of narration with charm of freshness ? Are you ready to study the work
as to
of others
not
form your
own judgments as to effects? If so, go ahead. Be individual. Employ any method that you can use with skill, but make certain of your skill before you handicap
yourself
by clinging
to
time-worn devices.
109
no
The second
to
tell
HOW
your story
It is
teller.
your
story,
doesn't, pigeonhole
assume now that you are full of your story. Look within yourself and see if there is not some form of narration that is within your range
until
it
does.
But
and he would
tell it differently,
fiction, ask
to
1
Do you
Are you
im-
Are you
happens to them ?
Press
home
its
of
denouement.
Don't
villain
and assume
preferj
a fresh view-point.
you give them both new places in the plot. You tacitly ask your readers to assume your chair as they read, and look at your creations through your spectacles<':1
If
1
you are a
Compare
realist,
this,
p. 229.
HOW
III
And
in fact
he resents
it
when he
is
brutal,
short-story
is
and
their
sympathies harmonize.
So, having attained
tion in
some
skill
own
attitude
toward your
manner
of telling it
though
be the
to
may
tested until
your
story
and to your
I.
This
is
the safest
in the
form of narration.
like
entirely
background, unless,
his
ward with
reader.
own
platter to offer a
moral morsel
to the
But
and perbegin-
upon askance.
The
To be
sure,
an author of
for the
needs
112
HOW
sympathy
and humor that pervaded the author of " The Joy of Youth" when she wrote her story. It stands out in the
first
view-point.
Emmeline Ames, going down the village street that winter was conscious of a little uncomfortable lump in her right shoe. She was also conscious of an innocent bravado of shame as the lump worked from the hollow of her instep toward her toes. A soft red, and a delicious, silly smile, overspread her face. The lump was composed of some dried sprigs of the plant called boys'-love, or southernwood. Emafternoon,
it.
She
was sure that a girl with a sprig of boys'-love in her shoe would marry the first boy whom she met. In summer, when the plant
with
the
its
long
she
gray-green
often
aromatic
sprig
leaves
in
flourished
in
garden,
secretly
had
pressed
wore a some in
her shoe,
and
she
her
own
particular
books,
might be able to try the charm in the wintertime. Emmeline had too much credulity and imagination to be in a perfectly normal state; or, on the contrary, she may have been too normal, with all her human instincts dangerously near the surface, and as prone to injury as her great-grandmother's
in order that she
Some
to have " for
may
be
said
no point of view. The author simply tells what they are worth," for mere entertainment, as though someone had told him, or he had seen the hapthem penings,
The
to
peculiarly suitable
is
The
story itself
everything,
the
Harper's,
HOW
author nothing
.
113
Adve nture,
and humor
See
how
hy-ElHsTarRer
Mike Flannery was the star boarder at Mrs. Muldoon's, and he deserved to be so considered, for he had boarded with Mrs. ^ Muldoon for years, and was the agent of the Interurban Express Company at Woodcote, while Mrs. Muldoon's other boarders
were largely transient. " Mike," said Mrs. Muldoon one noon when Mike came for his lunch, " I know th' opinion ye have of Dagos, and niver a-one have I took into me house, and I think the same of thim dirthy things, an' takin' the bread away from th' honest meself and I, would not be thinkin' of takin' American laborin' man is a Frinchone t' board at this day, but would ye tell me this " min a Dago ? Flannery raised his knife and laid down the law with it. " Mrs. Muldoon, mam," he said, " there be two kinds of Frinchmin. There be the respictible Frinchmin, and there be th'^ unrespictible Frinchmin. They both be furriners, but they be classed different. Th' respictible Frinchmin is no worse than th' Dutch, and is classed as Dutch, but th' other kind is Dagos. There is no harm in the Dutch Frinchmin, for thim is such as Napoleon Bonnypart and the like of him, but ye want t' have nawthing t' do with the dago Frinch. They be a
bad
lot."
more
subtle art
is
was a comrade
in
and yet never explicitly say so, nor even for a moment emerge from the narrator's hazy background. Many of " O. Henry's " most diverting stories suggest
characters,
1907.
114
this
HOW
intimacy of experience.
There
is
author's close relation to his narrative in H, B. Dean's " Pluck Versus Diplomacy," a delicately sympathetic
sketch.*
said St. Margaret's Hospital was the coolest This might be true up in the large, dim wards with windows wide and awnings dropped, but below in the basement dispensary it was hot, sticky, and malodorous. From the ambulance courts six granite steps led down to a door opening on a large, low-ceilinged room, lighted and aired by two small windows. With its hard wooden benches, it was a weary waitingN^lace that hot August day for those who came
Some
people
place in town.
for treatment.
"~~
Some few
door which led to an adjoining room. Occasionally this door would be opened by a nurse whose " Next " lessened the waitEarly in the day her voice was as crisp and fresh ers by one. as the blue and white uniform she wore, but with the lengthened shadows in the court voice and gown became limp. The benches were almost empty when a small boy, balandng his thin body on one leg, hopped down the granite steps and sank wearily on the nearest seat. The occupants of the benches gathered around with cries of sympathy. As their voices penetrated to the adjoining room, a white-coated young housesurgeori came out. At his approach the group parted, and the boy, raising his arms as if to a friend, whispered, " Say, doc, will youse give us a lift? My foot it's queered this time for
!
keeps."
relation
sciously
demands
HOW
naturally.
II5
The
ary
is
denied him
human
sanctuin-
his
powers of
When
common know ? "
consent
we
from asking
his right
"
how do you
his ability to
and
peep into secret places and report the most private conversations
events.
To him
So here
this
style of telling a
He
thinks,
may
furthermore, he
easier,
them with emotions and sentiments knows that the latter method is the even though immeasurably less artistic. For his
furnish
inability to reveal
incident
story
must be
is
the difference
The
First
Person
in the first
there
is
(To what
it
reality, to
The Death of
If
is
11.
See
p. 376,
No.
Il6
HOW
and an over-modest
dullness.
One
that
recalls
Em-
erson's
mot
is
" I have
at his
the
feeling
every man's
biography
own
expense."
of his
When
pect
an adventurer
tells
own
exploits
we
tx-
and amusedly
bombast
naturally
No
is
The bragging
also be told
is
part of
the fun
underneath
But the
actor
Poe's
first-person story
may
by a minor
This offers
less
By
allowing himself
In his
Sherlock
part
is
Holmes
to Dr.
to
stories
When
well handled, no
who
is
nevertheless the
may
tell
Such an
376,
No.
11.
HOW
by Alphonse Daudet
in Letters
-STORIES
in the
ARE TOLD
117
From
"
My
Mill.^
Such
also
is
the author's
attitude in
Edward
a Country."
Two
may
be noted.
In the one
to the reader,
on previous occasions.
Here
air.
it
would seem
Few
In
Such
it
familiarity
some
will repel.
the second sort, the author tells his story either to a lay
figure, or to
some more
hackneyed device
person after having introduced the speaker by a second person, who really thus reports the story " as it was
told to
me."
:
You may
connection
is
person
relying
scene.
Still, if
rule in art is
upon you can do it exquisitely, go ahead. No so good but that it may well be broken by
the opening sentences to set the
a master stroke.
fly in
and does
it
so originally
we
p.
are grateful to
No. No.
10. 11.
him
See See
p. 376,
376,
Il8
HOW
STORIES
ARE TOLD
what would result if the same degree of ingenuity were trained upon a new device. I give space to the
following lengthy introduction to "
The
Solid Muldoon,"
from Kipling's Soldiers Three, because it so fully displays both the merits and the demerits of the story within
a story.
Note the
a jumble of good
re-
method and bad. In extenuation, it must be membered that this story is one of a series.
This befell in the old days, and, as my friend Private Mulvaney was specially careful to make clear, the Unregenerate. There had been a royal dog-fight in the ravine at the back of the rifle-butts, between Learoyd's Jock and Ortheris's Blue Rot both mongrel Rampur hounds, chiefly ribs and teeth. It lasted for twenty happy, howling minutes, and then Blue Rot collapsed and Ortheris paid Learoyd three rupees, and we were
all
quite
A dog-fight is a most heating entertainment, from the shouting, because Rampurs fight over a couple of acres of ground. Later, when the sound of belt badges clinking against the necks of beer-bottles had died away, conversation drifted from dog to man fights of all kinds. Humans resemble red-deer in some respects. Any talk of fighting seems to wake up a sort of imp in their breasts, and they
very thirsty.
apart
bell
noticeable
one to the other, exactly like challenging bucks. This even in men who consider themselves superior
is
to
it shows the refining influence of civilization and the march of progress. Tale provoked tale, and each tale more beer. Even dreamy Learoyd's eyes began to brighten, and he unburdened himself of a long history in which a trip to Molham Cove, a girl at Pateley Brigg, a gauger, himself and a pair of clogs were mixed in drawling tangle. "An' so Ah coot's yead oppen from t' chin to t' hair an' he was abed for t' matter o' a month," concluded
Learoyd, pensively.
HOW
II9
reverie he was lying down and " You're a man, Learoyd," said
ivry-day expayrience; but I've stud up to a ghost, an' that was not an ivry-day expayrience." " No ? " said Ortheris, throwing a cork at him. " You git up
an' address the 'ouse you an' yer expayriences. Is it a bigger one nor usual?" " 'Twas the livin' trut' " answered Mulvaney, stretching out a huge arm and catching Ortheris by the collar. " Now where are ye, me son? Will ye take the wurrud av the Lorrd out av me mout' another time ? " He shook him to emphasize the
!
making a dash at Mulvaney's pipe, capturing it, and holding it at arm's length; " I'll chuck it across the ditch if you don't let me go " " You maraudin' hathen 'Tis the only cutty I iver loved. Handle her tinder or I'll chuck you acrost the nullah. If that poipe was bruk Ah Give her back to me, sorr " Ortheris had passed the treasure to my hand. It was an absolutely perfect clay, as shiny as the black ball at pool. I took it rcT^rently, but I was firm. "Will you tell us about the ghost-fight if I do?" I said. "Is ut the sthory that's troublin' you? Av course I will. I mint to all along. I was only gettin' at ut my own way, as Popp Doggie said whin they found him thrying to ram a cart" ridge down the muzzle. Orth'ris, fall away He released the little Londoner, took back his pipe, filled it,
!
He
know.
I iver tell
"Did
av a
divil
upon us
"Did
You
I20
HOW
but, as I was rejuced aftherwards I was corp'ril whin I was corp'ril, I was a divil of a man.'' He was silent for nearly a minute, while his mind rummaged among old memories and his eyes glowed. He bit upon the pipe stem and charged into his tale.
I sayj
"Whin
3.
by the
uninitiated.
Sometimes the
tell
letters
may be given, or a whole round of may contribute the narrative. Try this
succeed
if
you can, and all the credit if you do, but by adopting it you take on a heavy handicap. When Richardson wrote Pamela the
form more
if
you
will,
letter-
form but they have quoted such successful books as the Baroness von Hutten's Our Lady of the Beeches and the anonymous The Lady of the Decoration. Of course the argument is unanswerable. Yet ask any experienced
manuscript reader
how many
if
form.
However,
your work
it,
buy
it,
in any
form.
4.
A
tive
1"
diary
is
it
an intimate
As
fic-
form
skill;
but the
Home,
p. 245.
HOW
121
do
uity in
it
well
^^
or
do
not
at
all.
"
Love
in
Old
Clothes,"
the effect
"
pleasing.
masterpiece
is
Maupassant's
The Horla." ^' The genuinely humorous diary, after If the manner of Judge Shute,^^ is still unhackneyed.
conversation
is
introduced,
is
all
the better.
As a
form,
and
enlivened by dialogue.
5.
Many
various forms.
For
is
begun in the
ble device
first
rator to die, a
fee-
no matter
it
masters do use
it.
Others
tell
the
story
by casting
by a different
story told en-
person.
by telegrams
is
still
another scheme.
Brander
novelty in "
a rather ineffective
^*
a story told
telegrams, play-
pawn
p. p.
ticket,
No. ig. No. 10. 1' The Real Diary of a Real Boy. 1* See p. 377, No. 18.
12
11
See See
377, 376,
122
like.
HOW
The magazines
elty
methods a-plenty.
anecdote, the following incident will
Though merely an
line,
the imaginative
fill
in the gaps.
the story of a balking mule named " Shoe," driven by an old negro named " Abe," and owned by a
This
is
balked on Broad
After
in
Abe had
him
to start,
he went into a
is
The following
what
marm, gimme number two hund'ed an' 'leven. Is dat Marse Henry? Yessir, dis is Abe. I dun ring yer Shoe, he dun balk down yer on up, sir, ter tell you about Shoe. Broad Street, sir."
.
" Please,
'Bout a hour,
'
sir.'
Yessir, I bus'
him
in
de head."
sir."
"I
'
Yessir, I kick
him
I
"
Marse Henry,
would
time
um some
mo' but
hu't
me
big toe on
um
de
las'
kick um."
" Twis' he
New
A gemman
from
HOW
"
I23
No,
sir,
I don't
think he dead.
De
de amb'lance."
'
Yessir,
it
was sure
I
foolish."
'Marse Henry,
"
done
set fire
under Shoe.*
De
harness ?
cart?
Dun
"De
Yessir,
dun bu'n de
cart too,
sir,
all
'cept
one
wheel, sir."
" Yessir, I git de feed out fust,
sir.''
" Marse Henry, is you want me to come back to de store and go to work, or mus' I wait fer Shoe to move ? " ^^
Doubtless
well
new forms
them
out.
are
still
to be devised
and
it
is
to seek
In his Lives of the Poets ^ " The great source of pleastire at last,
variety.
Uniformity must
though
it
be uniformity of excellence.
We
when expectation
to
is
disappointed or gratified,
we want
be again expecting."
secret to
more than
is
still
variety,
more than
ingenuity.
Any
forms of narration
are
an uncovered
There
more touch-downs
tricks.
to
be won by
by
^^
" L." in Walnuts and Wine, Lippincotfs, Oct., 1906. iVol. I, p. 219.
24
HOW
2. 3. 4. 5.
Form
Rewrite it in the first person, assuming the part of the ading character. Rewrite it, assuming the part of one of the minor char3.
2.
:ters.
4.
Which form
srsonally ?
5. 6.
Write a story in the form of telegrams. Write one side of a telephone conversation,
telling a simple
ory.
7.
Try
to suggest a fresh
form of
telling a story.
CHAPTER
VII
half done.
Old
Proverb.
is
The last thing that we find in making a book we must put first. Pascal, Thoughts.
to
know what
to preface something a paragraph of nothing in particular, bearing to the real matter in hand a relation not more inherently intimate than that of the tuning of violins to a symphony. It is the mechanical misfortune of musicians that they cannot with certainty tune their instruments out of hearing. It is the mechanical luck of the writer that he need not show a Barrett Wendell, bit more of his work than he chooses. English Composition.
in particular
All stories
all
begin-
^he
fiction writer's
im-
mediate concern
set in
is
and
clearly
to establish the
reader in a
way
of thinking or a
way
of feelingl
How
The
some fundamental facts before he can take in the details of the picture, and that means introducing the story more or less formally.
reader
may
Upon
story
the other
hand
the
the
may be such
126
and gradations.
I.
For
tales
this inquiry I
fied the
in
and sketches of the short-story type. The list takes what critics and public regard as the world's greatest
stories.
The authors
and
in
Practically
all
the stories
and a
American
Current
fic-
the
Altogether,
view of
tives.
how approved
that
It
must be noted
many
introductions
now
use
the
word
exhibit
worked
is
likely at the
same time
to touch
upon some
In attempting this
classification
I27
taken as determining
its class.
I.
Stories That
There
is
The
actual
proportion
last ten
is
larly
among
who produce
and
"clever" kind.
Of
less
were found
versation,
number of
stories e^t-
amined.
These fifty-one
sions
:
stories
may be grouped
in five subdivi-
(a)
setting.^
to give the In the term " setting " are included the sur-
mood which
may
when
As
we
being
set,
and
this
on account
xii.
128
his mouth, and contemplated the lighted end. He did not speak. The other man, his lawyer, who had brought him the unwelcome news, began to make the best of it. "Of course, it's an annoyance; but " " Well, yes. It's an annoyance," Fleming said, dryly. Bates chuckled. " It strikes me, Tom, considering the difference between this and the real thing, that 'annoyance' is just
the right
word
to use."
Fleming leaned over and knocked off the ashes into his waste basket. He was silent. " As for Hammond, he won't have a leg to stand on. I don't know what Ellis and Grew meant by letting him take the case before the Grand Jury. He won't have a leg to stand on!" " Give me a light, will you. Bates ? This cigar has gone out
again."
Note how deftly the setting is conveyed by dialogue a lawyer and his client are seated discussing the latter's
indictment for an offense against the law.
attitude
The
lawyer's
case,
client, their
estimate of the
The
situation
made
this
handling
manner.
Few situations can be opened up in the same You may read through a number of magazines
without finding a single short-story of distinction, as " Many Waters " certainly is, which opens with a conversation.
(b)
to delineate the
characters.
That
is,
the emphasis
is
129
move
an
atmosphere
in
which they
plished
by Mrs. Deland.
THiE AFFAIR
OF THE BROWNS ^
the
" cried Wilberton, sitting up straight in his chair on year-round resort hotel veranda. "Here is where Dull Monotony packs his things and hikes from the seaside." " I should like to know why," commented Mrs. Wilberton skeptically. "I am sure nothing has occurred " Well, something will occur very shortly," her husband assured her. " Why," he exclaimed, " things simply cannot be quiescent with a woman as pretty as that in their midst." , He 'nodded. Mrs. Wilberton, letting her gaze follow the direction of the nod, saw a young woman following the valise-
"
Ah
encumbered porter toward the hotel entrance. She was a tall young woman, and slender, and her tan traveling gown was unquestionably in the latest style. By the hand she held a very small boy who was having great trouble with a very large
straw hat.
"
Your
taste in
women
is
such inconsistency.
tall,
Mrs. Wilberton was fat, and she was not " and her eyes were not gray. " Since when " Oh, I always liked them tall and slender " "This one is positively thin!" " And with dark hair and big gray eyes " " One can never be sure about hair."
"And
" It
pretty,
is
clear, clean
"
or even artistically done. And anyhow two days in this sun and sea breeze." " "She walks well, a sort of queenly gait
"Very carefully studied from some second-rate actress, I dare indolent." er say not at all natural, and decidedly " She doesn't seem to be very enthusiastic," agreed Wilberton.
1908.
130
(c)
!pirit
to
suggest the
follow will
of the story.
nake
A CASE OF IDENTITY *
"
side
My
dear
ielloyr," said
Sherlock Holmes, as
we
sat
on
either
of the fire ip his lodgings at Baker Street, " life itranger than anything the mind of man can invent.
lot
is infinitely
would dare to conceive the things which are really mere commonjlaces of existence. If we could fly out of that window hand ,n hand, "liover over this gr^at city, gently remove the roofs, md peep in at the queer things which are going on, the strange
;oincidences,
:hain
;he
We
the plannings, the cross-purposes, the wonderful of events, working through generations, and leading to most outre results, it would make all fiction, with its con-
ventionalities
)rofitable."
and
foreseen
conclusions,
most
stale
and un-
De
daid," asserted'
walk."
"
all
ion on all subjects. " No, chile," returned his grandmother with a superior
'
air,
dey walks sometimes in twos an' sometimes in threes, but nos'ly dey walks alone in de night-time." " Dey's a time comin', Aun' Janty, when dey's all gwine tuh valk tuh wunst," remarked Brother Eli Wiggins with conriction.
"Whut yo' 'ludin' tuh, Brothah Wiggins, whut yo' 'ludin' uh ? " asked Aunt Janty as she hospitably replenished his ctip, vhile Gabriel improved the opportunity to slip, unnoticed from he room.
*A
6
Conan Doyle.
See
1711.,
Aj;j,11* T..u..i.
p. /s77,
T.'j.,.;
No.
14.
Ax>.
I3I
"Dejf's a time comin'," he replied, pouring the steaming tea into his saucer, " when ole Gabriel am gwine tuh soun' de note
on he hawn good an' loud. Den de graves am gwine tuh bus' open an' de daid come fo'th tuh walk up an' down in de worl', tuh an' fro in hit. Y-a-a-s, Aun' Janty, dat's so." Brother Wiggins paused and looked solemnly at his hostess.
"Aun' Janty," he said, his voice sinking to a sepulchral whisper, " dat time ain' so fuh off ez mos' folks b'lieves."
In this latter story, the opening dialogue, while giving
us the spirit of the story, both sets the stage and brings
on the characters.
(d)
Two
This form
is
in
two
is
six
purpose.
As
antiquated.
Writ-
ers prefer to
on
is
Act
I.
Scene
modern
not in the
Two
tention.
This seems
it is difficult
Besides,
liantly
else,
enough to
it
a conversation
bril-
naturally lead
up
to
something
The
132
full
Wilhelm Hauff must have been when he essayed to catch the reader by this transparent introduction; yet he had a good story to
Think how
tell.
THE SINGER
" It
is
a friend
"
a strange occurrence, truly," said Councillor Bolnau to whom he met on Broad Street in B. " You must con-
queer age
we
live in."
?
the North
councillor?
Has your
friend, the
foreign minister, told you some important secret of state?" " Oh, don't bother me with politics or state secrets ; let them
go
as
they
may.
mean now
the
affair
of
Mademoiselle
Bianetti."
To sum up:
Of
giving the
spirit
is
not
so
common
in
as
is
supposed.
Many
however,
in the second
is
or third paragraph.
difficult
the most
Stories That
Five hundred and forty-nine stories of the six hundred which, were classified belong under this grouping. This
8
See
p. 377,
No.
21.
1 33
They
real-
of
know
in order to take
in
up the story with intelligent interest. This is the sense which the word " introduction " applies to the short-
story of to-day.
The usage
of Irving, Poe,
and Haw-
its
perfecters,
and in
introductions.
Seldoni nowa-
days does one find the long and irrelevant opening sen-
It is true,
by
this
some
tasy,
some
reflective temper,
some
flights of fan-
know my
Remembering always
hundred and forty-nine
ac-
Two hundred
set-
134
I
have said that the word " setting " includes the surroundings in which the action begins/ the mood which
dominates the situation, the Conditions under which the
story opens.
It is less
concerned with
who
's
who
than
with what
's
HEAVEN 8
TAKEN FROM HIS OWN MS. BY " MARK TWAIN
Well,
"
had been dead about thirty years, I begun to Mind you, I had been whizzing through space all that time, like a comet. Like a comet! Why, Peters, I laid over the lot of them! Of course there warn't any of them going my way, as a stegdy thing, you know, because they travel in a long circle like the loop of a lasso, whereas I was
I
when
get a
little
anxious.
pointed as straight as a dart for the Hereafter; but I happened on one every now and then that was going my way for an hour
But it was them the same as if they were standing still. An ordinary comet don't make more than about 200,000 miles a minute. Of course when I came across one of that sort like Encke's and Halley's comets, for instance it warn't anjrthing but just a flash and a vanish, you see. You couldn't rightly call it a race. It was as if the comet was a gravel-train, and I was a telegraph dispatch. But
or
so,
bit
of a brush together.
our astronomical system, comet occasionally that was something like. any such comets ours don't begin.
after I got outside of
used to flush
haven't got
We
And then follows the first incident of the story. Of another sort, yet also establishing the setting,
these opening lines of Dr. Watson's story.
''
are
135
General Practitioner
to
break every law of health, and yet had reduced the psalmist's furthest limit to an average life-rate. Our men made
except wholesome food and fresh
air,
no difference in their clothes for summer or winter, Drumsheugh and one of the larger farmers condescending to a top-coat on Sabbath as a penalty of their position, and without regard to temperature. They wore their blacks at a funeral, refusing to cover them with anything, out of respect to the deceased, and standing longest in the kirkyard when the north wind was blowing across a hundred miles of snow. If the rain was pouring at the junction, then Drumtochty stood two minutes longer through sheer native dourness till each man had a cascade from the tail of his coat, and hazarded the suggestion, half-way to Kildrummie, that it had been " a bit scrowie," a " scrowie " being as far short of a " shoor " as a " shoor " fell below " weet."
Here
is
same general
sort.
THE PHILOSOPHER
IN
BY "ANTHONY HOPE
The sun shone It was a charmingly mild and balmy day. beyond the orchard and the shade was cool inside. A light breeze stirred the boughs of the old apple tree under which
the philosopher sat.
notice, unless it
None
might be when the wind blew about the leaves of the large volume on his knees, and he had to find his place again. Then he would exclaim against the wind, shuffle the leaves till he got the right page, and settle to his reading. The book was a treatise on ontology; it was written by another
'
From Beside
See
p. 377,
the
10
No.
20.
136
and this philosopher was discovering them all, and noting them on the fly-leaf at the end. H-e was not going to review the book (as some might have thought from his behaviour), or even to answer it in a work of his own. It was just that 'he found a pleasure in stripping any poor fallacy naked and
crucifying
it.
Then comes
few
some writers
to
fill
in the bold
outlines
goes on.
Thursday being the first of November and All Saints' day. Miss Belden had attended the vesper services at S. Saviour's. On her way home across the Park she encountered Innsley. She stopped and shook hands cordially, for it had been several months since they had met.
^ (b) One hundred thirty-eight open with character delineation, often adding a suggestion of the ifmmgf.
Of
these a large
or " She."
It
is
not
difficult
why
so
many
writers
or both standing on
and
it
is
and
^^
It is this
selfsame vision
137
must be made
to see,
clear
and so
direct as the
we have
a typical
W. DE FOREST
(politeness
toward
his
numerous and
abruptly)
influential
friends
forbids
me
to mention his
name
ington, D. C.
As the said body was a capacious one, having been greatly enlarged circumferentially since it acquired its full longitude,
there
was accommodation in it for both the soul of PuUwool (it was a very little one) and for his distinguished visitant. Indeed, there was so much room in it that they never crowded each other, and that PuUwool hardly knew, if he so much as mistrusted, that there was a chap in with him. But other people must have been aware of this double tenantry, or at least must have been shrewdly suspicious of it, for it. soon became quite common to hear fellows say, " PuUwool has got
himself
the Devil in him.''
Compare the
spot
CONAN DOYLE
is
Do
called
"Lucky Tom"?
Yes, I do;
in ten of those
who
call
^"Atlantic,
^3
Dec,
No.
1872.
20,
See
p. 377,
1-38
him so can say. I have knocked about a deal in my time, and seen some strange sights, but none stranger than the way in which Tom gained that sobriquet, and his fortune with it. For I was with him at the time. Tell it? Oh, certainly; but it is a longish story and a very strange one; so fill up your glass again, and light another cigar while I reel it off. Yes, a very strange one; beats some fairy stories I have heard; but it's true,
sir,
every
word
of
it.
It is
happily as unnecessary as
No
pre-
liminary intaking of the breath, no pause to tighten the belt, not even a " here we go," but just a swift rush
ahead.
That
is
usage
1*
is typical short-story form, toward which markedly tending and in which writers are
From
Little
Novels of
Italy.
1 39
It follows the
dictum of Hor-
What become
tion?
Not
all
stories
can be told in
The
difficulty lies
the hold.
But, difficulty
story-teller's art
or no difficulty, there
no phase of the
loves his phrases. They grew in But he must learn the drastic art of amputation and learn it by practising on his own stories.
The beginner
how
heroic
is
the
who
compact,
firm,
story
appears
on the
events he rejoices
when he
DOYLE'S ]5eBUT"
BY PORTER EMERSON BROWNE
Leading the
girl to a
parlor
and the tall, slender-waisted, high-pompadoured girl before him did so. "Aw, say, Maggie," continued Doyle, as he endeavored, unsuccessfully, to hold her hand beneath a fold of skirt, "why
;
^'^
140
stockin's to a
bunch
an'
o'
they did?
live
gittin'
.
eighteen seventy-five
now;
two
can
on
that.
Wha'
d'
Alphonse Daudet
tions.
is
a master of
all
sorts of introduc-
study of Letters
From
My
Mill and
Monday
is
The
following
from the
latter
volume.
THE
LITTLE- PIES
That morning, which was a Sunday, Sureau, the pastry-cook on Rue Turenne, called his apprentice and said to him: "Here are Monsieur Bonnicar's little pies; go and take them to him and come back at once. It seems that the Versaillais
have entered Paris."
The
little
fellow,
who understood
nothing about
politics, put
the smoking hot pies in the dish, the dish in a white napkin, and
balancing the whole upon his cap, started off on a run for He St. Louis, where M. Bonnicar lived.
Then
LITTLE SOLDIER le
BY GUY DE MAUPASSANT
Every Sunday, as soon as they were at liberty, the two little would set forth. They would turn to the right on leaving the barracks, march rapidly through Courbevoie as if they were out for drill; then, as soon as they had left the houses behind, they would follow at a more quiet pace the bare and dusty high-road that leads to
Bezons.
^"
soldiers
See
p. 376,
No.
10.
I4I
in the
which lead up
These are
real, old-
new
short-story
of brevity.
how-I-came-to-tell-this-story beginning belongs to
The
this class
because
dence.
it is
opening
class
One
of errors, how-
many or complex
his
former.
this
labored
commencement of a
really
EDWARDS
The events which I am about to relate took place between nine and ten years ago. Sebastopol had fallen in the early spring, the peace of Paris had been concluded since March, our commercial relations with the Russian empire were but recently renewed; and I, returning home after my first northward journey since the war, was well pleased with the prospect of spending the
1'
See
p. 377,
No.
20.
142
my
With more of
the
same unnecessary
sort.
Candlemas, the
Parisians.
It
is
the very
sacks,
am
this time.
Here
is
THE
POPE'S
MULE
Of all the clever sayings, proverbs, or saws with which our Provence peasants embellish their discourse, I know of none more picturesque or more peculiar than this. Within a radius of fifteen leagues of my mill, when anybody mentions a spiteful, vindictive man, he will say: "Look out for that man! he
is
like the
I tried for a
Pope's mule, that keeps her kick for seven years." long time to find out the source of that proverb,
years.
what that Papal mule might be, and that kick kept for seven No one here was able to give me any information on
my
fife-player,
who, how-
whole legendary
histrory of
Provence
at his finger-
Francet agrees with me that there is probably some old of Provence behind it; but he has never heard it mentioned except in the proverb.
ends.
tradition
1* Froiij
Letters
From My
Mill.
143
"You won't find that anywhere except in the Grasshoppers' Library," said the old fifer, with a laugh.
I
Library
week.
thought the suggestion a good one, and as the 'Grasshoppers' is right at my door, I shut myself up there for a
Notice
how
mood
of the story.
Nervous or
placid,
gay or
pathetic, gro-
of the narrative.
(e)
some general
the truth
truth which
is
is illustrated
When
well put
my poor Gringoire! you are offered the place of reporter on a respectable Paris newspaper, and you have the assurance to refuse Why, look at yourself, unhappy youth! Look at that worn-out doublet, those dilapidated breeches, that gaunt face, which cries aloud that it is hungry. And this is where your passion for rhyme has brought you this is the result of your ten years of Aren't you loyal service among the pages of my lord Apollo!
will always be the same,
it!
To M. You
Think of
ashamed, finally?
Be a reporter, you idiot; be a reporter! You will earn honest crowns, you will have your special seat at Brebant's, and you will be able to appear every first night with a new feather in
your cap.
No?
the
goat.
free.
You You
will not?
jiist
You propose
end?
Well!
will see
^^
Letters
From My
Mill.
144
ing galleries
exist.
all
by enlarging upon the fact that whisperThe chief character finds a spot in
sounds,
a theatre where
down
up the
"
narrative.
The Tale
of a Goblin Horse,"
"
^^
by Charles C.
Nott,
Horses are
like babies
in-
Occasionally they
life,
and become
One
in a million
may
find his
way
acters are
worthy of record."
human
nature: " Boys who are born in a small town are born free and
'"
"
The King
of Boyville."
(f) Eighteen
chiefly designed
to attract attention.
"
The
pectedness.
Here are three examples: was his unexGrubbins was Dikkon's dog." ^^
"
No man
will ever
know
though
women may
sometimes whisper
to one another
after a dance,
when they
of victims."
Also see No. 23.
;
^*
^"Putnam's Magazine,
21 Stories 22 See p. 2S
p.
377,
No.
19,
^* False
Dawn, Rudyard
Kipling,
Under
I45
but the
tale to
woman who
failed said
might be an instructive
younger generation. The younger generation does not want instruction. It is perfectly willfor the benefit of the
ing to instruct
if
any one
will listen to
it.
None
the
less,
is
where
all,
things
many come
''^
(g) Fifteen open with words about the character who afterwards fells the story in the first person. It takes
either unusual ability or
More
amples " are herded into this corral than into any other.
Kipling does this sort of opening better than his contemporaries,
standing
almost alone
in
excellence^'
but
occasionally even he
comes
to grief.
In "
ermain
introduction
wasted in
ir relevancies.
Would an
"Francet Mamai, an old fifer, who comes sometimes to pass evening with me and drink mulled wine, told me the other evening of a little village drama which my mill witnessed some twenty years ago. The good man's story impressed me, and I propose to try to tell it to you as I heard it.
tlie
25 2*
2^
'^^
The Education of Otis Yeere, Kipling. See his Mulvaney stories in Soldiers Three, See p. 377, No. 20.
Letters
etc.
From
My
Mill.
146
" Imagine for a moment, dear readers, that you are seated before a jar of perfumed wine, and that it is an old fifer who is speaking."
critic,
type.
This introduction
it
because of
good
if
to a reason
which
cent. I
varied character.
length.^*
One
is
a prologue of unwarranted
Another a preface.^" A third, which shall be nameless, is a hodge-podge of every possible sort, introducing by name no
less
first
tell
paragraph
makes a native
it
a story in the
out
The
openings of
II.
BAD"
USAGR
dis-
I shall
The Legend of
147
the reader
commonplace.
down of overshadow
the story.
body of the
story.
is
OUTLINE SUMMARY
The Opening
i.
of the Story
the best usage (six hundred stories examined). 1. Fifty-one Open With Dialogue (o) Twenty-six Use Dialogue to Give the
ting
(&)
(c)
Set-
(i)
()
2.
Five Hundred Forty-nine Open Without Dialogue (a) Two Hundred seven Open With the Setting
(6)
One Hundred
Delineation
Thirty-eight
With
Character'
(c) Seventy-six
(rf)
l_e)
Illustrated
by the Stories
148
to
Win
Attention
(g) Fifteen
(fe)
Secondary
II.
BAD USAGE
Select
as bases
The
instructor
may
^
story, beginning with
Another, opening with dialogue to delineate a character. Another, using dialogue to lead up to tjie story proper by fact or explanation. Another, beginning without dialogue, giving the setting. 4. Another, introducing a character. 5. Another, opening directly with incident 6. Another, with facts or explanations which leadv up to th 7.
2.
3.
story proper.
8.
Rewrite one of the dialogue introductions given Rewrite another of the introductions, recasting
it
in
this
in dia-
logue form.
10.
Do
own
CHAPTER
yill
all
hours,
work and
so express myself, of insubordination. It is the a great part of the delight of any artist to contend with these unruly tools, and now by brute energy, now
it is
may
by witty expedient, to drive and coax them to effect his Stevenson, A Note on Realism.
It
is
will.
the habit of
my
vision of the
acter
itself.
imagination to strive after as full a character moves as of the charcauses which prompted
me
to
and history as I have given Romoltt] are precisely the same as those which determined
me
of
or the "
English village life in Silas Marner Dodson " life, out of which were developed the destinies poor Tom and Maggie. George Eliot, quoted in her Life
in giving the details of
by
J.
W.
Cross.
to
move
in the
y Its
(I lack a
conditions.
Each of
however,
these
we must
devices
by which setting
a general view.
149*
150
I.
SETTING IN GENERAL
no more exists for its own the sake than the setting of a diamond. The story diamond is the chief thing. If the setting, by its or-
The
setting of a short-story
nate style,
its
beauty,
its
imperfections,
its
it
very bulk,
would be
But when story and setting are in each part inof one jewel deed not indistinguishable from the other, but so integrated that the highest enjoyment arises from considering them as a whole. Hold all things in true perspective.
worse than
useless.
harmony, the
effect is as
As
ters
Do
the charac-
must be accommodated
adaptation
is
and a
like
required
harmony, instead of
contrast,
may
rise to the
eminent place
and become
study
it
then
let
the characters
fixed environment.
There
for those
must be harmonized or
is
con-
of the story.
Its influence is
powerful.
As
fiction
we may
see the
I5I
of the characters.^ Zola goes so far as to say that the environment " determines and completes the man." ^
Setting
is first
of
all
a preparation.
its lines
We
have seen in
But
it
may
also
until at length,
with the
lingers in the
mind
as
an integral part
of the picture.
Setting
is
it
mood
of the story.
Upon
Without
would be as bare
special
live, niove,
as
was the
early
drama unassisted by
When
the characters
and have
their being
is
Atmosphere
its all
thus an effect.
the reader the story.
It
i-s
felt,
not seen.
Through
medium
fic-
must see
all
the details of
does to landscape.
The
hills
are
actually the
sees
same
in cloud
and
them as
different through
And
make
story of the
an atmosphere of
its
"
p. 94.
and strand and sailor and ship and sky. The its whole story is informed with the spirit of the sea tang clings to the garments, its winds breathe through every passage, its wonderful lights and glooms tone the
of sea
whole
story.
Without
inert.
it
the story
would be a poor
thing,
bloodless
and
means by which
effected.
II.
forms of discourse
Description, Nar-
ration, Exposition,
and Argumentation.
;
This book
principles
is
the rhetorical
and usages
The The
fiction-writer has to
do with
all
the forms
principles
as ap-
volume, as
is
setting, requires
Genung.
153
all
To
describe
to visualize, hence
we must
look at description as a
pictorial process,
gun you
might go about
account of
detail,
ter,
its
or else describe
dwelling upon
its effects
rather than
upon
its
struc-
ture.
With
truly is
is
really
exposition
the
what a thing
little
to do.
The form is too short to admit of the circumstantial exposition which is permitted to the novel, but which was employed in short-stories now and then by Pbe and Hawthorne.
sionally
is
occa-
which
lies
fundamental to
it
all
description
must be
eifect,
close
must be
important
be attained
is
a vivid picture, an
pression, of the
and
lifeless,
may
details.
Perhaps
story to-day.
Some
details
make an
object different
it
from
its
others of
class.
its class,
while
with
You must
learn to decide
to use
154
make
this
whole distinction
nothing but
train-
ing, or experience, or
your
own common
is vital in
de-
Again, this
of description
of two kinds
that
the persons of the story, and that which deals with im-
personal objects.
always sharply separated, and here and there may intimately overlap. The chapter on " Character and Characterization " takes
are
laid
consider.
latter
we
principles
I.
It is
tails
who
notes
all
the de-
of a scene.
rooms, usually
Even familiar landscapes, houses, and leave upon us only general impressions;
lis
but take away one of the salient features and the scene
at
it
once strikes
as different, yet
tell
somehow
the same;
is
may
is
require a friend to
us just what
all
missing,
the change.
Now
in
ill
Gray,
letter to
wear
off "
description
was
and the
de-
155
human
be-
two minutes
at a
it
in literature." *
To catalogue
much
all
the details
is
to
How
which enable
seen those in" genious black-and-white sketches which are " so simple
You have
until
strokes
you undertake to do one from life. and the figure is complete. Not an
really in the
few black
nor
outline,
form of
lips
and eyes
the
memory,
details.
association,
filled in
Coleridge's 'Ancient
Mariner
is
full
of this strongly
sketched suggestion.
terpiece, as
ell
Of
Low-
says
"
word.
And how picturesque it is in the proper sense of the I know nothing like it. There is not a descripit.
tion in
It is all picture.
we cannot
see
way.
With
instinctive tact
of association,
and
is satisfied,
we
!
also are."
Note these suggestive lines about Avignon, from Dau" Ah the happy days 1 the det's " The Pope's Mule " :
*
^
Quoted
in
How
to
Write a Novel,
p. 74.
p. 67.
156
happy
No
famine
no wars."
2.
Brief Description
May Be
by Epithet
now
conjoined them.
The
cen-
Observe the effective use of epithet in Will Levington Comfort's " The Fighting Death "
changed the aspect of affairs in quick and business-like utterance. In it there was neither rank nor nerves, which are not needed in the Silang gorges. It pulled a cheer from the waiting van, leeched against the cliff; an instant later a raw, high-pitched yell and a drumming of guns came from the heights. Down the steep bank scrambled the little party, the Cumberer limping in the lead. Glawm's trick to occupy the attention of the rebels was pure logic. The Thirteenth had entered the iriipregnated zone. One was down. " Birdie turned, unfolded his command, lifted the fallen and chucked the body easily up the trail out of range, rejoining his men in a twinkling. The staff muttered acclaim. Down, dovra toward the little ribbon of river that boiled with wasted shots, trotted this plaything of the enemy."
'
" That
Come
on, fellows
'
men a
''Lippincott's,
p.
197.
157
Description
May Be
by Simple Hint
away the
cat.
We
4.
of
more words
Description
May
be Direct
This statement is plain enough without exposition. Use your own judgment as to whether, in picturing a given scene you had better proceed from a general view to the details, or first give the details and thus build up
the general picture.
tion
5.
May
"
it,
When
dazzled,
and he shades
we form
when
his face
one
from
*
his quick
admiration
silent
we form
6.
(a) Simile:
" Harrow-on-the-Hill, with its pointed spire, rises blue in the
distance;
*
Quoted
Talks
On
Writing English.
'Mozley's Essays.
158
blueness, one after the other, out of the low-lying mist; the last ridge bluely melting into space. In the midst of it all, gleams
the
Welsh Harp Lake, like a piece of sky that has become unstuck and tumbled into the landscape with its shining side up." m
(b) Metaphor:
" Before us lies a sea of fern, gone a russet-brown " ^i decay, in which are isles of dark green gorse
from
(c) Personification:
with scarlet and orange and lemondown, and running after each other on the bright grass, under the brisk west wind which makes the willows rustle and turn up the whites of their leaves in pious resignation to the coming change." ^^
"
and
little
trees
colored
leaflets
fluttering
(d) Hyperbole:
"
'
which was
^^
Dutch man-of-war."
7.
Description
is
Any
of three methods
may
be adopted:
The
single
view-point
may
would take his stand at the most advantageous point and describe only what could be seen from
as though one that single position.
Or
the view-point
is
may
shift progressively, as
when
the
reader
''"Peter Ibbetson,
11 Ibid.
Du
Maurier.
^^Ibid.
13
Quoted
in
159
the view-point
may remain
make use
of a
num-
8.
in Description
In the chapters on
"
Some
Special
Qualities
consideration
is
and then
up a
description,
to
be depicted.
The
last
discussion as to
devote his
Mary Wilkins Freeman, or, like Balzac, choose a uniThis argument does not directly aifect the short-story writer, and may be dismissed with the remark that to what " school " soever an author may inversal scope.
cline
essentials
tempt to
more and more the spirit and physical accuracy in the writer's atdescribe setting. This tends toward realism,
grows we may expect to
see
and as
this spirit
romance
Even now
l6o
little
being produced ;
instead,
we
see
much
fine
work
in accurate delineation.
The same
painter
pictorial
and the
But be on your guard lest you lose the Frank Norris used to call its
folly.
III.
As we now
that
remember
is loosely
will
produce what
called
is
characters, whether
It is this
by means of harmony or of
contrast.
subtly
it
suggested, that
is
so potent to
worked
in
No
in
so alluring and
seled
upon the chosen background. Here is the fairest You remember that Flaubert counhis pupil Maupassant to look at an object until he
it all
saw
in
to look until
else saw.
This
applies
ob-
l6l
clear idea
"How
First
do we obtain a
observe
its
we
separate parts,
Our
ing rapidity as to
one.
This ra-
the whole,
which
is
"
the
as only a
entire setting.
I.
Time
effective, more or less The author may flatly
the period of
;
his
and
its
duration; or he
may
ignore both; or he
may merely suggest these conditions or he may gradually make both period and duration plain as the story proceeds.
The general period will be future, present-day, or past. The whole range of history lies before you for choice, and woe to you if you set twentieth-century peo(a)
ple to
performing against a
Roman
background, in Greek
Choose
know or
slip.
l62
,THE SETTING OF
THE STORY
1534 in England, i86i in America, or 1870 in France. it is worth while, if your swash-
know
in
what period
period cloaks.
of gaming
a whole world of
too,
Mannerisms of speech, of
detail
dress, of sport,
rest
upon time
conditions.
(b) Season,
must not be
its
forgotten,
with
its
in season.
Do
not be a "nature
Day and
for
the
unwary.
en-
was
too mi-
nute in recording
shoes,
details, for
really be noticed
had
in
a ray
of
the
window and
illuminating
What
hymn,
fectly
! ^8
:
simplicity
in the setting
established
in
by the opening
spirit
of Tappan's exquisite
per-
which
p. 78.
I63
The The
star
is
dimmed
now,
is
Many an unwary
author
it
and back again; that people normally ^row older with the lapse of years and
;
that events
seasons.
must be consistent with the procession of the Even the many-eyed proofreader overlooks
stories.
A Leaf in the
is
Storm,"
"
is
Reine Allix
is
dame
ninety-three after
Bernadou
accepted,
is
married,
Place
laws,"
among we must
observe
in the setting.
how important a part place plays The author may propose to locate his
in particular "
story "
nowhere
and then
that
is
what
Not
name of country, section, and town, but he himself must know it, or mentally construct it, and be faithful to its
" See
p. 377,
No,
20.
164
local color.
How many
stories
come
to the manuscript-
can conceal
it
from you no
longer
it
is
a horse
Their Parisians should be labeled, for their surroundings might equally well be those of Berlin or of Peters-
burg.
A
It
in
to
in
be convincing.
his painting
The Marriage was a tour de force, and what did he gain? Local color cannot be dreamed out. If you have not visited and studied the locality of which you write, at least consult a book or a friend, and even then you are liable to go wrong.' No African traveler would ever recat Cana, in the clothes of his
day.
A meritorious
Princess Elopes.
instance in point
is
found
in the follow-
The atmosphere,
all
The
setting conforms
reality.
a whilom diplomat for that to follow the continual geographical disturbances of European surfaces. Thus, I cannot distinctly recall the exact location of the Grand Duchy of Barscheit, or of the neighboring principality of Doppelkinn. It meets my needs and purposes however, to say that Berlin and Vienna were easily accessible, and that a three hours' journey would bring you under the shadow of the Carpathian Range, where, in my diplomatic days, I used often hunt the "bear that walks like a man."
scant interest in foreign aifairs
!
trust
man who
takes such
1 65
is
much
set
if
there be such a
thing.
For example,
your scene
in
North America
now
East, to Pennsylvania, to eastern Pennsylvania, to the anthracite coal regions, to Pittston, to the foreign quarter
in-
your reader.
In passing,
let
me
Which of these two pictures is the The man was lying on a rock near the large frame house ;" " The gardener sprawled on a granite
community.
"
clearer ?
boulder a few yards to the left of the rambling, clapboarded house " ? Generality in the former sentence has
been individualized in the
precise words.
latter.
Not
that description
a matter of mere
words.
It is not.
may
be distinguished from
all
It is
words exactly
I
fitted to
them, that
make
delin-
eation vivid.
Once or twice
is
current among those who speak and write of fiction " local color." What does it connote in the language
of criticism?
l66
"A
mine
painter
I
had
just finished
in having
reading some
little
thing that
had succeeded
'What do you
think of it?'
asked him.
"
'
'
Tell
me
you don't
It's
like.'
and
all
that, Allen,'
was
his reply,
'
but
why
in the
some
and
at this point,
and there ?
like that," said the Kentuckian, " that words indicating colors can snapping his fingers,
" It
came over me
to put
it
in
artist
from
my
words."
This
is local color.^'
in
would
language,
it
must keep on
coloring them, never for a moment allowing the people to speak out of " character," act out of consistency, or
"A
The
picture
of the quaint
^' i
Normandy
village,
Steps in Journalism, Shuman, p. 201. In The Art of Writing Fiction, p. 40, Mr. S. Baring Gould Is quoted as giving similar testimony.
I67
moves
when we
on.
"A tall and strong -woman, very withered and very bent and very brown, yet with sweet, dark, flashing eyes that had still light (sic) in them, and a face that was still noble, though nearly a century had bronzed it with its harvest suns and blown
wintry winds" [sitting at night by her winand meditating on the wedding of her grandson Bernadou, just accomplished.] " From her lattice in the eaves she saw straight up the village street; saw the dwellings of her lifelong neighbors, the slopes of the rich fields, the gleam of the broad, gray water, the whiteness of the crucifix against the darkened skies."
on
it
with
its
dow
in the roof
The
ability to
locality
Hamlin Garland
farm-country,
in
humble
life
New
W.
and
not
for Virginia,
excellent
those
to extend further a list to which many other names at home and abroad might be added of each of these has whose work rivals the best
American
short-story.
locale is to
prepare a topographical
map
of the entire
l68
Adams Sawyer.
the
Not
all
would wish to
publish
would at least help to keep movements of the characters in the place consistent
realistic.
and
3.
Occupations
The
consistent.
A football game
argues the
nine,
men on
in a recent story.
A whole vocabulary
terms
and
of
occupations
I
spe-
local color.
know of no
fault so prevalent,
so
familiar.
4.
Conditions
not a satisfactory word.
this is
No
more
tions
cial
" environments."
By
it
mean
all
the condi-
Some have
is
called
it
the "
mood
" of the
story,
but
it
And
these surbe
169
may be able to measure all which work for and against the characters before they start, and while they are doing or becoming.
and " conditions " are handled carefully together some fine harmonies and contrasts result. The gloomy setting prepares for the catastrophe, as in Poe's
"
When
The
Fall of the
fits
House
the storm
in with the
mood
of self-renunciation after
years of struggle.
In The Last Days of Pompeii the eruption of Vesuvius is in harmony with the mood of the
story, as is the case
Rome
in
Quo
Vadis, its
weaker successor.
mood and setting in this passage from James Lane Allen's The Choir Invisible
The next morning the parson, standing a white cold shepherd before his chilly wilderness flock, preached a sermon from the text : " I shall go softly all my years." While the heads of
the
rest
last moments of prayer, she " Yes," she said to herself, gathering her
closely
house
fiercely
and
about her face as she alighted at the door of her the withered leaves of November were whirled about her feet, " I shall go softly all my years."
mood
"
of the action.
with the
Ouida's
"
out as usual
the old
their
the day
husbands' or brothers' blouses or the little blue shirts of with the dogs on the sward
all
edged the stones of the street, and above heavens and' the glow of the sun that had set.
that
170
Reine AUix, like the others, sat before the door, for once doing nothing, but with folded hands and bended head dreamily taking pleasure in the coolness that had come with evening Suddenly there came along the road between the trees an old man and a mule; it was Mathurin the miller He paused be-
travel-stained,
and sad. Margot ceased laughing among her flowers as she saw her old master. None of them knew why, yet the sight of him made the air seem cold and the night seem near. "There is terrible news," he said, drawing a sheet of printed words from his coat-pocket ^"terrible news! We are to go to
war."
5.
In the ardent effort to secure individual overlook the unity of the whole setting.
do not
ever
in
Keep
Let
you
good deeds in a naughty harmony or contrast with the Then the characplot, will produce convincing work. their destinies with an air of fitters will march toward ness as admirable as it is rare. The storm breaks when the hero's moral tension is at its height. The grisly night
world."
Setting, in proper
The breaking
goad Macbeth
joy?
steadily
Does not all the environment on to his crime and its doom,
setting
his crime
tragic
same
\J1
in its
all
The
skilful dramatist
hour of
crisis
And
the circumstance of
air
resolve.
is
Then,
when once
fit
that resolve
is
taken,
accomto
new grooves
the
man
in his
new mood.
outliiSte
I.
summary
SETTING IN GENERAL
DESCRIPTION AS USED TO ESTABLISH SETTING
1.
II.
2.
3.
4.
5-
be by Epithet
be by Simple Hint
6.
7.
8.
be Direct Depict a Thing by Its Effects Often Employs Figures of ^Speech Is Strongly Influenced by Point of View Seven Steps in Description
III.
Time
(a) General Period (6) Season
(c)
(rf)
2.
3.
4.
5.
172
I.
Select
short-stories
whose
settings are
established by
thet,
2.
direct description,
(b)
suggestion,
(c)
epi-
(d) hint, (e) figures of speech. Rewrite the opening setting of one of your old stories
(a) a distant point, (b) the centre of the scene, (c) a fixed point while the objects move. Which one of the " seven steps in description " seems to 3.
you to be most important? Which next? In about two hundred words write the opening setting of a 4. story set (a) in any previous century whose history you have
recently studied; (b) in the present; (c) in the future.
Describe a night scene (a) at a fire; (b) on the ocean; during a riot; (d) at a college dance; (e) at a secret "spread"; (f) after an athletic victory; (g) in a graveyard; (h) in the desert. Write the opening setting of a local-color story set near 6. your own home. Outline a setting showing an occupation with which you 7. are familiar, as some branch of manufacture, commerce, raining,
5.
(c)
or farming. Outline settings, that will (a) harmonize, (b) 8. with the characters. Construct a plot in which setting influences the 9.
of the characters.
contrast,
destinies
Select from Hardy's Tess of the D'Urhervilles passages in 10. which nature sympathizes with the action of the story and the
moods of
11.
a>
the characters. Briefly describe, or suggestively present the picture of, (a)
city street-crossing in winter; (b) the entrance to a place of amusement; (c) a police court; (d) a' country fair; (e) a rain-storm in a lonely village. 12. Vary the foregoing by assuming successively (in as manycases as may be assigned) the view-point of a tramp, a cynical old man, a boy, a comical foreigner, an unlucky man, etc. Outline a scene and suggest an incident in surprising con13.
CHAPTER
IX
We
tion.
.
Cramer,
.
accomplish less by rule than by observation and imitaTalks to Students on The Art of Study.
.
is
to be
infinitely
various; to interest,
and yet still to gratify; to be ever changing, as it were, the stitch, and yet still to give the effect of an ingenious neatness. Stevenson, On Some Technical Eleto disappoint, to surprise,
From
this chapter
heading
let
all,
or
even most, good short-stories exhibit clearly marked divisions of introduction, body,
the
the
which make a
story individual.
body of the
though
no one
with
likely to contain
them
all
in
a perfect degree.
for,
story, then, is
what we wait
faces
and ends, whether the writer presome explanatory words or whether he plunges
yarn without introduction]
173
-^
into his
174
pounded by
rhetoricians,
may be found
in the short-story.
To some
virhile
of them I have already referred, especially in the chapters on " Plot," " Introduction," and " Setting,"
to others I shall advert in succeeding sections.
are,
There
much
of the setting:
I.
Incident
It
must be
man
in repose.
.
It
The must show him- acting and acted jipon. can only move as he is swayed internally by his emotions; and the movement can only be seen externally in
.
.
man
its eiifect
on
Not everyone
go the
full
few
will dis-
1 It will be observed that nowhere in. this treatise have I attempted to name in order all the essential parts of the shortstory. In The Technique of the Novel Dr. Home regards the essentials of that literary form as being: Plot, Motive (purpose) and Verisimilitude, Character-Study, Emotional Excitement, Background, and Style. It has not seemed wise to treat the short-story under so rigid a classification, for the reason that some of the subordinate elements Dialogue, for example may touch all the parts with equal intimacy: while Emotion may show itself in every phase of the story. The truth is, too close an analysis may cause us to lose sight of the delicate blending of the parts of the story. Its characteristics often pervade the whole rather' than stand out as entities. 2 The Technique of the Novel, Home, p. 2^,
175
we
work out
we
take
is critical
we
watch,
we
approve,
we
smile at incongruities,
we
are
moved
fering,
selves,
or virtue.
still
them-
they are not us; the more clearly they are de-
picted, the
us, the
It is
woos us out of our reserve. Something happens as we desire it to happen to ourselves some situation, that
;
we have long
is
Then we
forget
plunge into
experience;
we push the hero aside; then we the tale in our own person and bathe in fresh and then, and then only, do we say that we
^
The extreme realists demand, in the words of Paul Bourget, " mediocrity of heroes, systematic diminution of
plot,
of dramatic action." * In the following quotation substitute " short-story " for
and almost
total suppression
" novel,"
'A
176
"
some extent
if
to psychologiin
cal evolution in
modern
fiction
may be an advance
and does not forget
is
not
make
the story.
it
The
need not be
and
is
their interaction
make
the
The
highest fiction
that
that
is,
and
However
interest
the balance
incident,
let
it
may
tilt
and
short-story
one thing
be repeated dynamic.
something
The
ings
sketch
is
we The whole of
call incidents.
the story
may
main incident may be fed and built up by one or more minor incidents, related vitally to the forward movement of the plot. In " The Reformation of Calliope " ^ the main incident is the mistake of Calliope's mother in thinking that he is city marshal. The conincident, or a
tributory incident
is
marshal.
The
all
resulting incident
Calliope's masquerade
as marshal.
These ara
all essential
to the plot.
But not
s
177
points
must everything
must seem
This gives
rise to the
proper and
office of its
having an especial
his plot
own.
means for
dents."
illustraIt is
easy
simple
example.
is
In
this
Maupassant's
:
woman-
warned his niece against earthly but coming upon her one moonlight night with
God has
made such
was
first
nights, in order to
throw a
to
veil of idealism
Now,
womanhood. " He would shake his cassock when he went out of the door of the convent, and would stride swiftly away as if he
picture the abbe's bitter scorn of
'
p. 34.
No.
10.
178
merely a de-
Another equally expressive action might have been chosen without in the slightest degree
affecting the plot.
the
wrought
moved by
little
fruit-
trees, set in
it
were a sweetened
breath,
in
warm,
clear evening.
air as drunk-
He
This
is
We
can
approaching.
Change
this
materially
story.
built
upon
the one formative incident the moonlight has wrought magic the Thus, are the developing contributory
its
priest.
plot-incidents
essential
to
plot;
^or
incidents
may
So
sorts of
of
The
writer
is
tempted
to in-
179
vitally
He had
better
cut
it
out,
though
charm some stories possess. The remedy wrould be to build a new story with the attractive though irrelevant incident as a plot-germ.
Again, the writer
may
and allow
it
to
overshadow
is
fatal mistake.
word here
enough.
It is
not profitable to
split hairs as
to whether developclosely
when
related to
real incident.
great question
yet not
how
it
and
lost
overburden
with incident.
We
have
who
fit
thousand words to
up consumes
words
or none
The theme
Even
in
Naturally,
may
at
be introduced.
the
may
l8o
though usually
it
does.
To
in it." To seem true a thing must be of such a sort as would naturally cause the result, or flow as a result from a previous cause.^" Here again I must emphasize the im-
In describing how
man
thing
may be
observed.
An owl
has been
known
to stare
all
fixedly at
imob-
man
once patiently
served a great orchestra with the sole result of a wondering admiration for " the coincidence of the fiddlers'
elbows."
Do
of fancy.
A
make
word of warning
incident
is
needed here.
to
seem
real
of
You
but
fiction,
and short
Fiction-.
Our
in
art
is
much
making
occupied, and bound to be occupied, not so stories true as in making them typical."
l8l
to decide
Such meth-
ods would
writing.
said
healthy inspiration
it
if
applied to fiction-
said of you, as
(not
exactly)
of
Scott,
that
archaeology
made
his characters
had
Emotion
all
Emotion
picted
is
from the
Werther.
here.
by a Jane Austen, to the darkest passion of a In a widely inclusive sense I use the term
literary forms, the short-story offers
As do kindred
excitement, but
tion
those
short-stories.
An
them as and
There
is
an
elaborate, chapter
on emotion
;
Short-Story; Genung's
Working
is
especially good.
l82
that
is,
benev-
What
arising
is
known
as the
that
is,
from bodily feelings and appetites. The emotions which commonly dominate, whole
stories,
and there
in fiction of a less
It
will be
Of
is
incomplete.
Professor Francis
"
life
said:
the story of a
human
lives
human
do-
it;
the story of a
great historical character in his day of aroused emotional activity; or the story of the romantic adventures
of
some person
in
whom we
to
take an interest.
really the basal
all
So that the novel of personal life is form of the novel, and one may say that
when each
^*
is
the story of
says
some
"
by some emotion."
Again he
under
A
"'
novel
a narrative of
human
:
life
. .
stress of
emotion,"
"
And
still
again
".
The Evolution of
the Novel, p. 9.
^*Ibid.. o. 26.
I83
way
in a large
superiorit);.
of that which
namely, emotion.
^^
Now
say,
all this is
very
full,
very
in
explicit, and,
very extreme.
But
at
in the
short-story
tained
human
interest,
human
The whole
fiction
creato
and since
its
assumes
be a microcosm, fiction, short and long, must deal intimately with emotion,
from
gentler to
its
extreme
manifestations.
Looking again
often dominate
at the
whole
short-stories,
we must
observe the
feehngs.
But
this is
unpleasant emotions.
Indeed,
the three
whose faces are pretty sure to be seen peering forth from one character or another in nearly every story. The malevolent is treated only now and then and
printed
when
184
thrown a vivid
knows no emotion
all
'
fiction
which
" Happi-
story-tellers of
They were happy,' are the end of every love tale." ^* (a) Love interest is of incalculable value to the shorthandled with delicacy, naturalness, and
Its scope is life-wide.
fidelity to
story, if
truth.
medium than the affections may the nature and development of character be so adequately comprehended. The touch of love moves every other emotion with a force
The hackneyed,
vulgar, prurient
and
bestial treatment
when found
in a period-
home
circulation.
must
feel
undeserved popu-
ephemeral as it is inartistic. " All forms of sentimentalism in literature," says Winchester, " result
or
Emotions thus
easily
own
sake, have
The emotion
excited by
of hu-
man
life."
"
who was
master to subject the
exlife,
Balzac,
Esther Happy,
p. 70.
185
it
seems
celestial ether."
The
and fustian
as
it
sentimentality
writer,
is
quite another
him to possess a rich emotional nature. The latter more than the former will be his safe guide in dealing
with this subtle element.
letters
wish
a foot high.
self-respecting author will
it
The
want
to
tell
the truth
great
young
Whatever men may hold as to the must be pure in spirit; and pure
may
be,
name!
(b) Pathos, in
its
of lack, of sacrifice, of
coming
where.
ness.
It is
as wide as
said
Eoe has
Sadness."
1'
Quoted
in
The Technique of
the Novel,
Home,
p. 189.
l86
woman who
new
bonnet
wedding of a young friend. After hesitating long she decides to buy a particularly handsome one at
for the
a reduced price, but foregoes the joy for the sake of giving a
new
suit to
a lad
who
rewarded
in this
As the bride reached Mr. Birkin's pew she stopped, slipped her hand from the bridegroom's arm, and turning flung both her own, bouquet and all, round Mrs. Birkin's neek. She kissed the old woman before the whole church and whispered loudly
in her ear
I
:
ever saw."
In another moment she was gone. The last pair of bridesmaids had passed, and after them, visitors and villagers alike thronged into the sunshine. Mrs. Birkin, her bonnet much awry, owing to the heavy bridal bouquet, strayed out with the rest in a sort of solemn rapture. She had been honored above all other women on that great day. " Wot did 'er say to you ? " asked Mrs. Comley, enviously,
when
Mrs. Birkin laughed. " Bless 'er sweet face " she exclaimed triumphantly, " if her didn't go and think 't was a bran' new
bonnet.
I
must
'a'
made un
kindled."
On
He
had seen
spirit
that creates heroes, but he himself had felt the black hand of
19 L. Allen Harker, Century, Aug., 1908. 2" Claire Wallace Flynn, Lippincott's, June,
1907,*
1 87
and strike at the very roots of his life. use to fight against that name of ' coward In truth, he had not fought; he had let it sweep over him, engulf him, ruin him.
What
'
Again the rat-a-tat of the drums. The man on the bed lifted Oh, to feel just once Dan's simple love for his flag, the glow of patriotism, the thrill of war that trembled a faint, hallowed echo on this day! To feel, if such were possible, all these things that had been denied him in his youth just to feel them once before he too went to that dim place where the Stars and Stripes and all the other banners of the world are
his head.
Old and
feeble,
He
felt
The ceremonies were drawing to a close. The silent heroes and gray had had their measure of praise meted out to them, when a bugler stepped forward and played the first bar of the " Star Spangled Banner." There was a shout, a sudden concerted movement of the crowd to get a little nearer the
in blue
saw the
than
rang out. From his higher place Adam man whom he had been watching push his way to the
with
His face was darker flag. an immeasurable hatred. He sneered as he looked at the Zouaves standing gaunt and rugged about the great monument that had been raised to the memory of their brothers. The people were singing now. The man laughed. Above the voice of palpitating youth and earnest age Adam heard it, and clenched his hand at his side. What did this man mean to do? Such wildness, such enmity, would not go unsatisfied. The man's hand went to his pocket. Adam stood tense, watching his every movement. Again the man looked at the flag the flag that was almost shot away, the flag that perhaps the man argued had been carried aloft on the battle-field at a frightful and needless cost, while a calm government sat back
edge of the crowd, directly facing the
ever,
l88
and
said,
Adam, what
"Let the slaughter go on." Was that, questioned the man was thinking? Adam took a step nearer the standard-bearer, whose dim eyes were ignorant of danger. Adam seemed to feel in some intuitive way what this pooi, frantic creature below meant to do. But he must not be allowed to do it he must not! Those smoky, stained old shreds of silk must not feel a wound from the hand of a disloyal son. The man's arm shot out. Something gleamed in the sunshine, something sang in the air above the words "in triumph shall wave," and an old Zouave stumbled and fell forward upon the white stones. . The commander of the post stooped over the fallen man and lifted his head. The man was a stranger to him. He looked at a Zouave standing near, silently ques-
sir,
He
the
I guess
he saw what
the
commander looked
at
the
speaker, the
man who
had marched all the way beside Adam. " Who is he ? " continued the officer. " And what is he doing here? He is not one of my men." The old Zouave took his ragged cap from his head. "He was Dan Roth's brother. We have all heard of him he he was the boy who wouldn't join in '6i. But to-day he The old man knelt down beside Adam. Just below the dim stain on the shoulder of Dan's jacket, the stain which marked that day at Alexandria, there was a new, fresh one. The heart that lay beneath it was at peace.
i^
Then there
Carol."
is
And
loss
of his half-breed child in tropic India, in Kipling's " Without Benefit of Clergy." And the despair of the
poor wretch
in "
who watches
his
own approaching
madness,
The Horla," by Maupassant. And the sorrow of the little prince when he learns
tragic child-
that royalty
89
cannot keep off Death by posting a guard, in Daudet's " The Death of the Dauphin." And Merimee's " Mateo
Falcone,"
his
who becomes the self-appointed executioner of dishonored son. The field of pathos has no boun-
daries.
The emotion aroused, may be so sweetly sad as to be and again, a story of failure,
;
may
fill
casing pain.
There
is
is
There
into
is
and the
Scotch humorists)
far, falls
and there
is
And
there
is
so akin
to tragedy that
necessarily accompanies
it
and cannot
be distinguished
(c)
tears.
from
it."
^^
Mirth
I
lies
lies close
to
use
it as"
mor and all the range between. The learned Dr. Barrows has distanced
alysts in his celebrated exposition
all
other an-
of mirth.^^
"
Sometimes
it
lieth in
p. 89.
IQO
playeth in words
and phrases, taking advantage from the ambiguity of their sense or the affinity of their sound sometimes it is
;
wrapped up
times
it
cleverly retorting
in a bold
scheme of speech,
a tart irony, in a
lusty
sometimes
it;
being; sometimes
it
riseth only
from a lucky hitting upon what is strange; sometimes from a crafty wresting (of) obvious matter to the purOften it consisteth in one hardly knows what, pose.
and springeth up one can hardly
of language."
tell
and windings
Thus we
its
is it
life
we
life
and
record, literature.
In the former
it
appeals to us
is
In
this brilliant
summary by
glimpse of the
infinite variety
of
its
play
".
to
the matchless
IQI
the stern and terrible satire of Juvenal fun-drunken extravagances of Rabelais; the self-
genial fun of
ler;
subtilties of
But-
Congreve
the polished
Smith; the
sly,
humor
of
Lamb;
gayety of Beranger
the
human
nature,
To expound and
illustrate
all
it
the phases
of mirth
Let
be enough to contrast
seeks out the heart
;
Wit
humor
up to darting
ridicule,
humor
swift surprise,
;
'^Literature
192
laughing
fillip;
humor
is
'
strikes a lusty blow frankly on the shield; wit momentary, humor is lasting. " Fuller's remark, that a negro is the image of God cut in ebony,' is humorous; Horace Smith's inversion of it, that the task-
master
witty."
is
'
ivory,'
is
2*
is
Make an
how
in-
how
how
red
to the reader^
is
Diction
ing the mere ideas for which the words stand, often
But if you would express emoyou must observe how much more emotional are some words than others. When you feel deeply, use a word that is surcharged with all of your own intensity. There is such a word.^'' Seek it out. Discard timeworn adjectives in old relations. Fit new epithets, and
suggests a state of mind.
tion
specific
Stevenson
tells
in a
memorable passage
on
Memories and
Portraits,
in the section
this
"A
College Magazine,"
how
He
did
And
results.^^
the
28
Quoted on
p. 280.
STOftV
193
is
Exclamation
"
of
common.
Who
Am I my
in
brother's keeper
Or
I re-
Waterloo
Les Miserablesf
a passage in Marsh's
which the
The Surprising Husband in injured wife turns aside from speaking to her
cries out in apostrophe to
husband and
lar,
person."
no one
in particuis
The
exasperation
un-
mistakable.
the
ing.
more
abound
in emotional color-
Gesture
may
be made
to,
meaning they suggest by the simplest and attitudes often more eloquent than words. Ernest Renan, speaking of the Old Testament ScripSee the world of
tures,
has said:
"
Anger
is
expressed in
Hebrew
is
in a throng of ways,
Now
the metaphor
now
now from
now from
shivering.
Discouragement and
194
reins.
Pride
is
portrayed by the
breathing, desire
thirst
or paleness.
Pardon
is
ex-
it,
then throws
behind him:
. .
all
to
signify
is
that
he forgets them.
solidity, or
The
;
idea of truth
drawn from
stability
that of beauty
straightness,
line,
from splendor, that of good from that of evil from swerving or the curved
or from stench.
To
create
is
is
primitively to mould,
Bone signifies the substance, the essence of a thing, and serves in in each word one Hebrew for our pronoun self. ...
to decide is to cut, to think
to speak.
still
makers of the
lan-
gain
Arrangement of Words
Study the impression of
of the dash
expressive
of
emotion.
torical devices.
27
Quoted
in Gardiner's
Literature,
p. 114.
195
all
Emotion
It
in the author
is
after
the sourceit,
in the
am
now
however,
author
the passage
though neither
It
some
stress.
preparation
emotional
Keep your emotions sane and fresh and genuine and Without emotion the author is as dead as his stories. Study your own heart, but do not neglect to look into other hearts as well. Poe has said that " There are chords in the hearts of the most reckless which cannot be touched without emotion " ^* an ambiguous sentence that is full of meaning any how you take it. Emotion in the author often leads to the choice of a
tender.
theme.
man-
ufactured, try as
you
will.
was breaking
Curiosity
his heart
Shop
"
and
all
ever since.
We yield to sympathy,"
^
we
refuse to description."
It is re-
was dumb.
When
^*
not recognizing
2'
On
196
Croesus,
head.
was about to give the king The emotion of fear and love wrought upon the young prince that he
of his tongue, and cried out,
'
Crcesus
'
But,
finally,
Hawthorne
is
worth
If the rein
may become bathos, sentiment lapse into sentimentality, tragedy into ranting. Adapt to your art Hamlet's advice to the players:
be inadvertently loosed, pathos
" Speak the speech, I pray you, as I pronounced
it
it,
to
many
spoke
as
crier
my
lines.
much
with
and (as I may say) whirlpool of your passion, you must acquire and beget a temperance, that
may
give
it
smoothness.
O,
it
offends
me
to the soul, to
to
very rags, to
split the
lings
'^
;
but inexplicable
would have
it
out-
Be
let
your discretion
be
your tutor
you
o'erstep
floor.
197
is
first,
up
Nature."*^
(The
outline
summary of
on page
of
'
215.)
What
little
and very
much
incident in a short-story?
2. Select the plot-incidents and the developing-incidents in any two plots in Appendix C. What kinds of short-stories are the least unfavorably af3. fected by the inclusion of unimportant incidents?
,
4. 5. 6. 7. 8.
What kind tends to incident? What kind tends to eliminate incident? From Appendix C select an example of From a current magazine select a story
Discuss the devices by which
the
each kind.
full
of incident.
author has
secured
verisimilitude.
9.
10.
Give the dictionary definition of emotion. Make the fullest classification of the emotions that you
Select short-stories, or plots, illustrating at least five of
What
most commonplace
in short-
stories ?
13.
Suggest an
situations.
14.
How may
15. 16.
an author's emotional nature be deepened? Can a sense of humor be cultivated? As you observe it, do you find the short-story rising or
Hamlet, Act
III,
Scene
2.
198
17. 18.
causes contribute to the tendency you observe? do you discriminate between an immoral and a moral short-story? Novel? Are the standards different? Distinguish pathos from bathos. 19. 20. Can the short-story be as emotional as the novel? Why? 21. Give examples from short-stories of how (a) diction, (b) figures of speech, and (c) gesture and posture, are made to
How
express emotion.
22.
of speech, and
Write original examples of how (a) diction, (b) figures (c) gesture and posture are made to express
emotion.
23.
Make
list
of as
many
Examples
ill;
;
was
rival
24.
The
sacrifice
the love of a
man
Describe a unique proposal scene. OutUne a humorous plot, with a surprise. 25. From an emotional short-story make a list of all the 26. words especially expressive of emotion. Trace the " line of emotion " ( Whitcomb) in an emotional 27.
short-story,
somewhat thus
'*K*a'ww
Note: Assignments of story-themes for writing will grow out of the emotions discussed in the class-room. The instructor should not forget to call for a rewriting of earlier story attempts, in the light of advancing understanding of technique.
CHAPTER X
THE BODY OF THE STORY
(Coficluded)
Keeping the beginning and the end in view, we set out from the and go straight towards the destination; we introduce no event that does not spring from the first cause and
right starting-place,
we make each detail a link joined to the one going before and the one coming after. David Peyde.
tend to the great effect;
itself,
have said that the body of the story is the story and that therefore everything directly bearing upon
the short-story is
germane
to the body.
In
it
still
further
re-
must be
am
chapter was devoted to (i) and (2) emotion in the short-story. It remains now to examine (3) crisis, (4) suspense, (5) climax, (6)
headings.
incident
The preceding
Some
climax,
But
crisis is
not always
which
may
up to
its
highest point.
a period
tunity,
note
however,
is
of
a point or
oppor-
of decision, of change.
The Greek
rhetoricians
199
200
called
it
the watershed of
Now
crisis
may be
later.
is riot
of which more
As
necessarily confined to a
may be broken by
periods of suspense,
and even by the introduction of developing incidents that is, one incident may furnish the foundation of the
crisis
crisis
while
still
others contribute
later, usually just
upward
occurring
it is
As
a rule
minor
is
unfolded.
The foundation
story.
of the crisis
is
If
this
certain
thing
From
This preliminary
It
appears without
not foresee
the
as
Even
the hero
may
its
potency must be
made
all is
The movement
ended.
201
of an individual, or in the
career of
any subject of
fiction
for
animals, institu-
and various other objects may constitute the central figures of plot need not be sensational to be inter-
esting.
will
The
whom
you appeal
moral
crisis
tion of certain
not at
all.
minds when physical danger arouses them But in any case' the crisis must be such as
live people,
might confront
use of crisis
a thing of actual and appreworking out of the plot. Study Kipin " Without Benefit of Clergy," ^ and
There
is
no tempest-in-a-mill-
much
stress
on
this point
let
but
momentous, de-
plot
4.
Suspense
constructed
first
The story of
story,
plot
is
of
all
to excite
For
minor
2
if
any there be
2.
See
p. 376,
No.
the close of this chapter are several short-story plots, so annotated as to illustrate how crisis, suspense, climax, denouement, and conclusion are handled by adepts. See also
'At
Appendix C.
202
main
Then
final destinies in
the story.
One of
been aroused,
this is the
period of sus-
"
What
will
happen "
than
ablet-
sees
de-
nouement
be reached.
Not every
of suspense.
story
this period
none the
chord.
The day
is
when
the troubles of
still
the
Readers
mentally
is not
pummel
satisfactorily relieved.
Who
his
own
Indeed,
sus-
action,
Now
delicacy
requirea-
and a nice judgment, but the most skilful literary manipulator cannot successfully work up an artificial suspense without a genuine
crisis to excite interest in the
senti-
outcome.
It is
;
mentalism here
however,
if
203
the reader will
moment
to
human
lives,
not need to be
up too long.
intensity,
this
goaded on to suspense. But don't keep it That means flagging interest. Simplicity,
genuineness
seriousness,
these
must mark
Climax
;
The climax
is
is
it
made
power to
its
highest point
is
but
and
in
that
is
a problem of
arrangement, and
of the plot.
mark
but
The one
is
a point.
The
full crisis
the
identical,
development or of action
may
ward
to the catastrophe, if
when
changes to that of
climax
is
when the dead woman's face Ligeia.^ Though in Poe's story the
is
most
by
In
final effect
of his story by
straining after
The reader
will
204
first
causes up to the
its
name
implies
a ladder
It
and he
is
is
important to remember
the climax
may
slide
down
by
step.
no
small matter.
shows how
the
may
follow the
real
No
pitfall is
close.
As you
See to
it
too soon, that the lesser event does not detract from
interest of the greater,
cliiriax
does not
to
still
in suspense
all.
if
brief
and
then.
intense.
No
trivialities
things,
them.
quiet
and contain no
of surprise,
made out
of the
that
In the climax
lies
the mainspring of
so do not
205
difficulty in this
connection
is
that of
handhng
moment "
crisis, let
that
The
us say,
is
and the
climax.
that
he loses
a tremendous fascination in
is
thus fore-
fight of
a swimmer
handling,
doomed to go over the falls. This to make the action so pulsate with
.will
sit
fate,
end.
Sometimes there
is
would not be
is
slain
by one of
woman born;
ious device
;
quickly quenched.
may
actually come, by
is
lence to nature,
Happy
is
of plot-stories
ditch
who
truthful seeming.
6.
Denouement
it
From
climax
leads
the foregoing
is
will
appear
how
intimately
Just as crisis
As we have
seen, the
word
207
to
the
framework
stick out.
To do
its
away"
is
attempting to hide.
An
from afar the solution of a mystery, so the issue of a complication must be kept from under inquisitive noses until just the proper moment. When you see a reader who has been absorbed in every
acute reader can sniff
word of a narrative suddenly begin to slight whole pages you may know he has scented the outcome. Are there two possible endings to a perfect shortstory?
will
making two
different endings to The Light That Failed. The denouement of the perfect story is inevitable, and
the reader feels its inevitability with perfect approval.
Make another end to it ? " writes Stevenson to a friend. "Ah, yes, but that's not the way I write; the whole tale is implied; I never use an effect when I can
help
it,
"
unless
it
that's
what a story
to
To make
wrong.
just
'
another end,
that
is
make
the beginning
is
The denouea
full close,'
nothing,
it is
as
it is
in
I,
p.
147.
2o8
Maupassant.*
This
out-
the diary of a
man who
feels that
some power
and controls it, causing him to do things he would not, and of which he may be at the time unconscious. He makes a vigorous strugside himself possesses his soul
now
successfully,
now
only
the
At
he succeeds in shutting
But he suddenly fears that fire can have no such " No effect, and he ends his diary thus no beyond any doubt, beyond any doubt, he is not dead. Then
:
then
it
will
me
to kill myself
Upon
we have
crisis,
Upper Berth,"
the mystery
is
unexplained.
When
the narrator
finally
have the
full crisis;
when
the struggle
captain
results in his
downward
which
fall
rather
weak
explains
on
that ship.
is
But we must
re-
See See
p. 376, p. 377,
No. No.
10. 15.
209
course.
that the revelation may merely show how the moment is met and perhaps hint at the future From such simple outcomes, which require no
it
special concealment,
come under the same head. The more obscure the mystery the greater is the necessity for keeping its outcome hidden until the last
erly
moment.
know
of no
way
" It
is
we
can
its
The reader
less
is
normally hopeful.
With
all his
breath-
feels
to rise
author Let
that
may wish
to
quite hopeless.
much
are
Then
the Gordian
to everyone's disgust.
.Magazine
generally
committed to the
this.
You may
be certain of
we
better
sort.
The average
short-story reader
demands
wedding but as
2IO
their sense of justice should be satisfied than that the chief characters should " live happily ever afterward."
To
if
made an
too.
attractive charac-
ter,
but
it is
just so in real
rests
life,
And
herein no small
It is
moral responsibility
much more important that a story should end hopefully than with a smile. Optimism is a pretty good philosophy, in
upon
the author.^'^
fiction as well as in real life.
and so
divine.
also
is
human and
Yet
fate
and
retributive justice as
themes afford
Conclusion
by-
The modern
Some
^^
let
gOj but
go ambling
on
See The Problem of Endings, Mary Tracy Earle, Book Buyer, Aug., 1898. Also William Allen White, in Collier's, Feb.
II,
1005.
12
18.
211
manner of Richardson in his Pamela. They on morahzing, trying to taper off smoothly, seeing the newly engaged couple happily married, and otherwise disposing of minor characters.
extreme
is
absurd enough.
may
No
When
In Maupassant's "
identical
Coward
"
^^
the conclusion
is
we
discern apreptile.
The
apfears
coward "
fears
to
display
trepidation
in
an
He
We
see
while he speculates on
possible experiences
"
was
really brave,
brave, because
The thought
was never completed; opening his mouth wide, he suddenly thrust the barrel of the pistol into the very bottom
of his throat
"When
the white
(climax).
report,
he
paper on the
This
is
my
See
p. 376,
No.
10.
212
minutely describes
and
attain-
ments of Ligeia,
crisis)
his wife.
She
falls
ill
{foundation of
and
inary crisis).
H
his
then
marries
whole
being
is still
Lady
She
Rowena
grows better, then worse, and finally takes a glass of wine to revive her. Three red drops of liquid are seen mysteriously to fall into the cup, and presently she dies (second step of final crisis). Three times, as the husband looks upon her dead body, each time" thinking of his dead and still-loved Ligeia, the Lady Rowena revives (full crisis). Twice she sinks back into death, but the last time that she revives the husband realizes that " These are the full, and the black, and the wild-eyes
of
the
Lady of
the
LADY
LI-
In Ouida's "
^*
Reine Allix
is
who
lives
Bernadou.
When
comes
is
to live with
Reine Allix.
all
happiness.
Suddenly the
is
terrible
against
Prussia,
announced (foundation of
the
See
p. 377,
No. 20
213
struggle.
hears
only
indefinitely
of
the
But
Reine Allix has forebodings and recalls the days of the Napoleonic wars (suspense).
is
said to
By and by a Prussian spy have passed among them, and the news of
is
French defeat
crisis,
rise
Again quiet and suspense. At last, "The Prussians are on us!" rises the cry (full crisis). The patriot Bernadou is almost alone as he urges a detoward climax).
fense.
The Prussians
Bernadou
not resist.
dead
(climax).
is
The Prussians
too,
fire
whom
its
tage
is
and that
Tale of
Bill
with
consumed
"
Two
Burdens,"
by Irving Bacheller,
is
told
by
Gwinup, woodsman.
laday,
him
as
guide.
them
off his
their ancestors
(foundation of crisis).
ing,
When
starting
on a day's
fish-
Calladay
fits
new
suit,
but
and
and
fires at
him, nar-
missing his head (full crisis). The squatter "holds up " the supposed millionaire offender and forces
rowly
^Century, Aug.,
1908.
214
him
suspense).
day, by signing Bill's name, to witness the paper, volunteers to give the squatter a thousand dollars, forces the
When
An
Error of Judgment,"
is
^^
by
Elliott Flower, a
watchman
He
is
accosted
air.
Learnthe
him a
dollar
post
is
the
He
is
an expert insurance
oil
He
The
re-
turns, is relieved
store
comes with
his lawyer.
fire
with setting
own
to
make no insurance
claim.
Suit
the
owner for arson (second step of crisis). He finds that he must sue the insurance company for payment, or else
tacitly
^^
admit his
guilt.
He
1908.
215
small,
really suspect
him
Sudhis
own
store.
The company
declines.
denly
the
in
pany and
but have
ployees
its
no proof
comes
They show
owner
is
guilty
that he or
were
At length
the
the case
facts, facts,
watchman
adjuster
He
was the only man who entered the building between the times when the firemen left and the police
came, and relates
how
The
inference
the adacquit-
ted
and the
is
full
reader
led to
amount of insurance is paid, though the believe that the owner really was guilty
The
adjuster
is
buked by
to his
his:
OUTLINE SUMMARY
(Including Outline of Preceding Chapter)
The Body
1.
of
the Story
Incident
2.
Pathos
2l6
(c) Mirth
Emotion
in the
Author
Crisis
Suspense Climax
6.
7.
Denouement
Conclusion
Select the
C.
crises in plots 6 to 10 in
Appendix
2.
What
objection
there to having
many minor
crises in a
short-story ?
3.
mystification of the
reader ?
4.
dix C.
5.
Discuss
the
wisdom of making a
plot
climax
seem
inevitable.
6. 7.
Select five plots in Appendix C in which climax is identical with denouement. 8. Five in which denouement is identical with conclusion. Write your opinions upon the "happy ending." 9. 10. (a) What is true tragedy? (b) Can it consist with the
"happy ending"?
11.
crisis,
thereafter.
12. Write out the climax scene in any one of Appendix C without reading the original stories. Now add the denouement and conclusion 13.
in
your own
language.
14.
bution,
15.
Outline stories in which (a) accident, (b) fate, (c) retriform either the pivots for the crises, or the denouements. Outline a plot, but write out the conclusion in full.
217
Read
of your
17.
clusion.
plots,
Let the instructor assign certain short-stories, or merely somewhat in the manner of the following diagrams. The points of change in*the plots should be clearly indicated on the diagrams by filling in sentences or briefly desig18.
for plot-analysis
Denouement
problem
Intro-
duction
(b)
Period of preparation
Gradual
itable
fall to
inev-
Action begins
(c)
Reader
Suspense
intensities interest
in
doubt Sudden
close
rise to
climax and^
Action at once
rises to crisis
minor
Note:
definitely.
Such
If
exercises
accessible,
may
the
be
multiplied
stories
effort.
original
CHAPTER XI
CHARACTERS AND CHARACTERIZATION
Learn to see with other people's
people's hearts.
eyes,
and to
feel
with other
How
to Write
a Novel, Anonymous.
Knowledge of human nature is the gold which is to be worked form of beauty, it is the diamond which is to be cut and polished. Art is that which forms the gold into a thing of use and beauty; it is that which reveals the natural beauty of the diamond to the ordinary observer. A good form, a true art,
into a
Those
essential principles of
human
marriage there can be no children of the imagination. Cody, The World's Greatest Short Stories.
Sherwin
Read the
titles
of the
first
you come across and see how the spirit of personality pervades them all. Test this matter more thoroughly by going over the one-hundred titles in Appendix B, and
you
will find that sixty per cent, refer directly to charac-
interest.
Mr. Howells has said that character delineation is at once the largest and best element in the novel; so also is it in the short-story. Length for length, the one gives
character-drawing as
much prominence
as the other.
To
it
human
218
2I9
as witness
many
Kipling stories
but
we
The Evolution of the English Novel Professor Stodan individual, and even the complete
slow in development, so in literary
is
individual
name,
is
The
short-story
"persons in the story," suggests individuality. As Mr. Mabie has effectively put it, " Formerly good and evil
they
separate
The problem
living
his
is
how
people
have not
No
being
is
interesting
enough to
in the short-story.
In the bi-
ography he
may
be,
though I
1
am
New
Page
46.
^Stories
220
...
'
pear natural."
a character must be exaggerated to apHe must live, but the course of his Hfe
must be unusual while seeming to be usual. In his essay on The Really Interesting People,* Colonel Higginson
tells
how "
who
lived to be nearly
'
Lord Tyrawley, Tyrawley and I have been dead for two years, but we don't tell anybody.' " But when a character in fiction is dead he sits up and shouts it out to everybody it is the one thing that cannot be hid. Emotion is the source-spring of character-interest, and emotion a dead character never
eighty,
remarked of
feels.
how
a great Russian
upon
own work,
tell
his
manner
of writing.
What
have heardihim
of these things
was worthy of the beautiful results he produced; of the deep purpose, pervading them all, to show us life itself. The germ of a story, with him, was never an affair of plot that was the last thing he thought of it was the
The
first
form
in
in-
which a
dividual,
tale
or a
whom
he
191.
221
stood
to
They
him
definite, vivid,
and he wished
to
know, and
show, as
was
to
much as possible of their nature. The first thing make elear to himself what he did not know, to
to
them up
dossier,
to the
He
had
their
as
the
French say, and as the police have that of every conspicuous criminal.
With
this
was able
to
What
shall I
He
things that
showed them completely; but, as he said, manner and the reproach that was made want of architecture,' in other words, of
'
The great
thing,
of course,
is
to have
Walter Scott
I.
THE CHARACTERS
I.
plentiful,
The sources of character-material seem ridiculously yet few eyes are trained to discern, and fewer
(a)
as a
To
young writer
own
being
^Partial
Portraits,
Henry James.
p. 94.
Compare
this
view with
222
is
when he does
look he
is likely
life.
comes by practice
in self-awareness.
I
Ques-
What am
up
to
now
thinking?
my
present thoughts?
What What
they
motives influenced
simple or complex?
my
last
important act?
Were
gle?
And
did
to find
ready-made ?
How
was reached?
your inner
self,
and uncover
the
You
remember
that
many
who may
not be worth
in
reading faces,
inferring motive
essential character,
all comers.
it
No
was
to
What
is
it,
precisely and
different?
intimately
what
is
it,
that
Press
home
that question
chance
to observe
that the
its
inner
man forms
share of study.
Read
See
p.
s6.
223
Dickens,
And
The
Thackeray,
Stevenson,
Balzac
and
Kipling.
chology/
(b)
principles of selection will arise in your
mind
quite naturally as
your
skill in
If the former,
your selection
is
limited to
who
you are writing for a particular class of magazines you will find there another guidepost. St. Nicholas and Harper's and Smart Set welcome characrequired.
If
ters
of different sorts.
Some
have
won a
men
of genius
What
tion, if
generally,
is
in
in
will
be and do.
wants to read
exhibit strong
who do
who
evil;
whose appearance typifies their natures (with exceptions) who show the characteristics of a class and yet are individual; whose emotions love, hate, revenge, greed, humor, ambition, what not take unexpected though logical
individuality,
;
courses.
Men
^
whom
Gordy's
New
Psychology
is
ing.
224
know
in
life.
It will
not do to
is a prig, or a glutton;
or a
thief.
Who
was
it
would
strike
back
if
your readers
fellow or bad.
effect.
will
decide as to whether he
is
a good
Moral teaching
2.
Speaking
Total
Alt
"The Piece
passant
of String,'
'
Guy de Mau
(28)., -^
Morgan
Hawthorne (works)
"How
Partner)
14
I24).
Average.,
4 to
12 to 13
(The numbers
in parentheses refer to
Appendix A.)
I have
225
down a
Of
course, the
a precedent
even
but
if
it
will
number of
silent actors.
The
relations
to sustain to-
have limited
and
us-
this is
is
of two char-
acters
The
ual course
to play the
But the author cannot always to win the spot-light on his stage. Sometimes one character will come to the front in spite of plot and plan. The person making the greatest sacrifice may overtop the one possessing the most
choose which character
is
may
unexpectedly outshine
Some
some
dim background.
and
treat each
qualities
spective.
To
would be
to
to paint the
made
to characterization.
226
and
and
foil, all
to be
group character,
no character-story
at
all,
3.
Character Classes
fic-
few elemental
classes.
The Explorer,
the De-
fender,
these
groupings are
classification
sufficiently illus-
Whether such a
can or cannot be
fig-
satisfactorily effected,
we must
The
traits
big
word here is TRAITS that is what we must when we have grouped a special lot flf
;
we have found a
The
National
traits,
sexual
traits,
personal traits
all
furnish bases
for types.
plicate
more than this, traits cross and comindefinitely. For example, the soldier possesses
But,
by
and
his personality.
And
good fortune, for it offers to his originality the chance of making fresh character combinations every day, either
227
is
more fascinating, by embodying contradictory traits in the same being. Professor Bliss Perry ^ has said that we commonly use the word " type '" in either of two ways as meaning the ideal, which combines the essential natures of all of a class; or, as meaning a fair example of one class an average specimen. This distinction is valid, and bears
:
far.
Some
is
may
wonder
at a general con-
rarely
moves us
deeply, for
and blood.
second method, equally one-sided,
that of pre-
A
to
make them
from
No
individual,
apart
worth deas
lineating in a short-story.
He
is
tached
freak.
(c)
factory.
The joint method is by all odds the most satisThe character may be simple, complex, or instill, if
consistent,
a living person
is
constructed out of a
traits,
a convincing
He
will then
be
he will be a Vir-
'4 Study
228
and
all the
own
personality
down
to his toes.
Unless per-
puppet, an abstraction
author's purpose to
for the
most
part,
as, now and then, it may suit an make him. What the reader wants, is a Representative Man, with due
The nuisance
character.
of story-telling
is
thud, of picturing a Southern gentleman than by interpolating countless " suh's " into his speech, and of draw-
Goethe has
to watches in crystal
Some
but skin-deep.
slave
Why
must your
dia-
woman commit
Fisher girl?
4.
serious, like a
to
229
the story.
may
suit his
tell
No
law of harmony
settled,
and contrast.'
is
you
will
To
select a
is
setting, to
The
chief
is
Hold
5.
all
in a safe balance.
Doubtless
readers are
his attitude
fact.
is
many a
more or
toward
the
Is
His outlook on
life, it
goes with-
In the
same manner
acters
it
will
manner
that the
of Stevenson.^o
last is
Perhaps you
will agree
with
me
maintain.
given to
^
was Sidney Lanier who said that the ficDivine power because it is him to look into and mould the inner lives of
It
pp.
"Compare
no
and
175.
230
his characters.
II.
CHARACTERIZATION
is
Characterization
a specialized
its
scope.
I.
Effect
To Be Attained
is
The
an
effect of life-like-
make
And
is
produced upon the reader unless the writer has himself realized his characters.
is
The height of
verisimilitude
reached
when
is vital
In
De
MAY
II
from the paper with perhaps ever so little fancy that HE COME IN." " I have said that the author's purpose in characterizaQuoted
in
The Technique
of the Novel,
Home,
p.
185.
23
The
mould
forms to de(realism);
they are in
life
as they
(caricature)
or,
as they
conditions which the writer creates for them (a composite of the other
four methods).
2.
The short-story writer must get his people before the moment, and in doing so he has choice of three general methods
reader at the earliest possible
(a) Description
the story very
may much as
it
must
be kept in
mind
The outward
subtlest
often
its
some unseen part of inward and expression, so that these two of the
will interpret the
(i)
The
direct
method of
fails.
description
is
is
often at-
The
short-story
too short
^2 The reader will of course bear in mind the distinction between the terms characters and character. 13 See p. 2^^.
232
to
admit of
large use.
Of
will succeed
are
decidedly against
description of
the characters.
(2)
The
indirect
method
as the
story proceeds
(3)
upon a
salient char-
acteristic
it
the reader to
in the details
facile
method requires a
good.
cature.
pen and
This
it is
cari-
Here
is
remember him
as
if it
were yesterday,
as
he came plodding
him
in a hand-
barrow; a tall, strong, heavy, nut-brown man; his tarry pigtail falling over the shoulders of his soiled blue coat; his hands ragged and scarred, with black, broken nails; and the sabre-cut across one cheek, a dirty, livid white.
"
description
is
from Henry
James's
man was
fair and
and of the middle stature; he had a round face and a short beard, and on his crown a mere reminiscence of hair, as the fact that he carried his hat in his hand permitted it to be
fat
observed.
Compare the older with the more modern method, as shown in these direct delineations. The first is from
233
the other
from
"
ridge, ripe
She was a blooming lass of fresh eighteen, plump as a partand melting and rosy-cheeked as one of her father's
peaches.
ber pippin,
She was a splendidly feminine girl, as wholesome as a Novemand no more mysterious than a window-pane.
in
Martin Chuzslewit,
is
a masterpiece.
See
how
the
acter
deal of
it.
You man
for he fastened it behind), and there it two jutting heights of collar, serene and whiskerless before you. It seemed to say, on the part of Mr. Pecksniff, "There is no deception, ladies and gentlemen, all is peace, a holy calm pervades me." So did his hair, just grizzled with an iron gray, which was all brushed off his forehead, and stood bolt upright, or slightly drooped in kindred action with his heavy eyelids. So did his person, which was sleek though free from corpulency. So did his manner, which was soft and oily. In a word, even his plain black suit, and state of widower, and dangling double eye-glass, all tended to the same purpose, and cried aloud, "Behold the moral Pecksniff!"
acter
Christmas Carol.
234
Small, shining, neat, methodical, and buxom was Miss Peecher; cherry-cheeked and tuneful of voice. A little pin-cushion, a little housewife, a little book, a little work-box, a little set of tables and weights and measures, and a little woman all in one. She could write a little essay on any subject, exactly a slate long, beginning at the left-hand top of one side and ending at the right-hand bottom of the other, and the essay should be strictly according to rule.i'
Mrs.
Gradgrind,
little,
thin,
white,
pink-eyed bundle
of
who was
effect, and who, whenever she showed a symptom of coming to life, was invariably stunned by some weighty piece of fact tumbling on her.^*
This
is
ical description:
He
Colonel Marigold was a rosy cherub with a white chinwhisker. carried his sixty years with a slight soldierly limp, and was
(b)
Character analysis
is
really a
form of
description
occu-
more
as,
fully
latter also
statements
yet
it
at
From
which
is
The two
para-
235
she
Angie tipped up the slop-pail. " Yes," she said, without deceit always, by nature of her temperament, spoke her mind quite plainly "but I'm a-goin' to git all my hard work done up t' onct afore I stop." Angie colored. The change for her raisins went down sharply on the counter. Her little old chin went up into the air. "Well," she said, tartly, "I guess ye don't need to come if
ye don't want to " ^'
!
The longer short-stories, like the best of Mr. James's,' room for more profound analysis! though now and then we find an instance of vivisection at once brilliant and condensed.^* Like the compact statement of an inafford
tricate
^en
it
What
when
delineates
character
speech
and action
by
the
at once the
most
difficult
and most
is
effective
combination of
all literary
devices.
This
drama
is
duct," the
The Tea Party, Muriel Campbell Dyar, Harper's, Jan., 1908. See the opening paragraphs of Maupassant's The Necklace, reproduced in full. Part III, chap. iv. 19 The next chapter entire is given to a discussion of Dialogue.
^*
"
236
The same
is
r^^This, then,
some
act or at-
This
is
the highest
to do in
de-
and the
and makes,
in its
own
and
dissect,
tions of
to give
in the story of
Ajax
is
or
Hamlet.
The
first is literature,
is
some-
likewise art.
fail to
author
tells
we know
instantly better;
all
moment, the
market-woman."
To make
small
self,
characterization, speech,
of no
it-
moment
in fiction.
much
or too
little
as,
truly,
life.
237
Means of
all
Characterization
To
artists to delineate
is
of as great im-
the novel.
to
Names
Phyllis
ought not
to
commit suicide. Luther must not be a burglar, Maud a washerwoman, nor John spout tepid romance. The wrong surname will handicap a character as surely as the
nor ought
Tommy
wrong
pair of hands.
fit
more
And
and
side-lights
on charac-
ters are
If Phyllis
if
Maud
is
washerwoman,
trast,
or for
it must be for humor's sake, for consome such reason as is given by " Mark
Twain "
that the
in "
"
when he argues
Clytemnestra,
proof of a strain of
sup-
must invade
will
fiction as
they do drawing-rooms,
Mary
worthy
solid-head,
Wal-
238
is
all
subject to the
exceptions of real
life,
where there
naming than
tion, are of
in fiction.
sec-
Here
we
"
terization.
Darnaway,
in Stevenson's
dark eyes."
The
moral and
spiritual.
Darwin has
that,
told
We
know
but forget
to
just
as
you already read the more commonly understood shambling gait, loose jowl, and low forehead. Study,
a combination of physical
traits,
and
and
may
somecon-
(c) Dress
suggestive of
their descrip-
more room
When
it
we
im-
Van
to read that
hunting
he himself
is
out at elbows.
is
His devotion to
in
indictment.
in
239
"
La
Suddenly I saw a
hat in his hand,
at his
rival,
room like a ram ready to rush disclosing a retreating forehead, a small pointed
entered the a glass of dirty water.
who
head,
and a pale face, not unlike would have said that he was the He wore an old coat, threadbare diamond in his shirt-frill and gold (d) Personality
but of
story
is
You
primary importance,
the
persons
of
the
of
characteristics
professional,
or
other
nonindividual
traits.
by the story
(like
Lady Macbeth)
and those
The former
latter,
are sometimes
and the
dynamic.
Kipis
Mulvaney
is
static,
Stevenson's
Markheim
dy-
namic.
Outward action
I
is
Sometimes, as with
above
it.
The Scarlet Letter, that struggle is more and more effectively Sometimes the battle is with the higher
being the
result, as in
is
nature, deterioration
of
Tito Melema,
Romola,
forces, as in
240
in a case
But somehow,
It
whose
qualities
all
Remember that some incidents some affect character. Ask these questions Could such a woman, let us say, being altogether such as she is, do such a deed as you propose to make her do? Next, would she do it? Finally, can no more effective thing be devised ? Study " The Outcasts of Poker Flat " and see how character transformacrises in the characters.
tion
is
OUTLINE SUMMARY
I.
THE CHARACTERS
1.
2. 3.
4.
5.
Relation of Characters Character Classes (o) Typical (6) Personal (c) Composite Relation of Characters to Action and Setting Author's Attitude Toward His Characters
'
Number and
II.
CHARACTERIZATION
I.
Effect to be Attained
24I
Dramatic Method
Specific
(a)
Means of Naming of
Characterisation
(c) Dress
(d) Personality
ing
purposes of fiction. composite characterization by combining the traits of two or more. Make complete, compressed notes of the life and charac4. teristics of one character in the list (question i), after the mancharacteristics for the
3.
Make
ner of Turgenieff.
Follow Turgenieff's method by conceiving a character and around his personality. 6. After you have. decided on a character worth characterizing in a short-story, trace in writing the chain of ideas by which the conception arose and developed in your mind, Select two short-stories in which character-drawing is 7. especially well done, giving reasons for your opinion.. Note: The instructor may wish to include character-novels in
5.
building a plot
this
8.
assignment.
Make a study of several late issues of at least four prominent magazines and say what types of character-stories they
publish.
242
9.
the actually
rela-
tion
background.
11.
Make
list
etc.),
and
local traits
as could be
12.
in
the
joint
typical-individual
style.
13.
What do you
is
(a) sim-
ple,
Make a list of worn-out, conventional characters often 14. seen in fiction. Outline a character and a setting (a) in harmony, (b) 15. in contrast, with each other. 16. Delineate a character by direct description, without the
use of dialogue. Delineate the same character by suggestion. 17. 18. Present pictures of the following moods
struggling to retain faith in her college
^
(a)
girl
de-
ciding to
from
19.
commit
(c) an old
man
just dismissed
Invent at least
(a)
five
char-
acter changes.
20.
Criticise the
names
please;
Take the
portrait of
some person unknown to you from the face, bearing, and dress.
and
22. Make a list of prominent physical traits (a squint for one), saying what they mean to you. For example, begin with faces which suggest animals, without necessarily reveahng anything bestial.
Suggestively describe the dress of ten different characters, them according to occupations, nationality, class, morals, etc.
23.
differentiating
24.
sible, the
Describe in your favorite way, but as compactly as following characters: (a) a romantic blunderer;
pos(b)
243
two characters in marked contrast; (c) a lover of music who but can't; (d) a serious man who fondly believes he can sing (e) a woman who loves to is always mistaken for a jester;
settle difficulties
but
who
Note:
volume, The
Dye
may be
studied:
"
I.
By
"2.
innate tendencies, or its inner promptings, independent of any external influence. By its environment, or surroundings, and the way in which it has overcome them or been overcome by them. In the light of heredity, or inherited traits. By its manifestations of willing, thinking, feeling. By its achievements, or what it has accomplished
its
in the light of
its
effort
-
and opportunity,
arid
by the development
"6.
it
makes.
all
is
By
noting
that
is
all
said
that a character says and does, and done to him, and all that
By
"8.
noting the dominant motive of his life, whether revenge, a sense of duty, it be love, hate, selfishness, or forgiveness. character may be studied by putting one's self in another's place; by being the apple-woman, the
newsboy, the bootblack for a time, and looking at life through their eyes. Be a beggar, a millionaire, a master, or a slave, and imagine
in
each situation."
instructor
for (a)
may
select such as
CHAPTER
DIALOGUE
The use
dialogue.
It is
XII
Arlo Bates,
of quotation
into
person.
not necessary to say that a woman is a snarling, grumpy Bring in the old lady and let her snarl. Anonymous.
If in the characters
story,
is
.the
from the management of the dialogue comes largely its whose more buoyant and popular effect. Uncritical readers
preferences, in fact, ought to be consulted
lots of conversation in it."
like
a story "with
it
The dialogue
serves, as
were, to
movement, which else might grow ponderous and slow. In the give and take of conversation, too, character itself appears, to speak for itself; and many accessory and descriptive elements slip in lightly and unobtrusively in the words that are And through it all is traceable the forward movement and said. the approaching end or crisis. J. F. Genung, The Working
aerate
the
Principles of Rhetoric.
it
be-
short-stories with-
who
are deprived
The
normal,
is
cheerful
mind
loves speech,
and
will turn
lighter
moods
244
DIALOGUE
dialogue of the elder
24s
Dumas ^
passages of Scott.
usually put
much
conversa-
hard to write.
He
reasons that
;
little
dialogue
is
it
logue
and so
all ?
it is.
Only, when
comes
is
why
The
write at
Good
and
conversation
its
vital
element in the
story-teller's art,
mastery often
spells success.
it
still
lives as
Nowadays
it
is
difificult
to sell a story
whose
casual
feels,
surely
repel
the
buyer.
A page of
the author a
I.
It will
of ten
at
be interesting to examine the following table more or less famous short-stories, selected quite random from American, British and French authors,
Some one
five
hundred representative
short-stories, classi-
them as to type, and then give us the figures. While no writer would recognize any such result as confying
[Dumas' Dialogue] can unfold action, character, emoand stage directions, and it can make all these seem natural even when they are most extravagant, convincing when they are most false." Horne, The Technique of the Novel,
tion,
^ " It
description,
V- 257.
246
DIALOGUE
it
would
at least tell us
something
definite as to
good usage.
AND AUTHOR.
CONVERSATION
11 per cent
STORY
"The Outcasts of Poker Flat," Bret Harte "The Diamond Lens," Fitz- James O'Brien " The Ambitious Guest," Nathaniel Hawthorne
" Mrs. Protheroe," Booth Tarkington " Lodging for the Night," Robert Louis Stevenson
13
"
"
30 38 39 43
45 54
"
"
"Many
" "
" A Venus of the Fields," " Georg Schock " "Without Benefit of Clergy," Rudyard Kipling " La Grande Breteche," Honore de Balzac " The Gold Bug," Edgar Allan Poe Average proportion of conversation
"
"
55
64
39
"
"
It
to
more than
Hawthorne.
best
living
the
fictions of these
story-writers.
The
lighter the
story the
the
statement
may be
fifty
not average
expert,
Mr. Frederic Wedmore, has pointed out,^ the writer is unwise to deny himself the freedom of the pure dramatic form when he chooses to tell a story wholly in dialogue. He simply makes his work more difficult and, at the same time, less eflfective. Though the drama
=>
The
Short-
Story,
2
146.
:
410.
DIALOGUE
247
short-
may be studied with much profit by the writer of stories, the two types are likely to remain distinct.
2.
effect which speech cannot commust never be introduced for its own sake. Its office is to tell the story, and this it does by several means, one of the chief of which is (a) The revelation of human character. Just as human interest is the heart of narrative, so human speech
is
There
no narrative
pass,
but
it
is
its
In everyday
life
we do
Then
a man,
not
know a man
first
speak.
our
totally upset.
To
many
in life as in fiction,
his
as soon as he opens
The worth of many another is perceived when he speaks. The more prominent the character in the story, the more significant must be his every word. Figures in the middle-distance and the background may talk more or less alike, but the leading persons must utter every word " in character." They must be so individual that
mouth.
only
the only
do speak.
sistently
And
so
consistently that
thoughts, likes and dislikes, in fact their entire inas being distinct
dividuality,
ters.
from
Many
men
into the
248
DIALOGUE
labels
mouths of babes,
women
as wise yet
makes them
who
is
speaking.
No
Mrs.
Gamp
Sam
Weller
some one
selves.
else.
delightfully
them-
The
their
that too
many
writers thrust
own
Their char-
masquerading as
the story
is
real persons.
No
error
it
could be
more
egregious.
If
its
source
is
ignorance,
should be enlightened;
if it is
it.
may
ality
help to puncture
To
be convincing, a
fictional
His personmust be of one piece, and his talk cut from the same cloth. But you must know your cloth, its size and its texture. So long as writers persist in choosing their characters from walks of life of which
and
his actions
they
know
little
lack individuality.
The moderns have taken big strides ahead in this reEven Poe put uniformly stilted speech into the mouths of his characters, while Hawthorne offended similarly. Dickens was the great modem innovator here,
spect.
"
Wee
is
Willie
of a kind
Lea-
DIALOGUE
249
royd never look at things ffom quite the same view-point, and so we seldom need a " said Mulvaney " to tell us
is
worth study.
And
there you
vividly color a
worth while inquiring what things in actual life man's manner of speech I mean, influ-
his
man-
ner of utterance.
They
ing habits of speech acquired in childhood), his character (subtly influencing all
alities
Each of these
forces
must be
character, motives,
fendant.
See
how
arch bluffer,
Mr. Pecksniff.*
acter coincide.
the truth is, my dear," said Mr. Pecksniff, smiling upon assembled kindred, "that I am at a loss for a word. The name of those fabulous animals (pagan, I regret to say) who used to sing in the water, has quite escaped me." Mr. George Chuzzlewit suggested " Swans."
"
Why,
his
"Not
swans.
Very
like
swans,
Thank you."
Martin Chuzzlewit. Charles Dickens.
250
The nephew with
first
DIALOGUE
the outline of a countenance, speaking for time on that occasion, propounded " Oysters." " No," said Mr. Pecksniff, with his own peculiar urbanity, "nor oysters. But by no means unlike oysters; a very excellent
the
and
last
my
dear
sir,
very much.
Wait!
Sirens.
Dear
me!
Sirens, of course."
Wegg, whose
whom
it
Wegg
umes
ple
Bower," and
lie
is
the eight volof Gibbon in red and gold bindings, with a " pur-
On
a table
leave
Mr.
"
Wegg
!
down
to his task.
the
" began Wegg. " This, Mr. BoflSn and Lady, is chapter of the first woUume of the Decline and Fall Off here he looked hard at the book and stopped.
first
Hem
sir," said Wegg, with an air of insinuating frankness (having first again looked hard at the book), "that you made a little mistake this morning, which I had meant to set you right in, only something put it out of my head. I think you said Rooshan Empire, sir?" "It is Rooshan; ain't it, Wegg?" " No, sir. Roman. Roman."
"What's the
"
difference,
?
The
difference, sir
"
Mr.
faltering
and
in danger
of breaking down,
when
a bright thought
flashed
upon
him.
"The
Boffin.
difference,
Suffice
it
sir?
to
me
in a difficulty, Mr.
is
best postponed
DIALOGUE
to
251
some other occasion when Mrs. Boffin does not honor us with her company. In Mrs. Boffin's presence, sir, we had better drop it."
It
will
be produced
if
A second consideration is
the incidents,
(b) Dialogue
and
this
it
Will a
man make
in the
admit of
dialogue
much
speech at
all ?
one character
what
is
natural
your readers.
is
Ask
yourself
commonplace
in
may merely
Dialogue
used
to
See
how
on pp. 128-9 this effect is secured and the same device is often used not only in the introduction but throughout the story.
in the extracts cited
(d) The entire action, the incidents, the story itself, may be told quite as effectively by dialogue as by description, and usually with much more life and interesting effect.
3.
The
strictly
No
retailing of curious
252
DIALOGUE
no pretty talk that leads nowhither, no moral preachment, no impassioned invecnot one word, tive, no excursions into inviting by-paths
its
gumentation for
own
sake,
its
climax.
we
may
be so fascinating that
still
can carry
as
a load of extraneous
well-told
like
be counted
it
stories; or
may
be so nearly a sketch that the tone really demands a discursive style like Hearn's " Chita " and Stevenson's
Such
are not
won by
beginners.
On
"
in
An-
The unconscious
and
severe.
critical
acumen of a reader
is
both
just
When
being
to
he does not
=
at that
moment
require politics or
will not, perhaps,
He
;
be able to say in so
many words
that at
some
point the
it does,
but when
he will
feel it."
4.
'
tive.
The dialogue
II,
p.
of the short-story
is
not that of
the
oVol.
58.
DIALOGUE
novel.
253
take time fully to re-
my
lady's
No, compression, always compression, and high degree of selection, are what the yarn-spinner
set ever before his
gown.
must
is
mind's eye.
is
What
is
omitted
his-
quite as important as
what
reported.
A whole
tory
must be hinted
in
the
lofty
mood
will
be symbolized by words
more
will
hour
demand an
heard
intensity
rarely
among
is
real folk.
Conversation
there
it
a lost art
except
than
and
is
usually
more
flippant
brilliant.
is
The
trouble is that, in
book and
in life, talk
likely to be-
come
comes
stilted
the
moment
self-conscious.
Many
;
writer
said, "
suggests
Tom
Birch, of
whom Samuel
it
Johnson
He
is
as brisk as
a bee in conversation
in his
hand than
all
numbs
his faculties."
Colloquial speech
is
precisely
speech of everyday
everyday, that
is,
in
is
It
is
254
story
DIALOGUE
The meaty
talk of Dr.
"The
First Hurdle.'"
their
characteristic
moods.
they
much what
what they
I
are.
real-
Of
ism,
which
said about
its
To
reproduce
we
have
it
would
set
result in disappointment.
The
down
so that every
to the portrayal.
dividuality
?
How
in-
Suppose that
all
epigrams as
(it is safer
draw
these illustrations
lot
of unvaried
fireworks.
is greater
,
danger here.
There
*A
^
Reed
Scott.
See
64.
DIALOGUE
fidelity to
255
Conversation must be
siiiy,
conversational reality.
neither too subtle nor too gross, too learned nor too
too involved nor too simple.
It
must
speech of
men
in so far as to discard
of heavy virtue
and the blatancies of while typifying both most deftly. The moulds in which conversation is
as various as those of
cast are of
forms
reporting
Do not
the
So long as without them reader understands clearly and easily just who is
But when you do add the explanatory
verbs, use
Do
as
acquiesced,"
" admitted,"
" argued,"
"asked,"
"assented,"
"boasted,"
"called,"
"cau-
"croaked,"
" ex-
" emended,"
" enjoined,"
" enumerated,"
"growled,"
"
"grumbled,"
"grunted,"
".hinted,"
"in-
laughed," " leered," " maundered," " mumbled," " nodded," " opined," " pronounced," " puffed," " questioned,"
"rejoined,"
" snarled,"
"returned," "simpered," "retorted," " sneered," " snickered," " stammered," " stip-
ulated,"
"stormed,"
"suggested,"
"urged,"
"volun-
2S6
DIALOGUE
mood
to be depicted.
Perhaps
in
it
yet
it
doesn't.
It will
pay
man and
sips
between remarks.
to
The
is
some necessary bit of information,! too amateurish to need more than this sinis
gle
word
of warning.
to
A
is
make comment
Either alone
Nora rose, trembling like a leaf Mike's vote, ye say? Ye bought it?
thrue,
is
it ?
Say
it
isn't.
Oh, say
isn't
"
The
rising wail
a dangerous
In
"
dethis
well handled:
an
all
was
at her side in
lifting
instant.
My
poor
little
he murmured,
her with
The
"At
unfinished sentence
all
is
effect:
my
girl
"But
I slipped
DIALOGUE
'
257
The
still
is
"They
know
is,
if
find
tell
not face
not bear
I
it
The
is
indicated either
explicitly, as:
" I really
Or by
"I. see no other alternative," admitted Buxton. meet the, note on Monday or The Tombs."
is
an important expedifits
The
long
with a
mood
quite different
the
easy-flowing
sentence.
The
flippant
youth
rises
power by suspending
the
its full
meaning
judge
No more would
loose sentences
dignified
habitually
use
the balanced
clearly
Remember
is
that in con-
most cultivated
talk colloquially.
a capital conversa-
"For
258
"Janet!"
" \Jva
!
DIALOGUE
The
loud, jarring voice, etc.
"
shall see,
we
shall see
discussion.
The use of dialect in dialogue has aroused a furor of Some editors hold the dialect story as tafew
it
discriminate against
ever,
not at
dialect
for
its
own
sake.
As
New
England
cracker,"
villager, the
life,
require
spelling
altered to
perversions
as " iz," " sur," " sez," " bizness," " peeple," the alleged
dialect
becomes a nuisance.
The
a glossary will go
down
Another
teristics
of speech
or a
uninten-
The language of child-life offers peculiar pitfalls for the fictionist. As an experiment, see in how many different ways you can spell a child's pronunciation of " just
the same."
In
fact,
all
our
it
common
speech
is full of
them
all in
vernacular,
much
to the
much
to the enrichment, of
our English
DIALOGUE
according to
259
Just
how you
look at
it.
how much
of
tjiis
use in
and " patter " speech you will your writing must depend upon your good sense.
will
want
to avoid
obscurity
much
dialect.
when
own language
in
whole or in
have a care as
to introducing foreign
But
re-
member
sieur
and
Madame and
like; but,
Mademoiselle
sirable,
pas,
and the
on the whole,
it is
more
effective
to salt the
literal trans-
lation of
the
Three nights later Gilbert Hannaway sat at dinner in one of he had most famous restaurants of Paris. His companion touched him on the many friends on that side of the channel
arm.
dear Gilbert," she said, "you ask me to point out to you should recognize as the real Parisian type, the absolutely The girl in smart woman. Look I show her to you. There Believe me, the black dress, and the hat with white feathers. Her shoes, that is the last thing which Paris can show you.
"My
I
what
her jewels, her furs, the cut of that long jacket, the little dog they are all of she has" under her arm, with the gold collar
the
^'^
moment, the
latest thing.
There
is
Somewhat
Passfrs-By, Anthony Partridge, Cosmopolitan, Oct., igo8. in contrast is Thackeray's method in The Ballad of
Bouillabaisse.
26o
DIALOGUE
somewhat
by the
is
illus-
trated
Seat," Elsie
"
little
farther
on he stopped
at
street.
where we shall live." screamed little Ollie. Their goods were being unloaded, before the door of a frame house.
" I see where," " I too,"
" It is here
tiny
echoed Louisa.
in.
Oliver unlocked the door and let them " It is not a nice house," said Louisa.
" It is a nice house," reproved her
it is
mother sharply.
" It
is
while
it
who came into the room with a roll of carpet "Don't bring it in yet. Did you think I should
when
the house
is
put
"
down
carpet
But I must go Mondays to work, and Sundays it is no working, and I can only help to-day and to-morrow." Susannah looked at him. " Do you mean I should put down the carpets before it is everything washed up ? " she asked. " No," he answered, meekly. " But you shall wash this room first, and then I can move the things right aways in." "Begin at the bottom to wash the house!" gasped Susannah. " And go up I guess not. I begin at the top, like always." She went upstairs and looked about her. She could not suppress an exclamation of horror. Then she went to the head of
!
the stairway.
"You
shall just
see
how
dirty
it is here,"
she called. " It will be dinner till I make the garret done." "But the things? Shall they stand all the time out?"" " You can watch them so it don't anybody carry anything " I off," she replied. " The rest of her sentence was lost in
the
sound of a
stiff
boards.
^^ Atlantic,
May,
1908.
DIALOGUE
261
OUTLINE SUMMARY
Dialogue
1.
2.
' Proportion of Dialogue Its OfUce (a) Revelation of Character (6) To Bring Out the Incidents
(c)
To Convey
'
Setting
3.
4.
Manner
Suggestive
Characteristic
Diction
Sentence Forms
Dialect
from some magazine a short-story containing little and rewrite it, substituting dialogue wherever possible. 2. Examine the short-stories in a magazine of high quality and make a list of the excellencies and the faults you may dis1.
Select
it
in short-story
form.
Rewrite in dramatic form one of your previous shortconveying all the facts by dialogue, excepting only stagedirections and outlines of scenes. Write a brief character sketch, or short-story, relying 5. mainly upon conversation to display character. 6. Write a minute report of the most interesting actual conversation you can recall having heard, leaving wide space
4.
stories,
between the
7.
lines.
Without rewriting, edit the conversation in the foregoing so that it might be included in a short-story. 8. Criticise the dialect in any available short-story,
d
262
DIALOGUE
Write a story told largely by dialogue. After the first 9. few paragraphs, do not say who the speakers are, as " said Tom,"
etc.
10.
solely
11.
setting
of past participles on
page
12. Take about fifty lines of dialogue from any short-story and reconstruct the dialogue by using new explanatory verbs, and by breaking up the dialogue, introducing brief comments at
various points in the speeches of the characters. Write a short, exciting dialogue, using crisp, short sen13.
tences.
Follow this by toning down the same dialogue, forming 14. your sentences in harmony with the changed mood.
CHAPTER
XIII
THE TITLE
Because of the difference in people's
say just
fails
tastes,
it it
is
hard to
why
title
pleases or displeases,
why
interests or
probably because of what it does or does of its associations. Some titles are failures in themselves, either in conception or in form; but most poor titles are so because of a deficiency or a falseness of suggestion. Evelyn May Albright, The Short-Story.
to interest.
not suggest
because
It is
The
title
of a short-story
is its
name, and
it
is-
with
stories as
name
suggests an in-
teresting personality
comparison, a good
Short-story
times
els,
;
name
seem
titles
to
which
may
deal
more
still
move-
from year
to year.
headgear.
Now
little
overwhelmed with
titles
of color
the
red
tl|is
was
But
all
263
264
THE TITLE
and editors
alike to give
them more
magazine.
attention.
The
result is
apparent in every
We now
many
points of
and that of a shortstory as exist between these two literary forms themselves. What depth of treatment could you expect in a short-story entitled The Testing of Diana MalloryfWhile the broader work would probe character to the
difference between the title of a novel
heart, the briefer fiction could deal with only one phase
of
life;
and so the
would
be
weakened.
The selection of a title comes about in much the same manner as, the choosing of a theme." Indeed, the title may be the first to arise in the mind and from it the
whole story develop.
I.
The Functions
:
of a Title
"
The
it
title
has for
its
reading
not
first
may
or
may
Its
article.
by the prompublic,
of an interesting story."
title
But before a
it
can advertise
to the editor.
its
wares to the
Therp
title.
is
in a fetching
of
have seen an
2
8
The Short-Story,
p. 91.
THE TITLE
many manuscripts, freshen
sight of water,
title.
265
a spent hound at the
like
First of
all it
may
his
in the
in relation to other
accepted fiction,
maga-
with regard to
title
its
abstract merits.
He
that
of a single story
may
influence
So true
is this
have known several editorial counsels and considerabe devoted solely to discussing
title
ble correspondence, to
the
of one story.
Auin
of such changes
provided,
of course, no
done to appropriateness.
Most magazines
reject a
same category
it
would rather
good story
title.
than accept
(b)
The appeal
Here
interest is
"A
title
emotion
has
it is
all
prove
itself
worth while."
They vary
until some title from the page and suggests a story of the kind
and turn
266
he
likes.
THE TITLE
If the
as the
title,
the fish
hooked.
that,''
many a magazine,
be-
Good
Titles
A
cific,
good
title
and suggestive.
attractiveness,
No
further
word
is
needed here as to
of
The
than
i;
titles
two hundred
is
representa-
examined,
little less
titles,
and one,
13.
Of
The
an important part
to be considered, as two
long words like " Quarantine Island," by Besant, form really as long a title as " Ouida's " " Leaf in the
Storm "
and
But be ruled by no
such
many
words
let
it
Let your
title
be brief, but
also be fitting.
The
in his
Says
Barrett,
difficulty
an appropriate title first amine your plot, and make sure that the cause does lie there . you may find that your plot lacks .
in finding
.
exnot
the
THE TITLE
definiteness of impression required
267
Often the
The Window That MonForgot," Mary Imlay Taylor " The Liar," Henry
;
Many
But do
not rely
upon
vague
title
Remember that titles are intended primarily for those who have not read the story. Most young writers make the mistake of selecting general, instead of specific titles. Narrow down the title
to
mind can
hold.
That a
yet every
titles
title
magazine
as "
unconsciously purloined, and such worn-out titles Strange Experience," " My Unusual Dream," and
"
.
When
We
Were Young."
title is
sonorous
is
" impres-
sive in
sound
"
syllables succeed
each
other effectively,
as well as smoothly and pleasantly. Note the euphonious quality of Foe's " Ligeia," as con-
trasted
with "
may
be so smooth as
By
a literary
title I
meaning,
and arranged
rhetorical
order.
Purple Rhododendron," by
268
THE TITLE
Jr.,^
John Fox,
It is
with "
Ride with a
Mad Horse
in a
Freight Car," by
W. H. H. Murray. most important that a title should be suggestive. " The Courting of Dinah Shadd," by Kipling, suggests a story of love, humor and unique character, and the
reader
is
is
not disappointed.
A suggestion of love-interest
of no small value.
One
osity
province of suggestion is to pique yet baffle curiby leading the imagination up to only a certain
The Wedding Knell," Hawthorne. The Mummy's Foot," Gautier. The Severed Hand," Hauff.
Black Poodle," Anstey.
'
"The
"
The Hired Baby," Corelli. " The Man Who Would Be King," "The Diamond Lens," O'Brien. " The Upper Berth," Crawford.
Other suggestive
theme, as
"
titles
Kipling.
more or
The
Fall of the
" "
"
How Don
"
"
The Home-Coming
The
Trial
THE TITLE
269
title
By naming
may-
Thrawn
Janet," Stevenson.
"Gallegher," Davis.
" Marjorie
Daw,"
Aldrich.
"Bimi," Kipling.
"
A New
The
"
Or
"
"
"
the
title
may
suggest a setting
Up
"
Young Strong of The Clarion,' " Shinn. " The Luck of Roaring Camp," Harte. " The Philosopher in the Apple Orchard," " Hope."
Again, the humorous note
"
may
be struck:
The Transferred Ghost," Stockton. The Jumping Frog," " Twain." The Cannibals and Mr. Buffum," Loomis.
title
"
Again, the
story:
may
270
THE TITLE
" Two Men and a Woman," Deledda. " Railroad and Churchyard," Bjornson.
"
the Clock,"
Anna
Kath-
arine Green.
"
Pompadour Angel," Moss. " Pigs is Pigs," Butler. " The Joneses' Telephone," Frechette.
"
Or
the
title
may
"
" " " " "
Damned
Thing," Bierce.
My Terminal
Moraine," Stockton.
A Piece of
The Venus
String," Maupassant.
of Hie," Merimee.
3.
Titles to
Avoid
title.
Don't choose a commonplace name for a would elect to read about " William Lee might know " Pap Overholt "? ^
Don't choose such general
"
titles as,
Who
he
"
when
"
>
Two
Friends," Kipling.
Alice
MacGowan.
THE
TITLE
27
"The
"
Father," Bjornson.
Story," Webster.
A Love
as
"
The Sempstress' Story," Droz. and Son," Rod. The Shot," Poushkin. Poor Ogla Moga," Lloyd.
Faithful Retainer," Payn.
C.
"
"
H. White.
good
stories,
Many
titles
but their
as:
Love With the Czarina," Jokai. Moon," F. W. Robinson. " The Brigand's Bride," Laurence Oliphant. " A Perilous Amour," Weyman. ""The Revenge of Her Race," Beaumont.
" Minions of the " "
" In
A Terribly My Wife's
Tempter," O'Brien.
in
your
titles,
as:
272
"
" "
THE TITLE
The Story
Two
Lives," Schayer.
Mr. Bixby's Christmas Visitor," Gage. "The Extraordinary Adventure" of a Chief Mate,"
Clark Russell.
Titles beginning with "
trite
How "
or "
Why "
are usually
and clumsy.
not overworked.
you use a quotation or a motto for a title, be sure Two good ones are, " Thou Art the Man," by Poe, and " Such as Walk in Darkness," by Samuel Hopkins Adams. George Ade cleverly modified a quotation in his " To Make a Hoosier Holiday."
If
is
it
Shun
ers the
titles
plot.
Of
course,
intentionally discov-
The Prema-
ture Burial."
title.
In either case
a bold
plan.
Even Pbe did not carry it off with distinguished sucThe saving device was in his beginning the story cess.
as
though
article
were a human interest paper a and ending by telling the story proper.
it
feature
sub-titles.
title.
style of double
alliterative titles.
Poe's "
The
Pit
Holmes
THE TITLE
and the Pendulum "
ions differ
is
273
though opin-
on
this point.
Eschew
titles
style,
or trite, " The Convict's Return," or newspapery, " Rescued by a Child " ; or highly fantastic, " The Egyptian Fire Eater," ^ Baumbach ; or anecdotal, " Fishing Trip " ; or sentimental,
Harben
" Hope,"
Bremer or
;
repellent, "
A Memorable
all
Murder,"
Thaxter.,
It
of the short-stories
whose
authors
cific,
would have been multiplied had their endowed them with attractive, short, fitting, spefresh, sonorous, literary, and suggestive titles.
OUTLINE SUMMARY
1.
Functions of the Title (a) Appeal to the Editor (&) Appeal to the Public
2.
Good
Titles
3.
Titles to
Avoid
Which
title
do you prefer
and why?
translator,
from
Baumbach's
original
title,
274
THE TITLE
"The Light-House Keeper
of Aspinwall," Sienkiewicz.
- " A Rose of the Ghetto," Zangwill. - "A Monk of the Ghetto," Wolfenstein.
"The Denver Express," Hayes. "The Four-Fifteen Express," Edwards.
"The "The
2.
pressions
Set down, in a sentence or two devoted to each, the immade upon you by five titles from the current magazines, as to what kind of stories they represent
3.
What
titles
in
Appendix B
at least three
strike
you as uninteresting?
in
Why?
4.
Criticise
fully
titles
Appendix
C, sug-
own
devising.
(a) Count how many titles in Appendix B 5. "The"; (b) how many with "A"; (c) how many word "of"?
begin with
contain the
Construct two titles of each of the following kinds: (a) 6. sonorous, (b) suggestive, (c) hinting the theme, (d) naming the chief character, (e) suggesting a setting, (f) humorous.
7.
five titles
on page
271.
CHAPTER XIV
STYLE
Clear writers, like clear fountains, do not
^they are.
If
I
Walter
seem so deep as
Savage Landor.
am
ever obscure in
my
expression,
therefore I
understand.
If a
am
all
man
has anything to say he will manage to say it; if he is no reason why he should
have a good style, any more than why he should have a good purse without any money, or a good scabbard without any
sword.
George
When
Macdonald.
Style is
sion.
" the
man
himself,"
he as
much
dividuality of style
in
thought.
A
way
way
is
French idiom
in
of saying a thing
individuality
both
Style argues
consistently
two things :
second, habit
de-
parted from)
less
ality
conscious practice.
By and by
and
275
276
the whole thing.
all
STYLE
His views of
life
infuse themselves
these preferI
Now, when
a narrow, slavish,
as
do not say
is
his style,
just
markedly personal as
bow
legs,
and sometimes
as unlovely.
authors.
Here are four paragraphs from as many well-known Are they in any respects alike ? Does not each
Pre-
how
Each
possesses
might
be.
This unde-
from the
individualities
back of the
We
how
the
to
characterize,
in
Rome
that
lies
before
its
sunless
and streets of palaces; its churches, lined with the gorgeous marbles that were originally polished for the adornment of pagan temples; its thousands of evil smells, mixed up with fragrance of rich incense diffused from as many censers; its little life, deriving feeble nutriment from what has long been dead. Everywhere, some fragment of ruin suggesting the magnificence of a former epoch; everywhere, moreover, a Cross and nastiness at the foot of it. As the sum of all, there are recollections that kindle the soul, and a gloom and languor that depress it beyond any depth of melancholic sentiment that can be elsewhere known.^
^ It is the function of this treatise not to analyze such differences, but to point them out. " Hawthorne, Marble Faun, I, chap. xii. Observe the general concepts set forth in a contemplative mood.
STYLE
At
last
277
Saints in heaven!
sight of the Pope's City [Avignon]. a beautiful town it was! Going right up two hundred feet above the bank of the river was a bare
came within
What
and straight as though cut with a stonemason's on the very top of which was perched a castle with towers so big and high twenty, thirty, forty times higher than the towers of our church that they seemed to go right up out of sight into the clouds! It was the Palace built by the Popes; and around and below it was a piling up of houses big, little, long, wide, of every size and shape, and all of cut stone covering a space as big, I might say, as half way from here to Carpentras. When I saw all this I was thunderstruck. And though I still was far away from the city a strange buzzing came from it and sounded in my ears but whether it were shouts or songs or the roll of drums or the crash of falling houses or the firing of cannon, I could not tell. Then the words of the lame old man with the hoe came back to me, and all of a sudden I felt a heavy weight on my heart. What was I going to see, what was going to happen to me in the midst of those revolutionary city folks ? What could I do among them
rock,
steep
chisel,
I,
Baloo was so fond of, never waxy blossoms were heatkilled before they were born, and only a few bad-smelling petals came down when he stood on his hind legs and shook the tree. Then, inch by inch, the untempered heat crept into the heart The of the Jungle, turning it yellow, brown, and at last black. green growths in the sides of the ravines burned up to broken wires and curled films of dead stuff; the hidden pools sank down and caked over, keeping the least footmark on their edges as if it had been cast in iron; the juicy-stemmed creepers fell away from the trees they clung to and died at their feet; the bamboos withered, clanking when the hot winds blew, and the moss peeled off the rocks deep in the Jungle, till they were as bare and as hot as the quivering blue boulders in the bed of
That spring the
tree, that
mohwa
flowered.
The
greeny, cream-colored,
the stream.*
'Felix Grass, The Reds of the Midi, p. 69. Specific scene pictured from the speaking character's personal view-point. * Kipling, The Second Jungle-Book. Note the many epithets,
278
Noble
stately,
STYLE
Mansion! There stoodest thou, in deep Mountain on umbrageous lawns, in thy serene solitude;
Amphitheatre,
massive, all of granite; glittering in the western sunbeams, like a palace of El Dorado, overlaid with precious metal. Beautiful rose up, in wavy curvature, the slope of thy guardian Hills of the greenest was their sward, embossed with its dark:
brown
and
its
by some spreading
solitary Tree
shadow."
gamut of
individuality, hav-
may have
culti-
of self-ex-
own
is
style.
To
be
to be looked for
interesting to note
itself in
how
a young
writer.
man
he
who
is easy-
temper
in his utterances;
florid
and wordy.
ical
It is precisely
command
thrust-
may
accomplish
ing
fic-
and
act
from
his per,
sonal view-point.
think,
That were absurd. Each character and speak, and act, consistently with his or
Apostrophe.
STYLE
her
279
own personality. Still, all the issue of a single mintage may bear a subtle unity of impress, even when the
coins
uttered
vary
from copper
to
gold.
When
the
makes no attempt
when
it is
the character
who
speaks.
Underneath
all,
-to
why
it is
so futile to study
The
What, then!
master story-writers?
literary arts of
if
:
but note
tate their
by which they secured results, to observe which they fell, and to master the various
You must use same tools as they, but the uncut stone before you and you need not slavishly follow another's
if
work
there
is
Style
amount of distinction, and mere imitation is not the mother of invention. In his essay on " A College Magazine," included in
implies a certain
*
Compare
p.
193.
28o
the volume,
STYLE
Portraits, Stevenson shows
to originality of style.
Whenever
larly pleased
style
must
sit
quality.
down at once and set myself to ape that was unsuccessful, and I knew it; and tried
and was again unsuccessful, and always unsuccessful but at least in these vain bouts I got some practice in rhythm, in harmony, in construction and coagain,
;
ordination of parts.
" I have thus played the sedulous ape to Hazlitt, to
to Defoe,
or
not, is the
way
to learn to write
is
whether
the
the way.
It
was
finer
way Keats
is
temperament for
" It
still
model.
,ure
;
sure of
failis
and
failure
for I
own performances.
sequence
I
I liked
In confriends;^
my
chose to be
my
ccmfidants I must
STYLE
281
with me. Thrice I put myself in the way of a more authoritative rebuff, by sending a paper to a magaquite plain
zine.
even pained.
all
These were returned, and I was not surprised or If they had not been looked at, as (like
if
'
and
cedes expression.
not a cistern
the stream
;
The
full life is
it is
a fountain, and
it
must overflow.
will
it
If
it
but somehow
gush
forth.
than rivers
first
rhet-
The
is
to
picturesque,
step
is
significant
things, into
self
your
life.
The second
third step
is
to be
your best
lost
consistently.
The
so to master the
The
final
express your
own
self fearlessly
and interpret
style
sincerely.
You
self.
will then
a literary
as
your
own
What you
marked by
282
STYLE
three great story writers passages which quite characteristic of their style. Comment on each, noting points of similarity and differSelect
from
ence.
Macaulay observes that Samuel Johnson was not always 3. pompous. In a personal letter Johnson says, "A dirty fellow bounded out of the bed on which one of us was to lie " but in " Out of one of a book he describes the same incident thus the beds on which we were to repose, started up, at our entrance, a man black as a Cyclops from the forge." Discuss this
;
:
difference fully.
Note:
ent styles,
The
cises in imitation,
may think it wise to assign brief exersuch as writing an incident in several differfollowing closely the methods of Kipling, James, "0.
instructor
CHAPTER XV
SOME SPECIAL CHARACTERISTICS OF THE SHORT-STORY
In fiction you
must walk by
sight
and not by
faith.
Anony-
mous.
touch, the
The smaller your object of artistry, the nicer should be your more careful your attention to minutiae. That, surely, would seem an axiom. You don't paint a miniature in the broad strokes that answer for a drop-curtain, nor does the weaver
of a pocket-handkerchief give to
carpet.
when
it
occurs to him
one of his second best ideas in the manufacture of a short-story, will commonly bring to his undertaking exactly the same slap-dash methods which he has found to serve in the construction of his novels. Where he should have where he brought a finer method, he has brought a coarser should have worked goldsmithwise, with tiny chisel, finishing exquisitely, he has .wcirked blacksmithwise, with sledge-hammer
to utilize
. .
. ;
and anvil; where, because the thing is little, every detail counts, he has been slovenly in detail. Anonymous, Quoted in How
to
Write a Novel.
and some of
its
tice..
fuller
properties of style
of a a
may
profitably be
made with
you
the help
will find
if
not
essential.
How
to
attain
clearness,
unity,
coherence,
force, ease,
and how
283
284
and arrangement, may best be studied systematically! The same is true of the choice of words, and the laws of description, exposition and narration. But for those
who
indispensable
True on art
in his lectures
great master
task, to
which none
will
When you
hu-
for four things in the work of the master, and mould your own work accordingly
sedulously
I.
Harmony
of
Tone
is its
The tone
or
spirit.
of a literary composition
It is
temper, mood,
lofty or
low
gay or grave,
satirical
or sympathetic,,
all
285
the story-writer.
in fiction.
Any
purpose
proper
The
its
short-story
may
doing
its
its
work
when
purpose
is
unconfessed,
art concealed
by
art.
However,
To
tions,
insist
mood
but
through
setting,
must breathe a
plot,
single spirit.
Characters,
and
may
And
the
from
this diversity
s'ets
The
story of tragedy
may
contain
humor
(if
you are not a classical purist), but the fun must not
rival
the tragedy
pathos
may mingle
taste.
the
laughter
must tremble
close to tears.
Congruity
writer, as determining
fully,
not
how
by national
spirit
individuality.
The
novel
more
more
likely to
*In his Philosophy of Composition Poe sometimes applies the term tone to an effect within the story, as contributing to the " Having totality of impression for which he was working. chdsen a novel first, and secondly, a vivid effect, I consider whether it can be best wrought by incident or tone."
286
length.
locks
were shorn
him
his
he says
The secret of the American short story is the treatment of characteristic American life, with absolute knowledge of its peculiarities and sympathy with its
methods
;
its
habitual ex-
may
be found even
hidden in
that
its
itself;
which may be the legitimate outcome of the story with no more elimination than may be necessary for the artistic conception, and never from the fear of
Of
such
is
the American
literature
an American
In The Study of the Novel,*' Professor Whitcomb has compiled a " comparison of critical estimates of national
character " as furnishing " a natural basis for the study
of national influence upon fiction.
These he
finds to be
English: " Energy with honesty (Matthew Arnold); " void of the sentiment of the beautiful more apt for
scholarship, invaluable,;^ to all students of fiction for suggestion and reference, but totfl condensed and analytical to admit of easy reading. f; Condensed from the orieinal text. :
287
German:
science
"Steadiness
all
with
honesty
the
not
idea
of
governing
"
departments of
human
is
activity
(Matthew Arnold).
Italian:
What
"
is
not
refined
Italian
love of perfect
Russian:
form and
the
artistic finish"
(Garnett).
its
inability
to
bring
feelings
and
its
beliefs into
harmony" (Waliszewski).
the one
Spanish:
"
On
careless
courage" (Matthews).
Essentially the
same
most
have
In his
to
essay
been preeminent in the righteousness of its laws. The Hellenic race stood for " The power of intellect and
power of beauty, the power of social life and manners." Four modern nations, he declares, proxscience, the
the
British,
conduct; the
social life
;
Italians,
beauty;
the
French, manners
of
and
power
knowing a thing
But to
scientifically.
fifth spirit is pre-
me
it
measure enters into our national character: it is the spirit of practicality, the economic fitting of means to ends, together with a tremendous admiration
larger or smaller
*
Mixed Essays.
288
in-
with an
of
their place
We
shall
and
distinct, at times,
or again just a
the
overtone of suggestion.
But
in
American,;
The
our short-stories shows that two kinds are co-eminent the story of local color, growbriefest examination of
:
ing out of our frankly naive, youthful wonder at 08|,i own infinite variety; and the story of achievement in
business, politics, love
and war.
are,
pride.
and,
us be glad to say
by
side with
its
expression.
2.
Proportion
The perfect short-story has balance, proportion. What elaboration could make this more clear? The conscious
artist
just
enough
an
effective climax.
He care-
289
is
description to narration.
proportioned to characterization
ordinates
all
Conversation
in
a word, he coeffect.
7
3.
Simplicity
airs
has
to.
so plainly the
seriously.
So perhaps there
is lit-
but at
any rate
listen to these
editor of experience:
"
When
a tale begins,
'
slowly sinking
among
the
shedding an effulgent
whether
official
or volunteer,
is
He knows
finds
fine
it
when
language unless
noting."
And even
Frank Norris
New
tell
Testament yas
all
called
upon
to tell the
was born,
to
of
how we had
seen
will
Those who do not wish to make ^fuH study of Esthetics find a satisfactory digest in WhiTcomb's The Study of a
Novel.
290
Him, that this was the Messiah. How the adjectives would marshal upon the page, how the exclamatory phrases would cry out, how we would elaborate and elaborate, and how our rhetoric would flare and blazen till the ear would ring and the so we should imagine very eye would be dazzled and even then we would beIt is lieve that our words were all so few and feeble. beyond words, we should vociferate. So it would be. words of ours. Can you not see That is very true how we should dramatize it? We would make a point
of the transcendent
stillness of the
murmur of Jordan, the peacefulness of sleeping Jerusalem. Then the stars, the descent of the angel, the shepAnd our narrative would be herds all the accessories.
as
flippant smart-
ness of a
bright
'
We
would be striving
listen
and she brought forth her first born son and wrapped him in swaddling clothes and laid him in a
livered,
inn.'
go no further."
The
29I
Compression
is
The
to
be found in Professor Matthews' encomium of Maupassant's " extraordinary gifts and his marvelous crafts-
manship.
His Short-stories are masterpieces of the art of story-telling, because he had a Greek sense of form, a Latin power of construction, and a French felicity of
style.
They
evitable,
and inexorable
move-
ment.
there
artists in fiction
is
than
Mauthere
passant.
never a word
never an excursus.
Nor
is
What
he wanted to do he
hit^
and again."
(a)
to single sentences.
Arlo
Writing English.
Pilate,
according to
bowl, rinsing
"'Slowly lowering his hands, he dipped them in the shining them over and over again in the clear, cold element, which sparkled in its polished receptacle like an opal
against the fire.'"
"
The Bible
necessary in
"
'
the words:
finds
it
possible to say
all
of this that
is
and washed
his hands.'
p. 67.
"
29a
Here
is
Thomas Hardy
The bedroom which she shared with some of the children formed her retreat more continually than ever. Here, undfcr her few yards of thatch, she watched winds, and snows, and rains, gorgeous sunsets, and successive moons at their full. So close kept she that at length almost everybody thought she had gone."
In William Allen White's "
The Home-Coming
of
to
is
It was thus that young Colonel William Hucks brought his wife to Kansas. They were young, strong, hearty people, and they conquered the wilderness. home sprang up in the elbow of the stream.
long rows of corn-shucks trailed what had been the meadow. In the summer the field stood horse-high with corn. From the bluff, as the years flew by, the spectator might see the checker-board of the farm, clean cut, well kept, smiling in the sun. Little children frolicked in the king row, and hurried to school down the green lines of the lanes where the hedges grow. Once a slow procession, headed by a spring wagon with a little black box on it, might have been seen filing between the rows of the half-grown poplar trees, and out across the brown stubble-covered prairie, to the desolate hill and the graveyard. Now neighbors from miles around may be heard
In the
fall
coming
tin
lights,
in the rattling
;
presents
after
which the
home
is
stream.
into the night,
11
There were years when the light in the kitchen burned far when two heads bent over the table, figuring to
Tess of the D'Urbervilles,
p. 93.
293
In these years the girlish figure became bent and the light faded in the woman's eyes, while the lithe figure of the man was gnarled by the rigors of the struggle. There were days not years, thank God when lips forgot their tenderness; and as fate tugged fiercely at the barbed bit, there were times when souls rebelled and cried out in bitterness and despair at the roughness of the path. In this wise went Colonel Hucks and his wife through youth into maturity, and in this wise they faced toward the sunset.
(c)
out
and incidents withwhich the story would be other than it is, and an
of your art
and
Build
How
is
your thought
is
hazy, vigorously
your
1
will is
flabby, concisely if
sprawly
As
they
do with coats
sometimes
change as
longer,
they are
worn
The average
Hawthorne and Poe was little short of ten thousand words. Nowadays, editors would think Poe's limit too long when he declared that, " If any literary work is too long to be read at one sitting, we must be content
to dispense
ble
once destroyed."
Philosophy of Composition.
294
American writers usually keep within 5,000, with the average reaching no more than 3,500. All in all, from 2,000 to 10,000 words is a fair statement of length, with some few even shorter
or longer.
Each magazine has its own length-limits, which you would do well to ascertain. Few periodicals accept shortstories of more than 5,000 words. The average short-story masterpiece, if we exclude those of Maupassant and Daudet, is longer than the average short-story. The expert often dares a broader canvas, and works in his detail more interestingly, than does the beginner. Even his name seems to warrant a somewhat longer story just as we listen rapt for an hour to a famous lecturer, and yawn over unadvertised eloquence that flows for more than thirty minutes at a
stretch.
Insurgent," by Halevy, has 2,000 words ; " The Siege of Berlin," Daudet, 2,750 words " Passion in " Tennessee's Partner," the Desert," Balzac, 3,000
"
The
Harte, 4,000; " Valia," Andreiev, 5,000; " Next to Reading Matter," " O. Henry," 6,000; " The Wind in the Rose Bush," Mary Wilkins Freeman, 6,750 ; " Scandal in
"Who Was
She?" Bayard
Poe,
"
The
Fall of the
House of Usher,"
D. Post,
11,500;
"The Corpus
o'
Delicti," Melville
10,750;
"Will
the Mill,"
Stevenson,
"The
Gentle
i3,ocx);
295
13,750;
"The Man Who Would Be King," " The Liar," Henry James, 20,000."
These figures have
little
Kipling,
The
story
down
The Telegrapher's
Biography
Monday
Tuesday
Hired.
Wired.
Tired.
Fired.
Wednesday
Thursday
OUTLINE SUMMARY
Special Characteristics of
1.
the Short-story
Harmony
2.
3.
Proportion
Simplicity
4.
Compression
(o) In Single Sentences
(fc)
In Sentence Groups
of tone.
Find a short-story that exhibits the American spirit. From a popular magazine select several sentences which you can compress into clauses; then reduce the clauses into phrases, and, if possible, the phrases into words.
2.
3.
" See
Appendix C.
296
Try the effect of still further condensing Maupassant's The 4. Necklace, on page 326. (a) Compress the story of a college year into a paragraph, 5. (b) Compress the paragraph into a sentence.
The instructor may make other similar assignments. Discuss the effect of over-compression, upon the reader. Take up all your previous short-story attempts and review 7. their defects and merits in the light of what you have learned. 8. Write a final short-story, suiting your own tastes and striving to express your own conception of a good short-story.
Note:
6.
297
is composed of numerous groups crying out Conamuse me, sadden me, touch me, make me dream, laugh, shudder, weep, think. But the fine spirit says to the artist: Make something beautiful in the form that suits you, according to your personal temperament. Guy de Maupassant, Pierre et
The
public
sole me,
Jean, Preface.
That story is good which is shot through with the author's which gives us most fully and entirely his perception and emotion and his personal vision of the world. He may
personality,
per-
them with
little.
individuality and
his
story
amounts
to
Harper's
Weekly,
Editorial,
May
23, 1908.
298
PART
III
CHAPTER
WHAT
i
IS
ORIGINALITY^
There are two kinds of artists in this world: those that work is in them, and they cannot be silent if they would, and those that speak from a conscientious desire to make apparent to others the beauty that has awakened their own admiration. Anna Katherine Green, The Sword of Damocles.
Chaucer seems to
original of poets.
.
me
. .
to
He
and says what nobody ever thought or said before, and what nobody can ever think and say again, but because he is always natural because if not absolutely new, he is always delightfully fresh; because he sets before us the world as it honestly appeared to Geoffrey Chaucer, and not a world as it seemed proper to certain people that it ought to appear. ^James Russell Lowell.
he thinks
;
He was
dull in a
that
made many
side-
people think
him
great."
thrown a
^ Adapted from the author's How to Attract and Audience (Hinds, Noble & Eldredge, New York). ^Life of Johnson, Boswell, p. 241.
Hold an
299
300
light
WHAT
Upon
originality.
is is
IS
ORIGINALITY
of alleged origi-
nal matter
new
form.
Originality
I.
The Test of
to
Originality
It is
more important
is,
know whether or
mind Here
is
a sure test:
How
Does
is
does
it
my mind
act
when
it
receives
new
it
thought?
out again
If credit
it is
same words?
is
quotation; otherwise
literary theft.
my mind feel stimuand yet utter the received thought without change? That is expansion. Does my mind not only receive a stimulus from a new
Upon
receiving a thought, does
lated to produce other thoughts,
it,
clarify, transform,
and am-
so that in uttering that thought I utter it stamped with my own " image and superscription " ? That is
originality.
Such
is
the
is
test.
It is as
nal thought
new
birth
the
high as
it is final.
An
origi-
fruit of a
union of
truth
from without and of thought from within. A fertile intellect, open to new ideas, sensitive to take them in, and ready both to act upon them and to be acted upon by
them,
is that-
mind.
^yHAT
IS
ORIGINALITY
301
in a lifetime,
does
come
should be entertained.
This
And
this is
have j/lenty of
it.
They are in good company, and Even an original mind cannot always
intellects
show
its fertility,
never
rise to
Fur-
thermore,
To change would be
is
Their
function
into
And
output
is
This
it is
though such
It is the
only
many
and second
call that
Popularly,
his
we
man
original
who
stands
on
own
feet,
uses
the
own, and
with the
who
hue of
own
is
personality.
Such a man,
if
he be not a creator,
at least
mind
working should be
welcome indeed.
302
2.
WHAT
IS
ORIGINALITY
of Originality
is,
The Sources
Rare
as genuine originality
the
number of
those
who attain thereto would ht largely increased make it the object of serious effort.
several suggestive facts.
did writers
.,
Human beings are much same to-day as when their characteristic traits proved suggestive to Balzac and Stevenson. It needs but an alert, receptive mind to take these things and transforms
them
(b)
tively.
This
is
We
ask for our milk malted, our meats peptonized, and our
books digested.
of the
the
age.
material world.
One marked
tal
upon
the menability to
powers.
Men
think consecutively
lines.
True,
part,
education
is
in part
but only in
articles which
man skims
WHAT
IS
ORIGINALITY
is
3O3
generally voted
Dr. Nicholas
cation, in the
five tests of
edu-
among
them he places
1.
tongue.
2.
4.
5.
The power and habit of reflection. The power of intellectual growth. Efficiency, the power to do.
if
But
is
so general
who
to his
powers of observation
reflect,
is
willing to
and to think systematically.' him to crown his desire with gift. (c) Original minds cherish the companionship of great thoughts. How much might here be said! Three sentences must suffice. He who would produce original ideas must fertilize his mind by contact with the epochmaking thoughts of all ages. These he will find preserved to him in a few great books, and animating the minds of living men and women who are worth knowOriginality waits for
ing.
If there is
it
forth.
Hoffman-Edwards
Talks to Students on the Art of Study,_ Frank Cramer (The Co., San Francisco) is full of suggestion for those untrained in thinking.
304
WHAT
IS
ORIGINALITY
to
be themselves.
great.
Dare!
is
The word
yourself
is
not ill-chosen.
The
said
as severe as the
never
meed of
imitate,"
success
" Insist on
Emerson
himself and
my
in this:
so
Am
I willing to
stand on
my own
feet
now
very
sake
stumbling efforts
The young
who
artificiality to
the winds,
may
and invention
vance of his
will increase,
less
will
end far
in ad-
sional blunders of
young writer
consecutive thinking,
of great thoughts,
let
him him cherish the companionship-j him dare to be himself, and his
practise
mind
will
come
will allow.
OUTLINE SUMMARY
1.
2.
WHAT
IS
ORIGINALITY
305
Do you
recall
especially set
you
to
thinking?
In general, did you agree or disagree with it? Which stimulates you more, agreement or disagreement with another thinker?
2.
3.
4.
Which
stimulates you
dis-
cussion ?
5.
Do
your experiences
influences
in this respect
6.
What
work
CHAPTER
II
Abel
Stevens,
Life
of
Madame
I
when
larly
good idea
into
some
particularly lucid
and that a good deal of it, and probably the very best of it, came to them by processes more or less independent of their volition.
Nobody
but what comes is partly what is in him, and partly what is given him to say, and which is which he may not know, nor whence came what was given. What we
ing the indispensable effort
call
form,
Girls of the most limited it. experience and youths of inadequate education seem now and then to possess by instinct the faculty of expression; of putting their words where they ought to go, and doing the trick that
makes
literature.
Edward
S.
Martin,
Writing,
Harper's,
Jan., 1908.
Are
those
made?
'
Both.
who
rely solely
upon
talent never
amount
to anyis
The
ideal
combination
306
307
added
a
to talent. sets to
itself until
man
work.
style
in-
So
is
to
coin a
Of course
apply this
now
and constructing
writes Professor
fictions.
may
be
all
He might
the literator;
of style,
all
as nothing if
out that, he
still
may have
all
fail
as a writer of fiction."
we must
recognize their
les-
of
of
^
Bach had an instructive appreciation of [the] laws harmony and Turner had some insight into the laws and understood."" painting they simply looked
;
'How
in
London
by Grant Richards), p. 4.
308
But while one writer springs, as did Minerva, fullpanoplied from the brow of Jove, a thousand, like Achilles, are born of lowlier parents, trained by demigods, and dipped in the Styx to
and
make them
invulnerable
is
wounds.
what
is it
that can
be taught?
how master-fictionThough success can never ists have told their stories. be fully explained, nor guaranteed to those who will folWhy,
the knowledge of
still
the mechanics of
two things the two important ones to know about any art) its subject matter, and its
form.
it
The
rest is
a question of
into, practice
ability
and
application;*
remains to put
whom men
own
It is one
it is
thing to teach
how good
good
short-story.
When Mr.
sists in
that, "
Art
con-
surmounting
that art
is
Mr. Mabie
way
of doing a thing,"
art.
we have
views of
and
as
is
regarded
measures up
to a
standard,
literary
is
is
workman
held in view.
The former
that
illustrate and
309
We
may
", the best way of doing thing " can be'taught in principle and in practice. But a
more.
As
after all
itself.
it
is
it,
it
is
The same
kinds.^
Mr: Shefwin Cody, in the Introduction to his collection of The World's Greatest Short Stories, utters some concise and illuminating words regarding both the nature of literary art and its special relation to the short-story.
"
art,
scious.
When
The
to
poet
is
means intend
'
nothing
Genius
own forms
perior to the
who
is
uninspired by genius.
They ignore
who
is,
is
nothing at
all in-
The
fact
is
or, let
us say,,
to'
experimental; and as in
perfection
evolution
it
draws near
and
very nearly
all its
practitioners
become conscious
artists."
That there
is
make
doubtless
more ap-
Novelists to Order, in
The
3IO
writer.
and women who admit the necessity of preparation for doing any other work well, seem to asand themsume that authorship is a gift of the gods
Men
One
contest conducted
by
Collier's
Weekly
in 1905
was Mr.
Walter Page.
" So
for
Of
many
good
stories that I
wonder
Surely
if
it
this
is
be not a common
a fundamental mis-
is
an
art,
difficult art,
in
some proper
way - has
constructed
it,
has built
it."
Another experienced
literary
worker gives
:
this testi-
mony, which
are
will
" There
many
work
to see
in print,
who
it
are failing
In this connection
is
known
ability.
all
at the
gift,
foundation of success.
* Collier's
How
W.
Quirk.
3II
him
to a hearing.
And
all
have
Upon
says, that
er's
felt
that he inherited
pression.
Stedman mother the knack of exLowell thought that " man's style is born with
is
from
his
him."
first
and
Miss
Corelli professes to
owe nothing
to systematic training."
no writer "
will
ever
do great things."
is
" Miss
that
"composition
lace
to
Lew Wal-
Ward
attribute nothing
method.
Andrew Lang
thinks
writing,
while
George
W.
Cable
ary construction.
litterateur
is
able to judge of
The
worker
is real,
even
unrecognized.
of talent both
Other authors, equally eminent, " The present which for training.
regard
made
to
some of us
312
at
our birth," says Jean Ingelow, " is not that same thing which the others can acquire by study, by thought, and
by time.
yet those
is
required
is
who have
make
what
it
was meant
been added."
Hux-
learned " to spare no labour upon the process of acquiring clear ideas." Dowden thinks that " Genius is energy
quite as
much
as insight;
pendent upon
tireless activity as
no way of writing
declareds
Frank Norris
is
better than
none."
"
literary train-
Renan
declared that
Good
of
training of the
mind
style ;"
men
upon
great
my
all
received a special
study, as does
Marion Crawford.
importance to education, and S. Baring-Gould served an " apprenticeship in literature." William Black
and Edward Eggleston recommended incessant practice. Sir Walter Besant believed in studying technique, as did
Poe, Balzac,
of English.
313
Wendell Holmes and Edgar Fawcett learned how not to write, by means of instruction."
In the last analysis,
it is
The
critic' hesitates
upon any
this
own
contemporaries, anrhetoric,
and
and
now
However,
it
is
surely safe to
if
possible,
insti-
Many
schools
and higher
and
in
composition,
the
As
school
Then there
well.
is
'
on
all
these
short-story
models
is
But by
all
to write.
persistently,
'
Write
cited above are condensed from statements contributed by the authors named, to The Art of Authorship, compiled and edited by George Sainton
original
(Appleton,
314
Be
grateful for
it,
intelli-
whether from
teacher or from an active editor. says Mr. Howells, " I noticed that the contributors
" In
my own
case,"
who
were
could best be
left to
who
most amenable to suggestion and even correction, who took the blue pencil with a smile, and bowed gladly to
the rod of the proofreader.
alert
the
for offense,
who
slight,
work
be
not
were commonly
much more
find
it
If a chance opens to
will
but profitable school; though it leaves and less energy for fiction writing; ahd, as Charles Dudley Warner has pointed out, the newspaper reporter must cultivate compression at the expense
difficult
little
leisure
do,
do not
is
lightly
take up
some,
literature
The way
long,
are
To
literature
a trade, to
in
some an avocation,
your
" visible
to
some a
profession."
to
Succeed
adopt
it
fiction as
means of support."
your
But
having
goal, despise
make your
preparation
315
" to
Mark Twain
young
friend.
They
for all
who would
sister
"There is an unwritten law about human successes, and your must bow to that law, she must submit to its require"
I.
ments.
"2.
"
No No
This law stands right in the way of the subaltern who wants and it stands (and to be a General before he has smelt powder should stand) in everybody's way who applies for pay and position before he has served his apprenticeship and proved himself."
initiative, so
own way
do
" to
be faith-
own
spirit," as
Walter Pater
has put
"
Each of us
To some,
dom;
effort.
free-
to others, belts
"
Good judgment
But the well-trained mind comes after and the wrong of each step." ^^ Finally, I wish that every timorous worker might read and digest " The Magic Story," whose message, in brief,
and up-hill road.
awhile to feel the right
is
^-
this
'1
3l6
man
permission to perform."
^^
OUTLINE SUMMARY
Talent and Training
Talent Incommunicable
Relation of Art to Talent Relation of Training to Talent
Newspaper work
Apprenticeship
12
Frederic
Van
Rensselaer
Dey
(Success
Company, New
York).
CHAPTER III
ACQUIRING A VOCABULARY
The knowledge of words
is
Wilson.
a
based
meaning.
All vocabularies
are indeed
upon the
used in other vocabularies also, but the fact that they are
suited to
special
scientist,
the traveler.
To
his
his special
work.
The
No
one
its
exact meaning,
" An author's vocabHancock says those words kinds, latent and dynamic latent those he can readily use. Every he understands; dynamic intelligent man knows all the words he needs, but he may not have them all ready for active service. The problem of literary diction consists in turning the latent into the dynamic."
Professor Albert E.
ulary is of
two
3l8
understands
for use.
its
ACQUIRING A VOCABULARY
relation to Other words,
and has
it
ready
How
I.
can
this
be accompHshed?
Determination and method will do wonders. When you see a familiar word used in an unfamiliar sense, jot it down, look it up, and master it. I have in mind a
writer and speaker of superior attainments
his vocabulary
by noting
all
became
large, varied,
and
exact.
it is
yours.
2.
Form
Do
a word.
individual shade of
Fluency may
become
one
The
dictionary
No
who would
its defini-
tions
3.
Word
an-
Fortunately, there
is
am growing
so peevish about
my
writing,"
says
ACQUIRING A VOCABULARY
Flaubert.
319
is
" I
am
like
man whose
ear
true, but
who
inward sense.
^
Then
the tears
come
rolling
down from
from
his
eyes
falls
hand."
to
say,
Whatever may be the thing which one wishes to there is but one word for expressing it, only one
it,
verb to animate
is
it.
It
word, for
this verb,
for
satis-
fit the thing." So did Sentimental Tommy, by James M. Barrie in his admirable novel bearing his hero's name as a title.' No wonder T. San-
dys
lion
lad, is
He
word.
gets on finely until he pauses for lack of a For nearly an hour he searches for this elusive
thing, until
suddenly he
lost!
is
is
up,
^
^
and he has
Quoted
Barrie
may
tell
the rest:
p. 30.
320
Essay!
the
It
ACQUIRING A VOCABULARY
was no more an essay than a twig
is
tree, for
gowk had
is
stuck
stuck in the middle of his second page. Yes, the right expression, as his chagrined teacher had to
admit when the boy was cross-examined. He had not been "up to some of his tricks " ; he had stuck, and his explanations, as you will admit, merely emphasized his incapacity. He had brought himself to public scorn for lack of a word. What word ? they asked testily ; but even now he could not tell. He had wanted a Scotch word that would signify how many people were in church, and it was on the tip of his tongue, but would come no farther. Puckle was nearly the word, but it did not mean so many people as he meant. The hour had gone by just like winking; he had forgotten all about time while searching his mind for the word.
The
tattie
"You
little
to wile at
from if you had an ill-will to puckle? What ailed you manzy, or " " I thought of manzy," replied Tommy, wofuUy, for he was ashamed of himself, "but but a manzy's a swarm. It would mean that the folk in the kirk were buzzing thegither like bees,
instead of sitting
still."
Even if it does mean that," said Mr. Duthie, with impatience, "what was the need of being so particular? Surely the art of essay-writing consists in using the first word that comes and
hurrying on." "That's how I did," said the proud McLauchlan [Tommy's
successful competitor]. " I see," interposed
'
"
speaks
is
of
fine
there being a
mask of people
Mask
Scotch word." " I thought of mask," whimpered Tommy, " but that would mean the kirk was crammed, and I just meant it to be middling
full."
"
Tommy.
no enough."
ACQUIRING A VOCABULARY
32
Mr. Lorrimer flung up his hands in despair. wanted something between curran and maslc,'' said Tommy, doggedly, yet almost at the crying. Mr. Ogilvy, who had been hiding his admiration with difficulty, spread a net for him. " You said you wanted a word that meant middling full. Well, why did you not say middling full or
" I
fell
demanded the
ministers,
unconsciously
ing
it.
" You jewel " muttered Mr. Ogilvy under his breath, but Mr. Cathro would have banged the boy's head had not the
ministers interfered.
"It
is
it's as difficult as to hit a squirrel," cried and again Mr. Ogilvy nodded approval.
"It's
no;
Tommy,
As they were preparing to [Cathro having previously run Tommy out by the neck], the door opened a little and there appeared in the aperture the face of Tommy, tear-stained but excited. " I ken
leave the school
word now," he cried, " it came to me a' at once it is hantle " Mr. Ogilvy said in an ecstasy to himself, "He had . . to think of it till he got it and he got it. The laddie is a
the
; ! .
genius
4.
Discuss
everyday speech,
in
many
useful words
form of disputation
mean-
and usages of words, it must prove doubly valuable. The development of word-power marches with the
growth of individuality.
322
5.
ACQUIRING A VOCABULARY
not Overlook the Value of Translating Languages
6.
Do
Study
Word
Derivations
flood of light
may
origin of a
essentially
word
is
disclosed.
A prefix or a
stififix
may
and master-ly, contempt-ible and contempt-uous, envi-ous and envi-able. Thus to study words in groups, according to their stems, prefixes and suffixes, is to gain a mastery over their shades of meaning, and introduce us to- other
related words.
7.
Do
Words more
than
Another
" Sixty years and
more
ago,
Lord Brougham,
address-
come from the Latin and Greek. The was an impossible one, and Lord Brougham himself
it
;
made
the attempt.
Quincey's phrase,
at
'
happily coalesced.'
'
jest
words
the like.
difficult
*
and -ation, as dictionary words, and But even Lord Brougham would have found to dispense with pomposity and imagination."*
in -osity
it
p.
341
(Hinds,
Noble
&
Eldredge,
New
York).
ACQUIRING A VOCABULARY
323
OUTLINE SUMMARY
Acquiring a Vocabulary
1.
Gather Words
From
Effective Writers
2. 3.
Form
4.
5.
6.
7.
Seek Diligently for the Right Word Discuss the Meanings of Words Translate Foreign Languages Study Word Derivations
Practise Variety
CHAPTER
IV
The more we
study,
the
ignorance.
to
manner of the
dissecting
method employed
Next
write
Read
its
make a study of
pended example.
THE NECKLACE
BY GUY DE MAUPASSANT
(185(^1893)
Happy
selves,
are they
whom
. . .
life
.
satisfies,
and be content
.
Guy
324
325
clear, solid head, a maker sentences shining like gold, pure as the diamond having the good sense, logic, balance, power, and clear-
^mile
Zola.
destroys the ideal destroys himself. In art and in life Maupassant lived in the lower order of facts, the brutal world of events unrelated to a spiritual order. He drained his
He who
power of sensation and reaction; he plunged headlong into the sensual life upon which they opened when the luminous heaven above the material world was obliterated.
senses of the last
Madness always lies that way as a matter of physiology as well and Maupassant went the tragic way of the sensualist since time began. Hamilton W. Mabie.
as of morals,
Maupassant saw life with his senses, and he reflected on it animal revolt, the recoil of the hurt animal. His observation is not, as it has been hastily assumed to be, cold;
in a purely
it
is
man, and
of feeling.
cynicism
is
less superficial,
kind
He
saw
and
his soul
was en-
He saw it without order, without recomhe saw it too clearly to be duped by appearances, and too narrowly to distinguish any light beyond what seemed to him the enclosing bounds of darkness. Arthur Symons.
but he lacked spiritual power,
Maupassant was the most finished short-story writer of all; and so he missed much of the world's beauty. An inflexible realist, he pressed his method From life's farther than did Flaubert, his uncle and preceptor. raw materials he wove incomparably brilliant fiction- fabrics, equally distinguished for plot, characterization, and style. Besides
"
The Necklace,"
The Ven-
Coward," "Moonlight," "Little Soldier," "The ConfesThirteen of his stories have been sion," and "The Wreck." collected in "The Odd Number" (Harper), with an Introduction
detta,"
"The
Piece
of
String,"
"The
Horla,"
"A
"Tallow-ball,"
by Henry
326
THE NECKLACE
(Published in 1885.
She was one of those pretty and charming girls who, as if by an error of destiny, are born into a family of clerks. She had no dowry, no expectations, no means of being known, understood, loved, wedded, by any rich and distinguished man, and she let herself be married to a minor clerk at the Ministry of Public
Instruction.
2.
INTRODUCTION BEGINS
Character-study
figure.
of
central
Pessimistic view of
life.
French
gested.
atmosphere
tone.'
su^
Hint of unhappy
Sordid.
let."
Note compression of
plainly
1[
i.
She dressed
since
she
Catastrophe strikes the tone.
could not dress well, but she was as unhappy as a woman who has really
fallen
station; for
women have
their
Author
philosophizes.
instead of family
and
Natural
sole
what
are
is elegant,
suppleness
of
wit,
their
hierarchy, and
man
of
of great
3.
ladies.
She suffered
endlessly,
feeling
Eey
sentence,
3.
elaborated
throughout U
the luxuries of life. She suffered on account of the poverty of her dwelling, from the wretched look of the walls, from the dilapidated chairs, from the ugliness of the curtains. All those things of which another woman of her caste would never
all
love
of
life
of
even have been conscious, tortured her and made her angry. The sight of the little Breton servant who did her humble housework aroused in her despairing regrets and distracted
would
dictate this.
Setting
by
contrast.
327
antechambers
delabra,
We
lighted by tall bronze canand with two great footmen in knee-breeches who dozed in the big arm-chairs, made drowsy by the heavy warmth of the stove. She dreamed of the long salons fitted up
Picture.
from
-the
general
to the particular.
with old
ture
silk,
carrying
of
and
the
coquettish
perfumed
boudoirs
made
men
fa-
mous and sought after, whose notice all women envy and desire.
4.
When
three
she sat
down
to dine be-
fore the
cloth
her
chanted
I
air,
don't
know anything
silverware,
than
Discontent
ularized.
still
more
partic-
that,"
of gleaming
which peopled the walls with ancient personages and with strange birds in
a fairy forest; and she dreamed of delicious dishes served on wondrous plates, and of the whisthe midst of
pered gallantries to which you listen with a sphinx-like smile, while eating
the pink flesh of
of a fowl.
5. els,
She had no
nothing.
no jewfor
And
else;
that.
she
felt that
she was
made
FOR
MAIK
328
6. She had a rich friend, a former schoolmate at the convent, whom she did not like to go and see any more, because she suffered so much when she c^me home. She wept whole
days.
evening 7. One turned home with holding a large hand. 8. " There," said
for you."
her
husband
reair,
a conqueror's envelope in
he, " is
his
something
Note " sharply."
9. She tore the paper sharply, and drew out a printed card on which were these words
10.
"The
Minister
of
Public
In-
Name
first
mentioned
time,
for
the
and Mme. Georges Ramponneau ask the honor of M. and Mme. Loisel's company at the palace of the Ministry on Monday evening, January i8th."
struction
11. Instead of being overjoyed, as her husband hoped, she threw the invitation on the table with disdain,
and then
locality here
only
casually.
Mention of
and
there fixes
the setting as
being in Paris.
Winter.
murmuring
12.
Minor-climax.
"What do you
expect
me
to
do with that?"
13. " Why, my dear, I thought you would be glad. ,You never go out, I had and this is a fine opportunity tremendous difficulty in getting it. Every one wants to go; they are greatly sought after, and they are
!
'
not
14.
giving
official
many
world
to
clerks.
The
whole
will be there."
She looked at him with an irriand said, impatiently: 15. "And what do you expect me to put on my back?"
tated eye,
329
He
that.
dress
me
It
He
his
stopped,
stupefied,
seeing
that
wife
was
weeping.
Two
Just as tears really flow.
mouth.
and
blank questions show stu-
"What's the matter?" he stut"What's the matter?" tered. 20. But by a violent effort she had conquered her grief, and she replied, in a calm voice, as she wiped her
wet cheeks:
21.
Most
would
bave
dress,
this
"Nothing; only I have no and therefore I can't go to ball. Give your card to some,
Developing incident.
colleague
whose
in
wife
despair.
is
better
He was
:
He
re-
sumed
23. "
Come,
let
us
it
see,
Mathilde.
cost, a suitable
which you could use on other something very simple ? " reflected a few seconds, 24. She making her calculations and also wondering what sum she could ask without drawing on herself an immediate refusal and a shocked exclamation from the economical clerk. 25. Finally she replied, hesitatoccasions ;
ingly
26.
:
Hint
at
character,
which
is
disclosed
without
formal
description.
" I
don't
know
exactly, but I
think I could
dred francs."
27. He grew a little pale, for he had laid aside just that amount to
330
himself to a
the plain
Local
color.
summer shooting on
with several friends who went to shoot larks down there, on Sundays. 28. But he said:
of
Nanterre,
Scarcely
any
in this story.
29.
four
End 0? MINOR
CRISIS.
have a pretty dress." 30. The day of the ball drew near, and Mme. Loisel seemed sad, uneasy, anxious.
main
crisis.
Her
dress
was
ready,
however. Her husband said to her one evening: Come, 31. "What is the matter? you've been very queer these last
three days."
32.
And
she replied:
33. " It
annoys
me
to have not a
I
all."
should
almost
rather
not
go at
34.
He
rejoined:
35. "
ers.
natural flow-
They are very stylish at this time of year. For ten francs you oan get two or three magnificent
roses."
36.
37. "
among
other
38.
women who
are rich."
But her husband cried: How stupid you are Go hunt up your friend Mme. Forestier, and ask her to lend you some jewels. You're quite thick enough with her
39. "
!
See H
6.
towaui
to do that."
331
joy.
never thought of
to her
No
waste
talk.
that."
42.
friend
a 43. wardrobe with a glass door, took out a large jewel-case, brought it back
to
Some might
true
crisis.
call
this
the
Second Plot
Incident.
Locdl color.
Mme.
44. 45.
Loisel,
opened
it,
and said:
" Choose,
my
Note
out.
compression
through-
dear."
She saw first of all some bracethen a pearl necklace, then a Venetian cross, all gold and precious
lets,
stones,
manship.
ments
with
before
hesitated,
Character development.
could not
kept asking:
46. 47.
"Why,
yes,
look.
don't
strike your fancy." Suddenly she discovered in a black satin box a superb necklace of diamonds; and her heart began to beat with an immoderate desire. Her hands trembled as she took it up. She fastened it around her throat, outside high-necked her dress, and remained lost in ecstasy at the sight of her own image.
48.
Description by effect.
in
Then she asked, hesitatingly, an anguish of suspense: 50. " Can you lend me this, only
49.
51.
52.
this?"
"Why,
yes, certainly."
She sprang upon the neck of her friend, kissed her passionately, then fled with her treasure.
toward
332
S3-
Mme.
was prettier than them all, elegant, gracious, smiling, and mad with joy. All the men stared at her, asked her
name, endeavored to be introduced. the attaches of the Cabinet wanted to waltz with her. She was noticed by the Minister himself. 54. She danced with intoxication, with passion, drunk with pleasure, forgetting all in the triumph of her beauty, in the glory of her success, in a sort of cloud of happiness composed of all that homage, of all that
All
The
partial
at-
Climax by arrangement.
of all those awakened and of that complete victory which is so sweet to woman's heart. 55. She left about four o'clock in the morning. Her husband had been sleeping since midnight in a little
admiration,
desires,
ball-room,
room.
deserted Irony.
ante-
gentlemen whose wives were having a very good time. 56. He threw over her shoulders the wraps which he had brought modest garments of everyday life, whose poverty contrasted with the
trifle
sardonic.
elegance of her ball dress. She felt and wanted to escape so as not to be noticed by the other women
this,
Touch of
nature.
who were
costly furs.
57. Loisel
enveloping themselves in
held her back.
Consistently dense.
58.
"Wait
She
a
I'll
little.
You'll
catch
Preparation
crisis
go and call a cab." not heed him, but rapidly descended the stairs. When they were in the street, they could
cold outside.
59.
por
uaik
well hidden.
did
333
and
began to look for one, shouting after the cabmen whom they saw passing
at
a distance.
60.
Seine,
cold.
despair,
last
shivering
with
At
found
never seen in
Local color.
the
took them to their door in Rue des Martyrs, and once more, now sadly, they climbed up to their apartment. All was ended for her. And as for him, he reflected that he
61. It
home
the
Note
Still
fall
of
spirits
in
story.
must
62.
be
at
the
Ministry
by
ten
o'clock.
more
to
herself
in
her
a
glory.
cry.
But
suddenly
necklace
she
uttered
The
Contrast.
Main
crisis segihs.
neck!
63.
dressed,
64. "
What
is
the
matter
with
you?" 65. She turned madly towards him. 66. "I have I've lost I have Mme. Forestier's necklace." 67. He sprang up, distracted.
'
Impossible
"
!
in the folds
They
334
70.
71. "
it
on
when you
72. "
the ball ?
felt it in
"
Yes, I
the vestibule
lost it in the
it
fall.
of the palace."
73. " But, if
you had
street
It
we
Did
notice
you
it?"
take the
76. "
No." 'JT. Thunderstruck, they looked at one another. At last Loisel put on
his clothes.
78. " I shall
go back on
if
foot," said
Practicality.
he,
" over
the
whole distance
out.
we
sat
walked, to see
79.
And he went
She
Emotion shown by
inaction.
whelmed,
thought.
80.
without
fire,
without
Suspense.
seven o'clock.
ing.
81.
He
He went
to Police
ters, to
the newspaper
of
his
offices,
at
recovering the
a reward; he went to the cab comeverywhere, in fact, whither panies he was urged by the least suspicion
jewels.
of hope.
82.
She waited
all
day, in the
same
state of
mad
terrible calamity.
83. Loisel
ered nothing.
335
mind
domitem-
"You
must
he,
The
practical
friend,"
said
nates
the
emotional
suspense subdued.
had
87.
And
Loisel,
who
had aged
five
Description by suggestion.
years, declared:
88. "
We
to re-
The next day they took the box had contained it, and they went to the jeweler whose name was
89.
FiMH
Plot Incident.
which
within.
He
go. " It
was not
;
Madame, who
simply furnished
the case."
91.
to jeweler,
like
mem-
chagrin
92.
In a shop at the Palais Royal they found a string of diamonds which seemed to them exactly like
one she had lost. It thousand francs, but they could have it for thirty-six thousand. 93. So they begged the jeweler not
the
was worth
forty
Verisimilitude.
to sell
it
making a
Verisimilitude.
he should buy it back for thirty-four thousand francs, in case they found the lost necklace before the end of February. thousand 94. Loisel had eighteen francs which his father had left him. He would borrow the rest.
bargain that
336
and
all
the race of
all
money
lenders.
He
life,
compromised
risked
his
even knowing if he would be able to meet it and, frightened by the pangs yet to come, by the black misery which was about to fall upon him, by the prospect of all the physical privations and of all the moral tortures he was yet to suffer, he went for the new necklace and put down upon the merchant's counter the thirty-six thpusand francs.
;
Climax of sentence
arrange-
ment
pacity.
suggests
how
he
ca-
Main
forward
the crisis.
96.
When Mme.
necklace,
Loisel
returned
said,
No
details
between K 95 and
the
Mme.
Forestier
I 96.
sooner.
98.
case,
ought to have returned have needed it." However, she did not open the as her friend had so much
I ipight
"You
she had detected the what would she have thought, what would she have said? dreaded.
If
substitution,
Would
a thief?
99.
Mme.
Loisel reasons.
Madame
now
enced the horrible existence of the needy. But she took her part, all on a sudden, with real heroism. That dreadful debt must be paid. She would pay it. They dismissed their
servant ; they changed their lodgings they rented a garret under the roof.
337
Compare
state,
this with
paratively
It's
easy
2,
her comformer
3.
Careful detail.
slops
ing,
down
And, dressed like a woman of the people, she went to the fruiterer's, the grocer's, the butcher's, her basket on her arm, bargaining, insulted, defending her pitiful money sou by
sou.
loi. Each month they had to meet some notes, renew others, beg for more time. 102. Her husband worked evenings
straightening
accounts,
out
and
late at night
And
104. At the end of ten years they had paid everything, everything, with the charges of usurers, and the ac-
empha-
by
repetition.
Intensifies
former
crisis.
cumulations of
compound
interest.
Results
105. Mme. Loisel looked old now. She had become the woman of impoverished households strong and hard and rough. With frowsy hair, skirts askew, and red hands, she talked loudly while washing the floor
of
crisis.
Whole
338
evening of long ago, of that ball where she had been so fair and so
feted.
io6.
if
she
had
is
lost
that
necklace?
Who
knows?
Who
and
knows?
How
strange
how
How
little a thing is or to save us! 107. But one Sunday, having gone
Moral mary
SION.
This
pervades
whole
conclusion.
to take a
walk
in the
Champs
filysees
to refresh herself after the labors of the week, she suddenly observed a woman who was leading a child. It
Minor
was Mme.
beautiful,
108.
Forestier,
still
still
young,
still
max.
Contrast with
fascinating.
^me.
Loisel.
Mme.
Loisel
was
moved.
Yes, cer-
And now
not?
that she
had
paid,
she
it.
was going
Why
109.
The
other,
astonished at be-
ing familiarly addressed by this plain goodwife, did not recognize her at
all,
All
details
and
comments are
suppressed.
and stammered:
112.
know
113. 114.
Madame! I don't You must be mistaken." " No, I am Mathilde Loisel." Her friend uttered a cry.
"But
!
How
"Oh, my poor Mathilde! you have changed " 116. "Yes, I have had days hard enough since I last saw you, days wretched enough and all because of you!" 117. "Because of me! How so?" 118. " You remember that diamond
115.
339
me
to
wear
at the
"Yes.
Well?"
121.
brought
like it
back."
122. " I
paying
that
it
brought you another just And we have been ten years for it. You may imagine
for
us
who
it is
ended,
say that you bought a diamond necklace to replace mine ? " You never noticed it, 125. " Yes. then They were very like."
!
Mme. "You
Forestier stopped.
And she smiled with a joy which was at once proud and naive.
126. 127.
Mme.
Forestier,
strongly
Climax,
denouement,
forecast
and
in
H
Why, my necklace was paste. It was worth at most five hundred francs
!
conclusion.
Denouement
90.
Naturally,
Mme.
Forestier
returned the jewels, but the ten years could not be returned, nor all they cost and wrought. Maupassant is too wise to tell a word of this.
OTHER SHORT-STORIES.
1.
What kind
Is the title
of story
is
this?
2. 3.
adequate?
plot.
4.
What is the theme of this story? Write out a brief scenario of the
340
5.
How many
not speak, (c) are referred to but are not present? 6. What is the proportion of dialogue to description and
comment ?
7.
What
is
8.
9.
mantic ?
10.
11.
Do you
What
is
find
12.
purpose apparent? any defects in the story in any respect? the final impression the story makes upon you?
distinct
Note:
Nine
Some
of these
may
MARKET
341
teach us
perion.
Perhaps the greatest lesson which the lives of literary men Wait! Longfellow, Hyis told in a single word:
There
is
they suffer so
much from
Bovee,
342
PART
IV
CHAPTER
Shakespeare,
;
your ink be dry; and with your tears moist Two Gentlemen of Verona.
it
no use to write a book and put it by for nine or even for in the writing you will have partly convinced yourself; the delay must precede any beginning; and if you meditate a work of art, you should first long roll the subject under the tongue to make sure you like the flavor, before you brew a volume that shall taste of it from end to end. Stevenson, The Morality of the Profession of Letters.
It is
ninety years
you
that though
my
story ?
all
you
still
your
fer.
own
It
problem.
The
you to know
him
through, but
it
great majority
may map
343
344
hand before actual writing begins. Try both ways and adopt the method that yields the best results. David
could not fight in Saul's armor.
I.
more methodical
even write out
Perhaps you
will
The next
Test
thing
it
plot.
for
con-
you wish
to observe.
Then
carefully fashion
it,
write the
rules
then.
If they
them before you while doing the first writing. Above all, don't follow this, or any other, method of work if
it
doesn't
fit
you.
2.
Retnsion
first
method of writing,
produce an
artistic
revise
you must
if
you intend
to
piece of work.
"
The
writing of
often an indispensable preliminary what will do." ^ Once in a while it will pay you to employ a literary critic to go over your story. At all events read your work aloud to yourself,
will not
is
what
do
to the writing of
345
you read
I
it
their praise.
could show you a certain piece of discarded manuscript of " Mark Twain's." He has re-
wish
cast
expression.
At
first,
it
is
evident,
general
of revising his
expression
'
Sometimes you
have to revise
" I remember, when I was young," says actually hurts. about saniSir Arthur Helps, " writing some paper
tary matters I think
it
was
and
much wiser
friend.
dare say
it
was
full
of the
'
He
said to me,
My
Let
me
Whenever
out.'
"
Yes,
you must
even rewrite
parable,
" seventy
it,
revise.
You must
recast.
You must
But do
not, as
of your story.
wise."
fire
Be
" If,"
said
story,
into
fire."
your
346
on
Emotion must still stand at his right hand to inspire and guide. Patience and persistence mean much here. Sometimes you will revise until you feel sick of the whole story and ready to burn your last character at the stake.
it
to,
but perhaps
is
may grow
Young
ress.
They prefer to see the building rise by enchantment. The easy, graceful style of some popular writers deludes them into thinking that the structural work was easy. The scaffolding they cannot see, nor the hewing of stone, nor the cutting of timber. But the magic wand
of the builder
ball is the
is
and
his enchanter's
plummet.
his
at
method
Besant.
besides quoting
None
of emulation! found that labored composition dulled the edge of inspiration. " I cannot revise," a young writer
it
takes
all
the
life
out of
my
story.";)
made no
progress.
We
the
to the
^Philosophy of Composition.
347
Where one strong story is conceived and finished in a few hours, a thousand require all the
pains
art.
which mark the production of any other work of Ruskin has pointed out" that composition means
not
to
throw
together, as a laborer
cart.
would
The mosaics of
St. Peter's at
Rome
ple bits
how wonderfully
they
3.
Must
ficult
I typewrite
my
story?
You need
the
not, but
to read at
you ought to. Hand-script is difbest and irritates your very busy judge
full attention to
;
your
fiction if
unconin-
sciously
experience
and, lastly,
it is
much
easier for
a complete impression of a typed story which must be read slowly and whose script conveys no suggestion as to its final appearance on the
than of one
printed page.
much
on a salesman.
If
you must
do
it
*See Erichsen's Methods of Authors, Bainton's The Art of Authors Work, in to Authorship, the chapter on Write a Novel, and a rich chapter on The Process of Composition in Whitcomb's The Study of a Novel. Third letter on The Elements of Drawing.
How
How
348
page.
Any
to
list
of proofreader's marks.
Be sure
You
have
no idea how appalling it is to face a long story, badly typed, on poor paper, and every line huddled between two others. Keep your typewriting machine in good order, clean out the types, and see to it that no inadvertent marks are
constantly being
tor.
made on
Watch
The
it
short-story
chapters.
is
into
If
use
Roman
Do
The
from
little
selecting stories?
editor's only tool is his
judgment.
Anything
flies
may befog
You
him just once in thirty in a bad humor, and then hand him a manuscript days a bar, marked by a reckless matyped with after every word, and then give him a chine,
for these distractions, but find
marks'...
cases,
and
may add
that, not-
349
stories,'
bought both
but
it
was
careless authors.
Use
letter size
(8j4
x
,
glazed, of
good
nor un-
duly heavy.
Prepare your
page thus:
3,000 words,
Stamped addressed
envelope enclosed.
Satin
Robe
several lines
words to the
the page,
line.
and then by tl^e number of pages. Count the though they were full, and estimate
it
Some
upper left-hand corner of each page of their manuto prevent straying leaves.
(folio)
script,
Number
Most
literary agenq^es,
35
8>4.
The
entin
over the top, and the whole riveted tlirough the top margin. In typing your story be careful to leave enougl margin so that the binding edge may not hide any pan of the top line, or even make it hard to read. The firsi
page may be kept clean by adding an extra sheet of letter-paper bearing precisely the same wording as yoi]
place at the top of the
title
page.
Some
the pages
oj
freak
is
you extra labor in the end. In a word, do all you can to make it easy for the publisher's reader to pass upon your story. Of two stories of equal merit he will surely lean toward the one which
likely to cause
have known
it to
its
CHAPTER
II
many a gem of purest ray serene The dark, unfathomed caves of Ocean bear. Full many a flower is born to blush unseen,
Full
And
waste
its
When he
conceived these
his
Doubtless
own
for
good "stuff"
spectfully.
as
manuscript
is
called,
smaller publications,
many
of which pay
manuscript.
give writers
known
or
The unknown
fair chance.
What
is
the best
way
own.
352
I.
This
is
None but a
writer
who
has
shown
that he
is
for a short-story.
fess that
it is
As
terial,
the result of competition for the most popular maa few much-sought-after writers have promised
all
they can
well
many months
know very
any unsatisfactory
stories,
and even
to editorial requirements.
If such a
publisher,
al-
of a
American or British writers, group of our most for none of them would dream of foisting upon a magazine a really inferior' piece of work, and most good writers feel quite confident of their ability to dispose of
their
field and
treatment proposed.
may
be given and in nearly every case the transaction is consummated to the satisfaction of all concerned. But
353
whose work
is
not greatly in
demand must
when he submits a scenario or a partly completed manuscript. It is hard enough to judge a story when it lies complete before you, without attempting to forecast what it will be like when you have seen only a title, or at most
an outline.
2.
Many
scripts
successful authors
manuis
branches or connections.
the writer to set
his story,
The
usual arrangement
for
maximum and
minimum
price
upon
may
be
tastes, peculiar-
more
know which
magazines,
syndicates
him
See chapter in
Press,
New
The Building of a Book, Hitchcock (Grafton an excellent symposium covering all York)
354
Against
all
is
known
his
had better study the magazine field himwhen he sells and so save the agent's commission agents have even proved to be story and that some
dishonest.
So there are two sides to the question, and the author must decide if, indeed, the agent upon his part is will-
There
on both
letter to
editor will
him) as
to those
pre-
own
stories, will
3.
Many
writers
who
are inexperienced
thii;k that a
little
or much
from the
letter
The
writers
practice
is
among
editors as to
it
meeting unknown
as various as
is
men
and
355
women.
you,
it
But, no matter
is
who you
are or
who
introduces
may even
pre-
Upon
may
After that,
it
rests
with
the story.
how can
be sure that
my manu-
me
to
Really,
certain
first,
who
will
are as
your
so
if it is
promit,
eager
No
editor
first
time an
its
author whose
work he has
knows from
good
after visits,
will dictate.
No man
bore.
He must do
his
work
in a methodical fashion in
is
said,
an
his
tempt to force
When you
356
but do not demand it. And do not forget to leave postage not loose postage stamps, but a stamped and carefully addressed envelope of a size to
It
may come
earlier,
fit
your manuscript.
You
you make
it
to handle
your manuscript
easier to return
it
-yes,
even
to the extent of
making
it
the more
It is a simple
case of buying and selling. " hard luck story," true and sorOne word more
:
rowful though
to
it
may
buy your work. How could it? He is employed by a publisher who demands results,, and the editor soon learns that it is cheaper, and more honest, to give charity
from
never a
fat
one
than
to
4.
By
sary to register
number of manuscripts sold are If you keep a carbon copy and you ought to it is scarcely necesthe parcel. However, the publisher is
Never roll your manuscript. If your paper is letter and it should never be so large as foolscap it will please an editor to have you send it flat, folded once, or folded twice, as suits your envelope. If you
size
357
or, at most, folded
flat,
In a word,
will
is to pass upon your offering. your manuscript has been out several times and shows signs of much reading, re-type the soiled pages
who
Do
not
form
letter.
stamped and
Do
may be
is
torn in the
received in
lost
mails.
Many
It
a manuscript so enclosed
its
pages are
letters to
They hurt
Recommendations and
letters of in-
up a manuscript out of
its
regular or-
upon
it,
all
You
will
It is
enough
to send
with your
name
affixed, or at
note, sent
somewhat
358
1909.
Franklin Square,
New York
Dear
I
City.
Sir:
words,
"The
Aflfair
at
is
Corson's," offered at
your regular
velope.
rates.
Enclosed
That
you
the
work of a
professional
critic,
who
editor
will write
is
an opinion
but he
If
at regular rates.
The
paid to do
writers,
other things.
is
He would
sold
young
too busy.
you have
enough manuscript to warrant it, a price upon your story, but by do-
No
ordinary circumstance
will
from his regular rate. The fact one or two stories at five cents a that you have sold word to one magazine will not warrant your expecting another to pay you more than its accustomed honorarium. At the same time, if your minimum rate is actually five
or three or
two
and
abide
by the consequences.
you
regular rates " do not haggle about the price after your
story has been accepted.
Remember
that
some maga-
359
With what rights do you part when you sell a story? Customs differ. Many publishers insist upon purchasing "
rights."
all rights," while others specify only " serial " All rights " include foreign and American
rights for
book publication,
serial
or magazine rights,
you wish
in the
you
reserve,
do so
which you
Most magais
if
the request
made when
you sell. You may secure American copyright for your story, but if you are dealing with a reputable publisher, better not. It will cost you a fee of fifty cents for each title, and a second half dollar in each case if you wish a certificate of copyright entry. Blanks will be sent you upon
application to the Register
of Copyrights, Library of
Congress, Washington, D. C.
is
nothing
ship
Remember that copyright more than a registry of your claim to authoror ownership. As to foreign copyright, consult
rule
it is
As a
at
a time to a magazine.
Nor
is it
moment he
360
Never offer the same story to more than one magazine at the same time. It is not fair to ask an editor to pass on a manuscript only to learn that it has been accepted
elsewhere.
fore
it
Never send the same story to a second magazine beyou have heard from the first periodical to which has been submitted. If you do not get an answer in
it
three weeks,
may be wise
fall
to
drop a
line courteously
asking for a decision, but you had better wait the month
out.
Editors sometimes
ill,
otherwise delayed.
lects
No
It
manuscript.
may
is
being
to
you will accept his offer if it is good enough. If he is human, such a request will irritate him and may cause him to reject the story forthwith.
Don't
let
humiliate you.
It
would
take
personal letters to
much time and money for an editorial staff to write all who offer unsolicited manuscript. Never write back sarcastic letters when your offerings are rejected. You may need that editor some day. Although personal pique seldom actuates him, he may be frail enough to be annoyed when his well-meant efforts
are assailed.
<
of
lecture, or
any
sort
361
They
is
will all
gd
to the waste-
The
editor
If that is good,
he
may
in spite of
your
for a
There
I
some excuse
contains
same vein."
prefer
The
editor likes to
know
that, for
he
may
story in the other magazine, though usually he glances over " all the periodicals "
own
line.
spirit
cent copies,
general tone
/ cannot sufficiently
that stories too sim-
Remember
prove un-
available as those
in general tone.
and
it
if
you are
quite sure
the best
send
the
magazine to which
it
seems
suited.
again, lay
when
it
will
be
fresh again.
rectify
it
>,
then, bravely
and send
out again.
Many
^looi Places to Sell Manuscript is a helpful list. The monthly numbers of The Editor are also suggestive. Both are published from Deposit, N. Y.
V,
362
But it is a sold on its tenth, yes, its twentieth trip. waste of postage and patience and editorial brain to keep on sending inferior material to magazines which are
plainly too critical to accept loosely constructed work.
Timeliness
is
is
an important element.
Every magazine
ber.
flooded with Christmas material sent during NovemSend all " timely," " seasonable," or " occasional
material
it is
expected to appear.
important.
Keep a
how
is
you
one
Here
CHAPTER
WHY
The land
is
III
A COLLOQUY
of young writers of promise, whose performThey have graduated at high schools and seminaries, and sometimes at colleges for either sex; they have ability lots of it, but it is ability in the raw, in the rough. Their minds are immature, their experience inadequate to the
is full
ance
not yet.
accurate
nature.
life
may grow
they fre-
to full stature
As
it
is,
(in books),
there are many like them among the readers of books. But the doors of magazines must remain mildly but firmly closed against them till they have tarried a sufficient time at Jericho, and learned to understand, to observe, and to depict realities,
drawing on their own disordered fancies. M. Bird, Magazine Fiction, Lippincotfs, Nov., 1894.
instead of
Frederic
manin.
when
busy
out.
cross.
See that
re-read
pile
tired or
it
I've
it's
marked
good or not.
To-morrow
know
in short order.
An
363
364
editor
WHY
he
can't laugh,
must make allowances for his moods. and on others he can't cry."
what's in that second pile ?
available
'
Some
days
" "
And
'
"
Not
stories."
for you by your assistant readers." " So they are, usually but every now and then I want
;
comes
in myself,
a talk with
at things
my
staff so as to
"
You
" Oh,
it
if,
count manuscripts of
kinds
"
you
And
every one
!
is
read ?
But not necessarily all through. Someenough to show that it is impossible.' But everything which on brief examination looks at all hopeful is read, sometimes by five different persons,
times a glance
is
'
" Certainly
before
it
is
In this respect
all
"
Now
Yes
;
that
'
not available
'
lot,
do you know
definitely
why you
"
reject each
one?"
I sort
of
know when
they won't
and
explain.
Here's a story
moment,
in confidence,
good thing
too
We
rarely
thousand.
And
look
WHY
at this
rate,
365
one facts all mixed up, details plainly inaccuand yet a good yarn at bottom. That's the trouble
they
do things well.
story that
it's
Then
see here:
you
fault
too slender.
way
next
is
The
all
the other
it
The
ment.
car driver to
is
realism
seem
real to
our readers.
It isn't
all,
of
They
too ob-
talk exactly as
viously true to
first
commonplace
life.
Here's another.
The
ten lines,
and a look
at the rest,
show
And
it's
really a
good
story."
"How's that?"
" Well, a year
story
The Atlantic.
see.
it's
though
for
little
experience in
too,
handling.
simply
dull.
I'm
sorry,
the
He must
have
That seems
fair."
little
"
Now
sketch.
like that,
366
WHY
more
many
years,
goes."
a, Memorial Day story." came in just four months too late. Last November I was down on my knees for something of Then in December two good ones came in this kind. one we're using this year, and the other will keep till, next May. This one isn't quite big and strong enough to hold over for two years, so I'll have to let it go. You see how chance runs? Last November it would have
and
it
"Tough luck!"
" Yes, but there's no help for too
late.
it
in
written
very funny
but
Now,
it's
there's
brilliantly
nasty.
^in spots.
The
is
too strained
Susit
tained
humor
is
so rare that
we jump
at
it
when
one? "
climactic interest,
Good
plot,
ridiculous.
The
while he
daintily
"
!
;
good magazines lately. What is her story like?" " Evidently a juvenile effort she's trying to float on
the
If
popularity.
it.
it
will
good.
WHY
Not
that
it's
367
so bad
just childish,
you know.
It
By
if
the
<
way, yesterday
I laid aside
can be used
first half.
she
It's
do
it,
too,
It's
who
that an editor
writers."
"
say,
now,
is
stories as they,
adays,
that
it
They lack So many people can write fair English nowand possess some ingenuity in plot construction, is easy to write a fairly good short-story. But no
'
fairly
good/ so that
It micst
not in
Most
1908.
writers are
commonplace
Let
imitators.
See that
file
the
S.
"
January number
of Harper's there ?
me have
See here
it's
by Edwin
Martm:
'
a great advantage to a writer to have sense, but he can moderate supply of it if he is a good enough writer. It is an advantage to him to have learning, provided he has it under good control and doesn't let it run away with him or dam him up. But the thing he must have is ideas. It is
It is
hard sledding for a writer to get along without ideas. Somehow, if he is going to be a writer, he must have bubbles in his mind. He can borrow a great many thoughts if he knows where to find them. What is learning but the assimilation of other men's ideas! But while some persons are writers because they
are possessed with ideas that
demand
to be expounded,
a good
368
WHY
others attain more or less painfully to the possession of ideas because they are called to be writers and are peremptorily;j!j constrained to have something to impart. It isn't quite enough'
many
you know enough words and attain you can make them go a good ways. You must have some kind of an idea to string them on if you are going to make a tolerable literary job. Sit down Then if you need one. with pen, paper, ink, and a dictionary we all know what happens. You have got to think. There is no way out of it. Thinking is to the natural man a severe and
to
if
man
is
not a writer.
Before
anybody becomes a writer he must subjugate nature to the extent of partially overcoming his distaste for consecutive
thought.'
is
short on ideas."
definite
fiction.
You
surely don't
down
mean by
its grip.
the term.
faults
Technique
Most of
the stories
we
accept are
man
interest, do not drag, strike a fresh note, vibrate some emotion, and are generally well-done, the minor
we may
story
In a word, the
counts more than the manner, though we want both." " But you haven't answered my question."
WHY
"As
tastes
stories
to
I couldn't
An
he
Professor Brander
writers,
and
'
it
In his essay
On
Pleasing the Taste of the Public,' in Aspects of Fiction, he suggests that the only way is, not to attempt a sly
'
what you
offer."
"
Of
Not altogether
he
is
by his
magazine material.
own magazine, but by the fact that he is buying The broadest magazine must be
its
clientele is
let
more or
alone,
less fixed.
man who
what he has a
right
to expect."
"
!
regardless,' I suppose,
'
a public
'
is
from be-
jEoming a
'
mere
visionary.
Anyhow,
as
said, the editor is merely a middleman who caters to the and isn't always certain as to wants of his customers
'
370
WHY
per cent, of the time he is happy." " All this sounds pretty hopeless for a young fellow
like
me.
Now
"
rules
its Kiplings and Weymans till they show the them; but that once done, theirs is the right of way everywhere. It was the misfortune or the fault of the magazines if they did not "discover" and first exploit these two but many a talent has risen from obscurity to fame through the monthlies, and in their pages the stars of the future may now be faintly twinkling and preparing to mount aloft.'"
ready to welcome
stuff that is in
" Yes,
this is
it
fiction
may
learn to write
if it's in
him."
"
the point
if
it's
in him.
But
just the
she
is
a real singer, or a
goes
mer-
WHY
then try
it.
371
The average
largely,
and,
frankly, not so
success.
and rarely so
if
dollars
measure
For ten years Conan Doyle sent manuscripts around, and in no one year did he earn so much as two hundred and fifty dollars. Suddenly his work took hold, and
well,
difference
you know how it is now: we all want him. The was not in the editors, it was in him.; He
'
You
They
long shot.
lot
fit
simply do not
in
some other way are unsuitable. Many a good story away from us because I haven't sense enough to see its value until some other fellow has published it. Then I'll turn around and discover something that has slipped
gets
Odd,
is
isn't it ?
"
rest of these ?
is
in
sympathy?
Here's a
a covert de!
woman
attacks
it is
away
is
its
mystery before
half through.
the
would require a lexicon to read it. And so on down list. Many could be remedied if some one could
and explain. But you see how would be for an editor to take up!
Their
As
foi^thfe rest
372
WHY
how
show
What
a pity a
them so frankly
"
fine
And
it
staff four
on the
rest."
And
the
thinking.
PART V APPENDICES
373
Some day, when nobody is about, line yourself up in a corner and find out just what you are capable of doing in this literary game. Point your finger sternly and make yourself surrender your knowledge. Can you depict sentiment, romance, adventure? Have you ever lived or loved? Do you study technical advice, or do you just scan it? Do you practise faithfully? Are you a steady current or an intermittent jumpspark? What can you do? What will you do? What can't you do? After you're robbed of your conceit, and duly ashamed, you'll be able to look your friend Ability in the face without flinching. After that Well, anyhow, corner yourself and get a view of the situation. The Editor, October, 1908.
you
say,
"
and you're
tired
and
sick of
it
Why, man, you're a shirker and a coward. Here is a woman who is blind, patiently smiling and writing her way to success. Here's a man whose health gave out and who
turned to literature as a last resort, finding it not only a suctessful profession, but a solace for his aflSiction. Here's a man in prison, writing with faith untouched. Here's a woman all, heart and soul, with a body God could hardly have meant for contact with life: look at her face, read her work, and think
of yourself
while.
quite
it
Would
.sufEce
if
we
but that's what makes it worth all could write the butcher's
and you and me? It's the task that makes the reward. If you're weary of it all, your perspective of life is distorted: you shirk and you fear. The prize is worth the struggle and, remember, the struggle must come first.
street urchin
Ibid.
374
PART V
APPENDICES
APPENDIX A
COLLECTIONS OF SHORT-STORIES, SKETCHES AND TALES
The
and C.
list
to
make
haustive,
lished
tales
Volumes made up
closely akin to
It
exclusively of
the short-story
type,
is
represented by but
stories.
Other repre-
and C.
I.
Miscellaneous Collections
contains a
list
{Appendix
of American publishers
with their addresses, and the abbreviations used throughout this volume.)
375
376
1.
APPENDICES
essay,
2.
edited,
i vol.
with introductory
Longmans.
of the Short Story, The; edited, with introductory essay, notes and full epochal lists of tales and
Book
short-stories,
Canby;
3. 4.
vol.
Chap Book
I vol.
Digit of the
;
Moon,
sto-
ries)
5.
Putnam.
vols. Collier.
by William Patten; 3
6.
by A. Conan Doyle, Maurice Leblanc, Arthur Morrison and Samuel M. Gardenhire; 6 vols. Harper.
stories,
7.
authors)
edited,
W.
D.
Ho wells
8.
and H. M. Alden; 7
Harper.
Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories; edited, with introduction, by Julian Hawthorne;
vols.
Review.
with introduction, by Rossi(several of which are verse and
ter
Johnson; 18
.
vols,
sketches )
Houghton.
10. Little
tions
French Masterpieces; edited, with introducby various critics, by Alexander Jessup; 6 vols. Putnam.
Masterpieces of Fiction; edited by Hamilton
writes the introduction)
11. Little
W. Mabie (who
Strachey
;
and
Lionel
vols.
Doubleday.
APPENDICES
12. Little
377
edited by
Thomas
(including
Humor; many
sketches
13.
14. 15.
Modern Ghosts;
1 vol.
Harper.
edited, with in;
notes,
18.
by Brander Matthews;
vol.
American.
introi
duction
Holt.
19.
Specimens of the Short Story; edited, with and notes, by George Henry Nettleton;
Stories by
yol.
American Authors; 10
vols. Scribner.^
22.
by English Authors; 10 vols. Scribner.'' by Foreign Authors; 10 vols. Scribner. Stories from McClure's; 5 vols. McClure.
from Scribner's; 6 vols. Scribner. 24. Stories New and Old, American and English; edited, with introduction and notes, by Hamilton W.
23. Stories
Mabie;
i vql.
Macmillan.
26. Tales
27.
1
from McClure's; 5 vols. McClure. Tales from Many Sources; i vol. Dodd.
of of
Cheaper edition issued by Success Co., American Fiction. ^ ^Cheaper edition issued by Success Co.,
English Fiction.
New
^,
York, as Library
,,
New
York, as Library
.,
328
28.
*
APPENDICES
World's Greatest Short-Stories, The; edited, with
Cody
vol.
Mc-
Clurg.
2.
29. Aldrich,
Thomas
Bailey; Marjorie
Daw
and Other
People.
Houghton.
Robert; Revenge.
Stokes.
in
30. Barr,
A Window
;
Thrums.
Harper.
Scribner.
Wee
;
Macgregor.
34.
35.
The Babe, B. A. Putnam. Putnam. Bierce, Ambrose In the Midst of Life. Bjornson, Bjornstjerne; The Fisher Maiden, and
Benson, E. F.
Later Stories.
36. Black, 37. Bourget, 38. 39.
Houghton.
;
William
Harper.
Paul; Monica.
Scribner.
Brown, Alice; Tiverton Tales. Houghton. Castle, Agnes and Egerton; Flower 0' the OrMacmillan.
ange.
40.
Chambers,
Robert
W.
The King
of
in
Yellow.
Harper.
41. Chesterton, Gilbert K.';
The Club
Dark.
Queer
Trades.
Harper.
42. Collins, Wilkie; After 43. Coppee, Frangois;
44. Crockett, S. R. 45. Davis,
;
Harper.
Harper.
46. Deland,
APPENDICES
47. Field,
379
Profitable Tales.
Eugene;
Jr.
Little
Book of
Scribner.
48.
Fox, John,
Harper.
Appleton.
49. Fraser,
50.
W.
Humble Romance.
Mac-
Harper.
51. Garland,
millan.
52.
Gibbon, Perceval ;
Vrouw
Grobelaar and
Her LeadJ.
ing Class..
53-
McClure.
F.
Taylor
&
Co.
54. Hale,
try
Little.
55.
Ludovic;
Parisian
Points
of
View.
Harper.
56.
Hardy, Thomas
Joel
Harper.
57. Harris,
Chandler;
Uncle
Friends.
58.
Houghton.
Bret;
Harte,
The
Luck
of
Camp.
Houghton.
59.
60.
West. McClure. ; Heart of the Hewlett, Maurice; Little Novels of Italy. MacStokes.
Scribner.
millan.
61.
62.
6T).
Hoffman, E. T.
W.
;
Weird
Tales.
Dolly Dialogues.
Harpef.
64.
65.
ers.
Hopper, James; Caybigan. McClure. Howells, William Dean; A Pair of Patient LovHarper,
380
66. Jacobs, 67. James,
;
APPENDICES
W. W. The Lady
Henry,
Jr.
;
Dodd.
Harper.
Holt.
The Wheel
;
68. Jerome,
69. Kelly, 70. 71.
Jerome K.
Sketches in Lavender.
Myra; Wards of Liberty. McClure. Lewis, Alfred Henry; Wolfville. Stokes. Lincoln, Joseph C; The Old Home House.
London, Jack; The Love of Life. Macmillan. Loomis, Charles Battel!; Cheerful Americans.
Barnes.
72. 73.
Holt.
74.
Bobbs.
Maupassant,
Guy
;
de
Harper.
Scribner.
j
79.
Moore, George
The Untilled Field. Lippincott. Frank A Deal in Wheat. Doubleday. O'Higgins, Harvey J.; The Smoke Eaters. Cen;
Bobbs.
A Dog
of Flanders,
;
etc.
Lippincott.
Scribner.
Page,
Virginia.
85. Phelps,
Men,
Women
and
Houghton. 86. Poe, Edgar Allan Monsieur Dupin tective stories). McClure.
Ghosts.
;
(collected de-
of
Randolph Mason.
88.
Putnam.
;
Poushkin, A. S.
Prose Tales.
Macmillan.
APPENDICES
89. Reade, Charles;
381
Good
Stories.
Harper.
Little.
Hopkinson; The
Wood
Fire in No.
j.
Scribner.
92. Stockton,
Frank R.
The Lady or
the
Tiger.
Scribner.
93. Stuart,
of
Salina Sue^
94. "
.
Stories of a Western
Town.
Scribner.
95. Turgenieff,
Scribner.
96. " 97.
The $30,000 Bequest. Harper. Stewart Edward; The Biased Trail. McWhite,
;
Clure.
98. 99.
In Our Town. McClure. Wiggin, Kate Douglas The Village Watch Tower. White, William Allen
; ;
Houghton.
100. Zangwill, I.;
The
Celibates' Club.
MacMillan.
APPENDIX B
ONE HUNDRED REPRESENTATIVE SHORT-STORIES
This
i^
would
many
as typical masterpieces.
The
by the
in
fact that
many
short-stories
which
originally
sets
Appendix A.
The numerals
in parentheses
A which,
ment
this
list.
The names of
titles,
publishers not in
italics,
following story
lished in
Appendix E
in this volume.
"The
Sick-a-Bed Lady."
2.
Ade, George;
"To Make
382
3.
Aldrich,
ton.
Thomas
Bailey
" Marjorie
Daw."
Hough-
4.
"
Good Samaritan."
5.
R; "The
6.
Atherton, Gertrude
per.
"
The
;
Har-
7.
Bacon, Josephine
Uncelestial."
Daskam
;
8.
Balzac,
Honore de
"
The Unknown
;
Masterpiece."
(16)
9.
Bangs, John Kendrick " The Utilitarian Mr. Carraway." From " The Booming of Acre Hill."
Harper.
10.
"
The Dub."
Lippincott's,
11.
Barrie,
Bell."
James M.
(II)
Sir
"The
;
Courting of T'Nowhead's
" In
12.
Besant,
Walter
Deacon's
Orders."
Harper.
13. 14.
(21)
Belinda."
Eleanor
Hoyt;
Doubleday.
15. "
The Team."
Lip-
16.
Bunner, H. C.
"
17.
Burnett, Frances
Scribner.
is
" Pigs
Pigs."
McClure.
384
19. Caryl,
APPENDICES
From
" Zut,
and
Other Parisians."
20. Castle, Egerton;
21.
Conrad, Joseph;
1907.
"The "The
Baron's Quarry."
Brute."
(8)
Nov.,
McC lure's,
22. Cooke,
Call."
Grace
MacGowan; "Their
;
First Formal
Harper.
Charles Egbert "
"
The Mystery
of
Witch-Face Mountain."
24. Crawford, F. 25. Cutting,
Houghton.
Marion;
Mary
Stewart;
McClure.
26. Daudet,
guin."
(45)
28. Deland,
Margaret;
Charles;
"An
Encore."
(7)
29. Dickens,
30. Ford,
"A
;
Christmas Carol."
Works.
Paul Leicester
"
Wanted
A Match-Maker."
Harper's,
"
(21)
33. Frederic,
(15)
34. Futrelle, Jacques
;
"
Everybody's,
Aug., 1903.
35. Garland,
Hamlin ;"
Up
the Coulee."
(51)
(10)
'
APPENDICES
37.
385
Harben, Will N.
"
From "Northern
38.
Hardy, Thomas;
Harte, Bret;
"On
;
39. 40.
"The
Hawthorne, Nathaniel
Henry, O."
;
Ethan Brand."
(59)
(24)
41.
42.
Hewlett, Maurice
(60) Heyse, Paul
"
Madonna of
the Peach-Tree."
43. 44.
45.
(8)
Hibbard, George
HoUoway,
"
Anthony "
"
Modenstein."
Osra."
From
;
Stokes. " Caybigan." McClure. 47. " Thief in the Night." 48. Hornung, E. W.
Hopper, James
ner.
Scrib-
49.
Howells,
W.
D.
" Editha."
;
(7) (3)
50. Irving,
51. 52.
Washington " Rip Van Winkle." Henry; " Owen Wingrave." (67) James, Jewett, Sarah Orne " Marsh Rosemary."
;
Atlantic,
57:590.
53.
Johnson,
Owen
"
The Hero
of an Hour."
Satur-
54. 55.
day Evening Post, Aug. 29, 1908. (21) Jokai, Maurice; " In Love With the Czarina." Kipling, Rudyard " The Man Who Was." (17)
;
56.
Knapp,
cott's,
George
" Blood
o'
Innocence."
Lippin-
Nov., 1907.
386
57.
APPENDICES
Lewis, Will
;
"
Mike Grady's
Girl
Safety."
Everyhod'/s,
Oct., 1905.
58. Linn,
J.
W.; "The
at
Duke's."
McClure's,
Aug., 1903.
59.
"The
Siren."
Century, July,
60.
"Maartens,
Maarten;"
"The
Little
Christian."
62. 63.
MacGowan,
Alice;
;
"A
"
Doll."
(7)
(74)
MacGrath, Harold
;
"
"A
(75)
65. Maeterlinck,
Maurice;
"
"The Massacre
Betrothal
of the Inno-
cents."
66. Martin,
(21)
Helen
The
of
Elypholate
Yingst."
67.
68.
Merim^e, Prosper
"
The Venus
of
Ille."
69. Mitchell, S.
Weir "
;
A Draft on the
;
Bank of
From
70. Morris,
lier's,
Century.
71.
" Simon L'Ouvrier." ColGouverneur Aug. 25, 1906. Norris, Frank; "The Passing of Cock-eye Blacklock."
72. "
Ramee)
"
Leaf
in
(20)
"
73. Page,
Thomas Nelson;
Marse Chan."
(19)
APPENDICES
74. Phelps,
387
to
Elizabeth
Stuart;
"His Soul
Keep."
at
Big
McClure's, Jan., 1904. Poe, Edgar Allan; "The Pit and the Pendulum." 76.
,(24)
77.
Bend."
Poushkin, Alexander;
78.
79.
Reade, Charles;
Singmaster,
"The Shot." (21) "The Box Tunnel." (18) Elsie; "The County Seat." Atlantic,
;
80. Scott,
"
The
;
First Hurdle."
Lippin-
Nov., 1907.
81.
Spearman, Frank H.
Train."
"A
"
Million-Dollar Freight
82.
(3) the
83. Stockton,
Frank R.
The Lady or
Tiger."
Scribner.
84. Stuart,
85.
Ruth McEnery " A Note of Scarlet." Century, May and June, 1899. Sudermann, Hermann " The New-Year's Eve Con;
-
fession."
86.
16)
;
Tarkington,
Clure.
Booth
" Monsieur
Beaucaire."
Mc-
Bayard; "
Who Was
;
She? "
(19)
Mary Imlay
;
"
Forgot."
89. Tolstoi, 90. 91.
Lyof "An Old Acquaintance." (21) Turganev, Ivan; " Mumu." (21) "Twain, Mark"; "The fi,cx)0,ooo Bank Note." From " The American Claimant." Harper.
388
92.
APPENDICES
Van
A Delicate
Perilous
Story." Ains-
lee's,
June, 1907.
Stanley
J.
;
94.
Weyman,
"A
Amour."
(20)
95.
at Prayer."
From
of
Edward
Winds
Heaven."
97. White,
(27)
98.
Wiggin,
Carol."
Kate
Douglas
The
Bird's
Christmas
Houghton.
;
99. Wister,
100. Zola,
Owen "The Game and the Nation." (24) Emile; "The Death of Olivier Becaille."
(n).
APPENDIX C
THE PLOTS OF TWENTY SHORT-STORIES
The numbers
I.
short-stories listed in
Appendix A.
written in 1884.
1894)
psycho-
logical character
tensibly to
He
filled
stabs
with
noiseless bustle
the
The
sound
of his
own
steps,
all
stagger
him with
fright.
On
At
by
body upstairs,
a step
is
still
beset
Suddenly
that
in
stair,
way.
Markheim
He
ex-
knows
all.
He
offers the
murderer immunity
389
39
APPENDICES
his soul.
He
seeks to disclose
all his
whose face suddenly takes on an almost angelic smile as Markheim decides to place himself beyond the possibility of doing more evil. The Visitant fades away, and Markheim descends the
the police
I
stair, saying to the maidservant whom he confronts on the threshold, " You had better go for
:
2.
human-interest
The
was
...
an
officer in
a Cossack
regi-
In
was civilly treated. Finally he became the guest of the White Hussars. During a gala dinner the mess was disturbed by the capture, outside, of a wretch in native rags who had apparently been one of a band of desperate carbine thieves. The miserable fellow seemed a lunatic, but as he wept an Indian
of the Indian government,
officer noticed that
he cried
like
an Englishman.
!
A HusThey
reached
sar heard
set
My God
" in English.
him
at table
He
known
Then
in a child-like
way he
inspected the
tain picture of a
room and thickly asked for a cerfamous old regimental drum horse.
APPENDICES
391
which used
hang above the mantel. Had he once beThey tested him with their own peculiar toast to the Queen, and he responded as only an officer of the White Hussars could. Then Dirkovitch addressed him in Russian, and the man groveled. It gradually transpired that he was Lieutenant Austin Limmason, recorded as missing before Sebastopol thirty
to
years prior.
their Colonel,
was knouted horribly, and after years of mind now a blank, he had stumbled home to his regiment he was not a carbine thief. The care of his comrades came too late, however, for three days later he died and was buried with an officer's honors. As Dirkovitch ended his visit he predicted a clash in the East between Britain and Russia.
suffering, his
3.
(1864-
James Keating,
reporter, is sent
by the Consolidated
fleet
is
News
to
bottled up.
a newspaper
man
The
latter is unattached,
and when
is
of
The Syndicate
the Channing a job as stoker on the press boat Channing at first refuses, only one there at the time. then decides to accept. When he goes on board he finds
392
APPENDICES
is still drunk the following day, makes its dash to escape. Though braced sick with fever, Channing writes a great story up with quinine and orders the captain to steam to Port Antonio and get the story on the wire. Because he knows that Keating's future is imperilled by his debauch, and that he has a young wife, Channing generously signs Keating's name to the dispatches. Then he succumbs to the fever, and when he gets on his feet again, six weeks later, the war is over. The Fruit Company at Port Antonio sends him north in one of its
when
steamers.
When
he reaches
New York
he goes to a
Bohemian restaurant, and there meets acquaintances who tell him that they are giving Keating a farewell banquet on this the eve of his departure for Paris, where he is to cover the Peace negotiations, and then become the Syndicate's Washington correspondent. Keating, he learns, owes his good fortune to the remarkable news-beat
he (Channing) sent in about the destruction of the Span-
Channing looks in and sees Keating at the head of the long, crowded table, then he draws back. " You say good-by to him for me," he says. " And, tell him Norris tell him that I asked you to say
ish fleet.
'
'
'
to him,
'
He'll understand."
place
where he was sure of food and a welcome that For he's a good fellow " But it was for Keating that the
APPENDICES
4.
393
The
( 1 850-1 893 )
Piece of String, by Guy de Maupassant about 2,500 words; written about 1885.
;
A psychological
denouement (15).
try to
Old Master Hauchecorne had just come from the counmarket when he saw a bit of string lying in the roadway. Being economical, he picked it up, and was
it
about" to thrust
the
when he
realized that
at him.
Ashamed of
string,
concealed the
and then painfully hobbled on. Later in the day peasants and citizens were summoned by drumbeat to the
market square and told that a wallet containing
five
hundred
that the
that
it
francs
had
been
lost.
Presently
Master
morning on the road. Hauchecorne explained that was merely a bit of string that he had picked up. The mayor was incredulous, the old man protested, was confronted by his accuser, and at last temporarily dis-
Everywhere he went he repeated his story and everywhere he was not believed. The next day the walHauchecorne again started let was found and restored. out, triumphant, and buttonholed every one with his story, but people laughed and were still unconvinced. They thought he had tossed the wallet where it would be found. He was dumfounded at their incredulity.
charged.
his rounds,
still
explaining.
394
"
'
APPENDICES
Those are a
it
liar's reasons,'
he gnawed his
nails,
and exhausted
himself in vain. " He grew perceptibly thinner. " Now the jokers asked him to
tell
who
His
is
asked to
source,
tell
about his
feebler.
battles.
mind, attacked at
" Late in
its
grew
December he took
first
to his bed.
" In the
repeating
"
see,
'
little
it
piece of string
little
piece of string
here
is,
m'sieu' mayor.'
S.
(
1804-1864)
An
The Great Stone Face " was a work of Nature in her mood of majestic playfulness, formed on the perpendicu" Its lar side of a mountain by some immense rocks." features were noble, and the expression was at once
grand and sweet, as
heart, that
if it
vast,
warm
embraced
all
mankind in its affections, and There was a tradition in the popuwould some day appear a noble
man
As little Ernest sat with his mother he wished that such a man might indeed appear. The boy, who grew up
APPENDICES
395
heard
under the benignant inspiration of the Face, one day it said that Mr. Gathergold had returned to his
mony
he
him give out merely coppers in charity, was not he. Later another son of the valley returned full of glory Old Blood-and-Thunder they called this military hero and thought they had found in him the desired likeness. But in the " warworn and weather-beaten countenance, full of energy, and expressive of an iron will," Ernest could see no
knew
that
it
Next a great statesman returned to his native valley, and because the people thought he looked like the Face, they called him Old Stony Phiz, but Ernest knew that he too was lacksympathies " of the Great Stone Face.
ing.
At length a Poet visited the home of Ernest, now an man. The two conversed profoundly, and in his visitor Ernest sought to find the expected Man, but the poet
old
and shouted
all
'
Behold
Behold
Ernest
!
is
him-
"
Then
was
true.
the
ful-
But Ernest, having finished what he had to say, took the poet's arm, and walked slowly homeward, still hoping that some wiser and better man than himself
would by and by appear, bearing a resemblance
Great Stone Face."
to the
396
6.
APPENDICES
"
"
Magazine,
Dec,
1907.
humorous
surprise
The narrator
ugliness
is
New York
" His
man
imaginable.
was
less repellent
than startling
arising from
struck up a hasty acquaintance and Tate his story. As a " gentleman adventurer " he had
become a great man and the real power behind the president of a South American republic, all through his wonderful gift of speech. At an early age he had perceived that what he lacked in looks he must make up in eloquence, and now no one could stand before him. Judson Tate had a friend, Fergus McMahan, who was as handsome as Tate was ugly, but " his conversation was
about as edifying as listening to a leak dropping in a
dish-pan at the head of the bed
sleep."
tin
to go to
McMahan
falls in
Zamora, the beautiful daughter of the Alcalde of Aratama," and arranges with Tate to visit her window by
night and
woo
her
The ruse
succeeds, but
falls in
her beauty
he himself
love
he
will
marry the young lady. McMahan only laughs, but Tate's eloquent words actually charm her away from his handsome rival and she engages to marry the homely
Tate.
APPENDICES
397
and
with
it
his hold
upon
his fiance.
But Tate,
The medicine
is
Judson Tate.
young lady once more succumbs to the eloquence of They were married, and are now, he tells
He
is
now
devoting
Magic Chuchula Bronbut the Lozenges," which did so much for him
away.
much
story
as other
make of automobile
reader that he
stores."
and so he
" can't
7.
by
W. W.
Jacobs (1863-
about 3,500 words; Harper's Magazine, 105:634. A story of ingenious plot and surprising denouement, dealing with the supernatural.
While
in
visiting
who
turned from India, shows them a dried monkey's paw, upon which, he declares, an Indian fakir once cast a spell,
so that
by means of
it
each of three
men
He
tells
them
39^
APPENDICES
owner had three wishes, the last being for death; and that he himself had three also, but he refuses to explain what the wishes were. He. seems to fear the gruesome object and finally throws it on the fire, from which it is
rescued by the son.
old man's keeping
will
it,
The
come of
it.
The
in his
takes the
paw
and the old man hand and wishes for two hundred
pounds
to clear their
home of
tells
its
mortgage.
The next
them that
and on behalf of the mill-owners offers them two hundred pounds. Ten days later the old woman again thinks of the monkey's paw, and insists that her husband wish their boy alive again. Under protest he
does as she wishes.
woman
treaties of her
husband,
who remembers
While she
is
struggling with
last wish.
monImme-
shining
8.
The
APPENDICES
399
Jean Frangois Leturc "was scarcely ten years old when he was arrested for the first time for vagabondage." With a man's cynicism he tells the judge of his checkered life of vagrancy. " Nobody claiming him, they sent him to a reform school." When at seventeen he was set free, he fell among his old reformatory associates
and followed their criminal courses.
another until he had a bad
Moved by
Brothers'
friend.
each other.
under
this friendship,
gay
mits "
life
much
is
found
in
his
trunk.
Jean Francois, who came to take his (Savinien's) hands. 'I understand you stole the three
'
Listen,' said
trifles
for a
girl.
That would
have been worth six months of prison for you. do not get out of that except to go back again
I
;
But you
.
.
Sainte-Pelagie,
Poissy,
and
five
at
I
Toulon.
scared.
It is all settled.
have taken
on
"
'
my
shoulders.'
fellow,' cried Savinien
;
Poor
400
9.
APPENDICES
The Cask
;
(1809-1849)
Nov., 1846.
of Amontillado, by Edgar Allan Pee about 2,500 words; Godey's Lady's Book,
partly by suggestion;
sombre and characteristic Poe story, told it is compact, swift and climactic.
but the manner perfect (2).
injuries of Fortunate I
The
"
plot
is slight,
The thousand
had borne
as
revenge.
tion-
...
its
overtakes
It
is
equally unredressed
felt
is
make
himself
as such to
the wrong."
Fortunate
a connois-
to
Fortunato
is
go at once to
test the
wine.
Montresor
craftily
leads
to enter the
damp
vaults.
all
When
two
at
cellar.
Montresor
first
mote niche beneath the river bed. From beneath a pile of ancient bones Montresor draws some stone and mortar and, despite Fortunato's cries and pleadings, walls him up
in his tomb.^
10.
Mrs. Knollys, by F.
)
;
Dale"), (1855-
1 Compare Balzac's La Grande Breteche, and Edith Wharton's The Duchess at Prayer.
APPENDICES
sine,
401
story,
Nov.,
1883.
delicate,
(
poetic
centering
16)
movement of the great Pasterzen glacier, which " rises in Western Austria and
flows into Carinthia, and
long, as
is
The
you measure it from its birth in the snow field, or from where it begins to move from the higher snows and its active course is marked by the first wrinkle." Charles Knollys was a young English government clerk who was spending an ideal honeymoon in the Alps, when one day he " slipped into a crevasse and vanished utterly from the earth." For many days the eighteen-year-old bride would not leave the place but sat and watched the
crevasse while they
body.
One day
character
and the
made hopeless efforts to recover the German scientist explained to her the movement of the glacier, thus blunder-
year
later, in
England, she
ex-
received a letter
loss
scientist
him
to
make a more
would be preserved
in that icy
might be recovered, he
hope made her
life
And
this pathetic
willing to live.
that
And
mouth the
perfectly pre-
402
II.
APPENDICES
Insurgent, by Ludovic Halevy (1834- ); compressed huabout 2,ocx) words written in 1872.
;
The
Martin, a Parisian
fifty-five
years old,
tells his
story to
by which he is being His father had been fatally shot tried as an insurgent. " By his side, on the litter in the uprising of 1830.
was
"
'
his gun.
;
and Take it,' he said to me 'I give it to you insurrection against the govwhenever there shall be an " and died. ernment always, always, always The boy was fifteen and in frame a mere child, but he offered himself to the Commune, and from that moment
'
an insurgent.
still
He was
under
vailed.
the
first
fire
but monarchy
St.
pre-
wounded
church of
Mery.
After
which
still
marked
of 1834.
the stones.
a son
is
born.
from drowning. Back again widow of an old comrade, and Under the Empire all was peace, but he
own
him.
At length Martin took part in an assault against La Villette, and was again imprisoned, but was soon
APPENDICES
released by a change of government.
risings of 1870
revolt
403
An
at the start; I
am
an insurgent.
in,
a political
my
stone to
it."
after forty years of devojion to revolt, he plains, " you tell me that this insurrection
But
com-
Now
was
why.
not lawful.
I
That
is
muddled between these insurrections which are a duty and these which are a crime." He gets medals and applause for the one, and for the other, prison, exile, death. He is confused and discouraged. All he
getting
asks
is
am
who
go
is
not
As
me
don't
let
me
that's
Nothing can
alter
what
12.
(1843-
about
character
Returning ffom long residence abroad, Maximus Austin (who tells the story in the first person and in diary
form) receives a
dore Lisle.
letter
from
Theo-
month
at
invitation to spend a
millionaire,
Frederic
404
Sloane,
APPENDICES
who
has
known
who
is
Three weeks
show
Lisle that
Ausup
himLisle
set
the
self
newcomer
Lisle.
Being
need
of
the
situation.
struggles
to
Sloane
finally
Upon
the will
in his hand.
The
latter
at Austin's request.
and
Austin but a
the valet
intestate.
and while the men are still together announces the death of Mr. Sloane now
little,
Meredith
The
Miss
coming
to the funeral.
characteristic coolness.
I irretrievably lost a
she comes," resolves Austin, with " I have lost a fortune, but have
friend?
I
am
13.
On the
(27).
);
by sugges-
APPENDICES
405
On
in the East
End
of London, a gaunt
doorway.
Her name
is
no
better.
for she heard three spirit raps last night, a sure " 'E's goin,' " said the old mother.
omen
Odd
Fellows, and the old dame declares that her son shall also be " put away decent " though she is doubtful if
mute
that
At
When
in
good port
" sich a ex-
it is
The
from
own
knowing
sum
woman
room
itor.
all
puts the
night.
money
the day before. But the away, and " nothing left the
.
Nothing that opened the door The next morning the gaunt neighbor is the
."
first vis-
"Ah,
wax.
'e's
" Like
So was my
ain't sich
woman
too.
mutes
And now
"
the old
They
406
14.
APPENDICES
Tennessee's Partner, by Bret Harte (1839about 4,000 words written about 1870. A humorously pathetic character study, of Western local
1902)
color
; ;
(16).
After showing
how such
appellatives as "
Dungaree
came
to be applied to the
up
his story.
At Stockton he
is
Flat.
He
grown up on the Bar. He was known to be a gambler; he was suspected to be a thief. In these suspicions Tennessee's Partner was equally compromised; his continued intimacy with Tennessee after the
a copartnership of crime."
affair
above
At last Tennessee is detected in a plain " hold-up," is pursued, captured and tried before " Judge Lynch." He
refuses to say anything for himself, but his partner
simple, serious, direct
.
and
loyal
At length he
" pile "
pulls out of
and
call
a
it
compensation, to "
APPENDICES
square." But the gold " court," and Tennessee
is is
407
For the
first
time that evening the eyes of the prisoner and his strange
advocate met.
and, saying,
'
teeth,
man
! '
in his
'
was passin' to see how things was gettin' on,' let the hand passively fall, and adding that it was a warm night,' again mopped his face with his handkerchief, and without a word withdrew."
dropped
in as I
'
in
coffin
is seen near by Asking for the body, he places he has made^ and the bystanders join in
He
full
of char-
long survive.
As he
and
is
"
coming
this
way, too
all
by
Tennessee
Part-
15.
Where Love
Is^
There God
Is Also,
by Lyof
Tolstoy (1828- ); about 5,500 words; written about didactic story, told with conviction and sim1890.
plicity.
28, 1908.
Martin Avdyeeich was an honest Russian cobbler whose children and wife had died, leaving him with but
one
child, a small boy,
upon
whom
he had
408
APPENDICES
child also died,
But that
and he became a devout follower of their teachings. One day he heard a voice which bade him look to-morrow But He into the street, for Christ would come to him.
did not appear, only a chilled old snow-sweeper, to
whom
Martin gave hot tea to drink, as he explained the gosMartin conpel; and then the grateful old man left.
tinued to look for Christ, but
He
woman
with a
child,
whom
next
mis-
summer garments.
;
He woman and a
and
chievous boy
who had
to her also
now
it
as he returned to as
a Presence declared
itself
He who
"
had
said, "
My
and
unto Me."
And
Martin
had
really
and he had
i6.
really received
that day,
);
dramatic,
Lu-
APPENDICES
,
409
cien,
his career of
gambhng and
the
dishonesty.
the
narrator
following
When
bre which
hung
!
in the
window
it,
of a Parisian toyshop.
large a
but
how
should he save so
should meet
night.
beggar he
bre
The ten francs, he reflected, would buy the saThe boy yielded, in spirit, and gave a blind begfelt
gar the silver coin, keeping the gold piece for the coveted
sabre.
that
to
gold
On
'
the
way he
slipped in the
snow and
heavily
lost the
piece.
That night
Lucien
lost
at
baccarat,
suicide.
cheated,
career,
and ended a
17.
The Father,
);
realistic story
man
of his parish.
One
day he presented himself at the priest's and asked bapnewborn son, requesting that he be baptized
As Thord
left
4IO
APPENDICES
his father.
he came to the priest to arrange for the lad's confirmation, and this time he is proud that his boy will head
the
Eight years more, and Thord comes to the priest with the request that he publish the bans for his
list.
son
marry the richest girl in the village. A young man is drowned before his father's eyes. A year passes and for the fourth time Thord comes to the priest. He has changed from a robust man to one of bowed form and white hair. He
is
he
to
lays
upon the
his son's
"
name
They
sat there
for a while,
blessing.'
"
'
Yes,
two big
i8.
down
his cheeks."
Mateo Falcone, by
;
Prosper
Mdrimee (1803-
1870)
published in 1829.
trag-
justice.
One
their
one of
Sev-
from a wound
APPENDICES
41
Fortunato hesi-
man
under a haystack.
cannot
Soon the
make
is
silver watch,
Just as the
wounded
When
the
soldiers
have gone,
the
litter,
family.
19.
(
The
)
;
Damned
Thing,
by
Ambrose
Bierce
1842-
From
of Life," 1898.
The
setting is a small
inquest.
coroner's
William Harker,
who has been visiting Hugh Morgan, the deceased, is summoned as a witness, and he introduces in his testimony a copy of the description of the tragedy, which he has sent to the newspaper he represents. He and Morgan were out after quail, when he heard a sound as of
body dragging itself through some nearby bushes, and Morgan became violently agitated. He ascribed the noise to what he called "The Damned Thing," and when a moment later some wild oats not far away were bent as though some animal was passing through them, though nothing was visible, he fired at
a heavy
412
APPENDICES
flee.
Harker was thrown down by the sudden impact of a large, soft body flung against him with great force. When he arose, he saw his friend on the ground some distance away, writhing in an apthe spot, then turned to
Morgan was Harker then noticed the same motion among the wild oats as he had seen before, only this time the Thing was evidently going away.
visible.
He
man
speaks of "
The Damned
Thing " as a huge, savage creature which cannot be seen. Morgan's solution of the mystery was that, just as there are sounds which cannot be heard by mortal " The ears, so there are colors which we cannot see. Damned Thing," he asserted, must have been of such a
color.
The
We,
the
of a mountain lion,
the hands
the same,
they had
fits."
"^
20.
What Was
in
It?
;
Mystery, by
realistic
Fitz-James
O'Brien (1828-1862)
in
words; written
1859.
story of
unex-
The
to
who agreed
was one of a group of boarders would remove a spacious house reputed to be haunted. For some
narrator, Harry,
to
go with
dis-
plot.
APPENDICES
ciission of ghostly matters with his friend
413
Hammond,
Harry was trying to fall asleep, when a Something dropped upon his chest and clutched his throat. A struggle of horrible intensity followed, in which Harry was at last victorious. He bound the unseen Thing and turned on the light but saw nothing, though he still
Hearing the
it
noise,
Hammond
entered the
it.
more securely and threw it Then followed prolonged observation of its movements, as shown by At the bed-clothes. It slept, but neither ate nor spoke. last they secured a plaster mold of the Enigma by giving it an anaesthetic. It was in form like a misshapen man. For two weeks its heart-beats grew daily feebler, until it died. They buried the invisible Horror in the garden, and rumor had it that the plaster-cast was to be exhibited in a well-known museum.
bed which creaked under the weight.
APPENDIX D
DIGEST OF RHETORICAL RULES APPLICABLE TO SHORT-STORY
WRITING ^
I.
Diction
of Right Words
Use
(o)
Pure
2.
Words
3.
'
4.
Be too alert to use the wrong word even if it sounds like the
right one.^
(b) Proper
Words
Do
not use the same word in more than one sense in the same paragraph.
6.
Among
word
synonyms,
that
choose
the
conveys
exactly
Words
7.
in kind and in degree. Avoid general words when specific words will convey your
idea.
1 Adapted from the author's How to Attract and Hold an Audience (Hinds, Noble & Eldredge, New York). ^ As, discomfort for discomfit, demean for bemean.
414
APPENDICES
II.
415
Sentences
Short sentences should be used
for
vigor,
8.
emphasis,
rapid
movement,
discourse.
9.
and
impassioned
Too many
fect.
Kinds
11.
Use
Use balanced
sentences to bring
out contrast.*
13.
To
sentences.*
14.
15.
Learn to use
all
kinds of sen-
*"If the
flights
tinues longer on the wing. If of Dryden's fire the blaze is brighter, of Pope's the heat is more regular and constant. Dry-
den often surpasses expectation, and Pope never falls below it. is read with frequent astonishment, and Pope with perpetual delight." Johnson's Lives of the Poets: Pope. * Grammatically incomplete if ended before the last words. "By a curious irony of fate, the places to which we are sent when health deserts us are often singularly beautiful." Stevenson; Ordered South. "May be ended earlier and yet be grammatically complete.
Dryden
4i5
III.
APPENDICES
17.
doubtful.'
18.
Use
"
shall
and
let
will,
should and
Do
not
intervening words
()
Grammatical
Correctness
and subject."
20. Rarely place
Genung.*
an adverb between
treatment of
(b) Clearness
modify.
" only."
Beware
" Often, too, they are places we have visited in former years, or seen briefly in passing by, and kept ever afterwards in pious memory; and we please ourselves with the fancy that we shall repeat many vivid and pleasurable sensations, and take up again the thread of our enjoyment in the same spirit as we let it Passage immediately following the foregoing extract. fall." * " I never was so long in company with a girl in my life and succeed [succeeded] so ill.' Jane trying to entertain her Austen, Mansfield Park, ii, p. 160. " If I ' Note the difference in conditions in these sentences : be dishonest you are to blame " " If I am dishonest, you are to blame." * " In these expressions were shadowed out the whole of that H. L. Bulwer, Historical course subsequently developed." Characters, ii, p. 336. * Called a " split infinitive," as " to sweetly sing."
APPENDICES
23.
417
Arrange
relative
and
to
restrictive
may
be
no doubt as
modify.*"
what they
Clearness
24. "
Genung.
25.
Be
whom "
only
as
an objective, never as a
nominative.**
26.
Clearness {Continued)
pronoun.
27. Let
there be
no doubt
as
to
Omit no
plied (understood).*^
29.
(c)
" I went to see the assistant to the physician that *" Obscure you recommended." " Wrong case " The younger Harper, whom they agree was
:
The domain of the husband to whom 12 Error by omission : she felt that she had sold herself, and [by whom she] had been nay, paid more than she had dared to paid the strict price
4i8
APPENDICES
30.
thought,
di-
thought depend.
31.
Do
Coherence,
tends
to
switch
34- Rarely
attach a
supplementary
IV.
main
idea,
parts as a background.
(a)
Emphasis
give
it
emphasis.^'
37.
An
APPENDICES
38.
419
subsidiary
By
putting
matter
first,
Emphasis
39. Repetition
of
sentence-forms
Observe
proportion,
sequence,
and strong
End
distinction."
Wendell.
modiclauses
44.
For weighty
fiers,
(b) Force
condense
and
words.
italics
45.
Do
and
To
secure
harmony
suit
the
sound of words
(c)
to the sense.
it is
Harmony
47. Select
synonyms when
nec-
Use
alliteration sparingly.
420
APPENDICES
49.
(c)
Harmony
monious sounds.
50.
To
51. Distinguish
52.
(d) Vitality
53.
54.
Beware the pitfall of a stilted and exaggerated style. Rapid movement is secured by suppressing details, and using
epithet to portray the characteristic points.
55. Occasionally
affirm
its
a thing by
(li-
denying
totes)."
56.
opposite
(e)
Variety
57.
sen-
58.
59.
60.
de-
^* "
citizen of
no mean
city."
Paul.
APPENDICES
61.
421
Vary
declarative
and interroga-
63.
may be varied by changing the voice of the verb. Study the inversion produced by
introducing sentences " there " and " it."
with
64.
direct to
(e)
Variety
65.
Employ
the
historical
present,
Learn how
trariwise.
to
paraphrase poetic
and con-
phrases
vvell
and
into
words; as
as expanding
words and
vivid
de-
use
simile,
meta-
and
im-
hyperbole
are
used
for
of Speech
pressive assertion.
70. Apostrophe,
his-
dramatic narration.
71.
For
illustration,
figures of comparison.
422
APPENDICES
72.
Do
harmonize with
74.
(/)
Vary
ing
Figures of speech
75.
many
suggestions.
Do
language.
76. Figures should neither be carried
so far as to be incongruous,
V.
yy.
The Thought-Divisions
Each
division of the
whole story
comshould
should
pletely
be
dominated
directly
and upon
pend.
Relation of
J
I
7^-
Thoughts
own
logical material.
79.
The
several divisions
must
fol-
low one another progressively, each growing out of its predecessor, so that the entire series
a climax.
noughts
VI.
unforced.
82.
Do
Entire Effect
dividuality,
and
directness, to
need not.
83. Subordinate
each
efifect
part
of
the
story to the
of the whole.
APPENDIX E
ABBREVIATIONS OF PUBLISHERS' ADDRESSES
American
Appleton
American Book Co
D. Appleton
& Co
Taylor Co..
Baker
Barnes
The Baker
&
A. S. Barnes
& Co.
. . .
New York
Indianapolis
Bobbs Brentano
Century
Collier
The Bobbs-Merrill Co
.Brentano's
The Century Co
P. F. Collier
&
Son
Dillingham
Dodd
Doubleday
Duffield
The G. W. Dillingham Co. Dodd, Mead & Co Doubleday, Page & Co.
. .
Duffield
& Co
Editor
Funk
Ginn
Grafton
New York
Boston
&
Bros
Houghton
& Co Boston & Eldredge. New York Henry Holt & Co New York Houghton, Mifflin & Co Boston
D. C. Heath
Hinds, Noble
424
Lippincott
Little
J.
B. Lippincott
Little,
Brown &
Co Co
.
Philadelphia
Boston
.
Longmans
Lothrop
New York
Bostor
Macmillan
McClure McClurg
Mofifatt
Page
The Macmillan Co The McClure Co A. C. McClurg & Co MoiFat, Yard & Co L. C. Page & Co
G. P. Putnam's Sons
New New
Yorl Yorl
Yorl Yorl
Chicago
New
New
.
Bostor
Putnam
Review
Scribner
.New Yorl
.
Stokes
Taylor
Co.
Yorl
Yorl Yorl
APPENDIX F
BOOKS FOR A FICTION-WRITER's LIBRARY
1.
2.
3.
4.
The Standard Dictionary; Funk. The Working Principles of Rhetoric, John Franklin Genung; Ginn. ^ English Composition, Barrett Wendell Scribner. Every-Day English, Richard Grant White; Hough'
ton.
5.
Likes and
Hinds.
Opposites
6.
Roget
7.
Lippincott. ^
;
8. 9.
Houghton. Study of Prose Fiction, Bliss Perry Houghton. The Study of a Novel, Selden L. Whitcomb Heath.
; ;
ID.
The Technique
Harper.
Home;
Authorship, James Knapp Reeve; Editor. The Preparation of Manuscripts for the Printer, Frank H. Vizetelly; Funk.
;
Editor.
The
Way
Editor.
looi Places
Manuscript ; Editor.
426
APPENDIX G
BIBLIOGRAPHY
I.
Books on
the Short-story
1.
Albright, Evelyn
lan, 1907.
May; The
Short-Story.
MacmilWriting.
2. Barrett,
Charles
Baker, 1900.
3.
Holt, 1902.
;
4
5.
Hart,
W. M.
Hawthorne and
the
Short Story.
6.~Qliirk,
Editor, 1904.
7.
The Writing
10, 11,
of
the
Short Story.
See also numbers
18, 24,
Heath, 1902.
i,
2, 5, 7, 8, 9,
and
28, in
APPENDIX
A,
all
of which contain
Books Referring
to the
Short-Story
8.
Anonymous;
How
to
Write a Novel.
;
London, 1901.
9.
London, 1898.
427
428
ro.
APPENDICES
Baldwin, Charles S.; College Manual of Rhetoric.
Cody, Sherwin;
1895.
Walter; The Art of Fiction. London, 1884. How to Write Fiction. London,
13.
On
the
Art of Writing
Ginn, 1898.
Stories,"
in
London, 1894.
"Kipling's
14
15. Gosse,
Edmund;
Short
Questions at Issue.
16.
Appleton, 1893.
Hamilton, Clayton; Materials and Methods of FicBaker, tion; Introduction by Brander Matthews.
1908.
17.
Hawthorne,
Heisch, C. E.
Nathaniel;
American
Note
Book.
Works, Houghton.
18.
;
of the Author.
Grafton, 1906.
19.
Howells,
W.
D.
Criticism
and
Fiction.
Harper.
1891 ; Literature and Life. Harper, 1902. " The Art of Fiction," in Partial 20. James, Henry
;
Portraits.
21.
Macmillan, 1888.
Scribner.
I22.
Maupassant,
Guy de
Paris, 1888.
23. Norris,
Barry
Lon-
don.
25. Poe,
APPENDICES
26. Stevenson,
ries
429
Memo-
and
Scribner.
27. Winchester,
Criticism.
short-story.
3.
Magazine Articles
;
28.
Andrews, E. F.
Beginners
Feb., 1897.
in
"
Story
29.
Story."
Eclectic,
139:
30.
"B. P."; "The Short Story." Atlantic, 90:241. M. " Magazine Fittion and How Not
;
to
Write
It."
"Bad
;
Story-Telling," Oct.,
1897.
32. Black,
Ebenezer Charlton
"
Short Story."
33. Cable,
International Monthly,
:205.
George
W.
" Afterthoughts
of
Story" Spec-
Teller."
ulations of a Story-Teller."
34.
The Short Story." Dial, 31:271; "The Modern Short Story;" Sept. i,
1904.
"
35.
De
Leon, T.
C; "The Day
of Dialect."
Lippin-
43.
36. " E.
APPENDICES
A. B."
;
" Fallacies
:396.
Academy, 63
37. Earle,
"The
Short Story."
Harper's Weekly,
May
1909.
23, 1908.
&
Feb.,
39. Editorial
Comment
Edgar
;
Have
the
Plots
Been Ex-
hausted ? "
40. Fawcett,
ers."
Some Advice
to
Young Writ-
Independent,
May
14,
1896.
41. Fenn,
George;
"The Art
;
of Mystery in Fiction."
42. Fruit,
North American Reznew, 156:432. John Phelps " The Rationale of the Short Story, According to Poe." Poet Lore, 16 157.
;
43. "
H. H. F."
19, 1899.
"
Names
;
in Fiction."
Literature, Jan.
"
The Structure
of the Short-
Story."
45.
Hapgood, Norman;
Apr.
1906.
8, Oct. 14,
Ma^
26,
Aug.
11,
46. Higginson,
Thomas Wentworth
;
The Local
Short-
Story."
47. Howells,
W. D.
Story."
48. Martin,
"
Edward
"Writing."
Harper's,
Jan.,
1908.
49.
Matthews, Brander
Short-Story."
APPENDICES
50.
;
431
51.
Matthews, William " Misleading Titles of Books." Saturday Evening Post, Apr. 21, 1900. Mabie, Hamilton W.; "A Comment on the Short
Story."
Outlook,
May
16, 1908.
len
White; Comments.
;
Collier's,
"
The Art of
Fiction."
Dec,
1898.
54.
55. Poe,
Gra-
56.
MacmilShort
lan's,
49:11s.
F.
57. Smith,
Hopkinson
"
How
to
Write
Stories."
60.
James " The Luxury of Pity." Forum, 5 :8. Symposium: Robert Barr, Harold Frederic, Arthur Morrison and Jane Barlow " How to Write a Short Story." Bookman, Mar., 1897. Thompson, Maurice " The Domain of Romance."
; ; ;
61.
Walsh,
in Fiction."
Lippin-
48:309.
;
62.
Wedmore, Frederick
"
The Short
Story."
Nine-
Note:
voted to
The Editor and The Writer, magazines the interests of writers, give much space to
See back numbers.
dethe
short-story.
GENERAL INDEX
_
Names of
titles
in small capitals; titles of books and stories appear in italics; while topics and persons referred to are set in plain type. The authors and titles referred to in the chapter on Titles and in the Appendices are not included in this Index.
Balfour,
Graham,
Life
of
May, The
66, 83,
189,
Esther
Grande
246;
Br Heche,
78,
Pere Goriot,
Allen, James Lane, 165, 167; The Chair Invisible, 169. Altsheler, J. A., After the
Battle, 224.
Barr, Robert, 71, 311. Barrett, Charles Raymond, Short Story Writing, 17, 77,
203, 220, 246, 264, 266.
Barrie,
21,
James M.,
Arnold,
287.
Matthew,
97, 151.
286,
mental
Tommy,
;
7; Senti319; Tommy
and
224.
Grizel, 55
it to
How
Birse Put
Mag
Gavin Lownie,
Atmosphere,
for,
Talks
on
Bach, 307.
Bacheller, Irving, A Tale of Two Burdens, 213. Bacon, Francis, 58, 60. Background, 160. Bagehot, Walter, 56. Bainton, George, The Art of Authorship, 313, 347.
Besant, Walter, 105, 266, 346. Bible, 193, 289; Prodigal Son, S ; Ruth, s, 29.
Biography, 24, 116. Bird, Frederic M., 47, 48, 69,
84. 85, 363, 370.
433
434
BouRGET, Paul, Le
INDEX
Roman Ex-
BoYNTON, H. W., Journalism. and Literature, 314. Brougham, Lord, 322. Browne, Porter Emerson,
Climax, 22, 89, 199, 203, 205. Cody, Sherwin, The World's Greatest Short Stories, 218,
309-
Coleridge, S. T.,
The Ancient
90, 346;
Au-
tobiography, 102;
Strange
Woman
Comfort,
Bed,
BuNNER, H. C, Love in Old Cloathes, 121 The Documents in the Case, 121. Burke, Edmund, On the Sublime and Beautiful, 195.
Burroughs, John, 312. Butler, Ellis Parker, Fleas
is
Fleas, 113.
Butler,
303.
Nicholas
Murray,
Byron,
5644,
CowPER, 34S. Craddock, Charles Egbert, 167. Cramer, Frank, Talks to Students o.n the Art of Study,
173, 303, 315-
57, 87,
Caine, Hall,
Upper Berth,
the 29;
Croesus, 195.
208.
Canby, H.
S.,
The Book of
Looking Glass,
83.
^
from
143,
My
133/
142,
14s,
Monday
Tales, 140.
Chaucer,
Day, Holman, 54. Dean, H. B., Pluck Versus Diplomacy, 114. Defoe, 28.
INDEX
435
De
An
Inspired
Deland,
Waters,
Margaret,
Many
128, 246, 267. 205. Description, 152, 231 ; Seven steps of, 159. De Stael, Madame, 306. Detective stories, 23, 80, 106.
Denouement,
Romola, 21, 149, 239; Silas Marner, 149, 162. Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 18, 116; The American Scholar,
59.
^\>
,
Episode, 23.
Epithet, 156.
Erichsen,
191,
Methods
of
Au-
thors, 347.
Dickens,
Charles,
223,
Carol,
67,
234; Martin Chusslewit, 233, 249; Old Curiosity Shop, 195; Our Mutual Friend, 234, 250.
Diction, 321. Didactic fiction, 27. Discussion, 59.
Hard Times,
Erotic fiction, 185. Essays, 8. Experience, 54, 58. Exposition, 153. Eugene Sue, 66.
Fact and
DiSH^Li, Benjamin,
23-
DowDEN, Edward, 312. Doyle, A. Conan, 371 Adventures of. Brigadier Girard, 116; The Leather Funnel, 45
Flaubert, Gustave,
319.
160,
229,
Flower, Elliott,
Judgm-ent, 214.
An
Error of
Sherlock Holmes
80, 116, 130;
stories, 32,
The Mystery of
George,
Peter
Freeman, Mary Wilkins, 38, A Church 159. 167; S4. Mouse, 44; The Joy of
Youth,
112.
Dyar, Muioel Campbell, The Tea Party, 235. Dye, Charity, The StoryTeller's Art, 177, 243.
'
Earle,
Mary
Tracy,
The
210.
Gardiner, J. H., The Bible as English Literature, 194. Garland, Hamlin, 167. Garnett, Richard, 287. Gautier, Theophile, 7.
Genung,
J.
F.,
The Working
54,
The
Principles
of Rhetoric,
Four-Fifteen\Express, 141. Eggleston, Edward, 312. Eliot, George, 'Life of, 149;
Ghost
stories, 80.
436
Gissing, George, 312.
INDEX
280, 293, 312; The Ambitious Guest, 224, 246; American Note Books, 59, 95, 99! The Artist of the Beautiful, 83;
Goethe, 21, 228. Goldsmith, Oliver, 85 The Vicar of Wakefield, 23, 32. GosDY, J. P., New Psychology,
;
181, 223.
Twenty-Six
at
The
Marble
Peter
Faun,
Edmund, Questions
Goldthwaite's
276; Treas-
Gould, S. Baring, 166, 312. Gras, Felix, The Reds of the Midi, 277. Gray, Elegy, 299, 351.
ure, 99; The Scarlet Letter, 239Hazlett, 280. Hearn, Lafcadio, Chita, 26,
252.
Green,
Anna
Katharine,
Ball,
Heisch, C.
E.,
The Filigree
Sword
Haeckel, 311.
Allen Haggard, H. Rider, Quatermain, 145, 311. Hale, Edward Everett, 312, The Man Without a Country, 117.
233; Cal-
Hale, Lucretia
der's Eye, 144.
P.,
The SpiJohnny
Hains,
Shark,
T.
24.
Jenkins,
Hichcock, F. H., The Building of a Book, 353. HiGGiNSON, T. W., 311; Book and Heart, 220.
Hill, A. S., 254; Our English, 314; Principles of Rhetoric,
345-
Hancock, Albert
Harben, Will N., Hardy, Thomas,
Tess,
151,
"
Mrs. Bir-
Hobbes, John Oliver, 311. Hoffman, E. T. A., 9. Holmes, Sherlock, see Doyle,
Harmony,
284.
Homer, 156. Hood, 191. "Hope, Anthony,'' 38; Dolly Dialogues, 132, 228, 254; The
Philosopher in Orchard, 135;! Hentzau, 78.
the Apple Rupert of
Harte, Bret, 6; The Luck of Roaring Camp, 98; The Outcasts of Poker Flat, 82, 240, 246; The Rise of the Short Story, 286. Hauff, Wilhelm, The Singer,
132.
HoRNE, Charles
HowELLS, W.
87.
7, 8,
94,
and
Literature and
INDEX
437
Yeere, 145 ; False Dawn, 144; Jungle Books, 277, 370; The Light that Failed, 207;
How How
How
to Attract
and Hold an
155,
The
94.
Write Fiction,
King,
Humor, see Mirth. HuTTEN, Bettina VON, Our Lady of the Beeches, 120. Huxley, 312.
Idealism, 66, 67, 231.
The 70, 224; Administration, 98 Soldiers Three, 118, 145, 239, They, 83; Wee 248, 252; Willie Winkie, 248; Without Benefit of Clergy, 29,
Smith
70, 188, 201, 246.
Lady of
120.
Lamb,
319.
191.
Ingelow, Jean, 312. Incidents, 21, 174, 240; Dramatic, 95; Opening, 138.
Interest, 8g.
275,
The
Irving,
Washington, 7, 29, Legend of Sleepy Hollow, 33; Rip van Win233, 293;
^^e,
8, zz, 238; Tales of a Traveler, 28.
Lockhart, John
Jacobs,
G.,
W. W.,
Life of
James, Henry,
Scott, S3.
Longfellow, Hyperion,
23s; Flickerhridge, 100; Partial Portraits, 220, 221 ; The Liar, 268; Portrait of a Lady, 96; The Tragic Muse,
232.
Love element,
Lowell,
311.
J.
Lucian, 191.
Janvier, Thos. A., Santa Pi's Partner, 224. Jessup, Alexander, see Canby.
LuNDT, Dog,
Mabie,
Dorothy,
144.
Dikkon's
Hamilton
W.,
308,
123,
325 ; Essays on Books and Culture, SI ; Masterpieces of Fiction, 16, 69; Stories New and Old, 34, 219.
Macaulay,
191.
Macdonald, George,
275.
Kingsley, Charles, 275. Kipling, Rudyard, 7, 38, 117, 146; In Black and White, 146; The Education of Otis
MacGrath,
"
Harold,
The
Wat-
438
Manuscript, 347.
INDEX
Writing, 306,
Martin, E.
367-
S.,
The
19.
Materials of
;
fiction, 51.
Matthews, Brander,
26,
86,
121 Aspects of Fiction, 307, Philosophy the of 369; Short-story, 22, 291 ; The Short-story, 4.
Matthews, William, Hours With Men and Books, 345. Maupassant, Guy de, 7, 16,
S6, 57, 160, 229, 291, 294, 319,
NoRRis, Frank, 160, 181, 312; The Responsibilities of the Novelist, 290, 309. Note books, 60. Notes, 344. Nott, Charles P., The Tale of a Goblin Horse, 144. Novel, The, 6, 7, 285 ; how different
from
short-story,
19.
324;
O'Brien,
Fitz-James,
The
Coward,
;
81,
99,
211,
325 325
Fear, 99
Happiness, 99
121,
The Horla,
;,
Moonlight, 177, 325; Necklace, 69. 23.';. 32.^, A Piece of String, 44, 325 Pierre et Jean, 298,
;
The
326
315
;
246. Observation, 51, 52, 302. Occupations, 168, 238. Opening the story, 125, 141. Originality, 87, ^, 299. " OuiDA," Leaf in the
Diamond Lens,
224,
Storm,
260.
Page,
Thomas Nelson,
167;
Memory,
57.
Meredith, George, 312. Merimee, Prosper, 7; Mateo Falcone, 189. Michelangelo, 25.
Marse Chan. 24. Page, Walter, 310. Parkman, Francis, 312. Partridge, Anthony, Passers
By, 259.
Pater, Walter, 40, 315
preciations, 319.
;
Apof
Milton,
58.
Study
Prose Fiction,
227.
Mood,
168.
Moulton, Richard G., Shakespeare as a Dramatic Artist, 94; Four Years of Novel
Reading,
63.
346.
PoE,
Edgar Allan,
7,
9,
17,
19, 20,
Names,
21, 26, 27, 44, 56, 57, 153. 170, 185, 210,
248,
312;
The
American
INDEX
Drama, 75, 88, 109 Berenice, 9; The Cask of Amontillado, 88; The Fall of the House
;
439
270; 267 ; The Masque of the Red Death, 195 The Pit and the Pendulum, 69; The Philosophy of Composition, 100, 209, 28s, 293, 346; The Pur;
ScHLEGEL, A. W. voN, Dramatic Art and Literature, 96. " ScHocK, Georg," a Venus of
the Fields, 246. Scott, John Reed,
The
100,
First
181,
loined Letter, 29. Point of view, iii, 158, 275. Pope, 191.
Ivanhoe,
Problem
Pryde,
David,
Highways
of
Literature, 199.
Sheridan, 191.
185, 231.
Real
121.
Reeve,
James
Knapp,
Vaw-
der's Understudy, 55, 301. Reflection, 57. Rejected manuscripts, 363. Renan, Ernest, 193, 312.
Singmaster, Elsie, The County Seat, 260. Sketch, 25, 150, 176.
Smith,
F.
Hopkinson,
17, 60.
Yarn
Roderick
Random,
23.
Romance,
175.
'
Value of, 31. RusKiN, John, 25, 52; The Elements of Drawing, 347.
Sacred Books of the East,
5.
Sadness, 185.
Stevens, Abel, Life of Madame de Stael, 306. Stevenson, R. L., 7, 97, 155, 223, 229, 235, 302, 312; A
440
INDEX
Theocritus, Fifteenth Idyll,
245-
Gossip on a Novel of Dumas', 236; Gossip on Romance, 175; Humble Remonstrance, 93, 180; a Lodging for the Night, 246; Markheim, 29, 239; Memories and Portraits, 192, 280; The Merry Men, ^, 238; The Morality of the ProfesNote sion of Letters, 343; on Realism, 149; Technical Elements of Style in Literature, 173; Treasure Island, Vailima Letters, 168, 232; 207; Will o' the Mill, 25,
Thmkmg,
Time,
161.
302.
Au-
87.
"Twain, Mark,"
31S.
field's
38,
54,
68,
345;
Captain
252.
Visit to
StormHeaven, 134;
Stockton,
Frank
R.,
The
Lady' or the Tiger, 78. Stoddard, Francis Hovey, The Evolution of the Novel, 65,
182, 219.
$30,000 Bequest, 237. Tybout, Ella M., The Blast of the Trumpet, 130.
The
Van Van
136.
Dyke, Henry,
41.
Suspense, 201.
John,
The
Woman Who
Toils, ss.
Symons, Arthur,
Sympathy,
195.
325.
Booth,
Protherce, 246.
Phelps,
;
Warner, Charles Dudley, s Modern Fiction, 176. Watson, Dr. John, A Doctor
of the Old School, 13s.
Themes of
range
short-stories,
72;
INDEX
Westcar Papyrus, 3. Weyman, Stanley,
441
man
Gentle-
of Prance, 370.
Whipple, E.
Life, 189.
P.,
Literature and
Words, see Diction. Wordsworth, 280. Wyckoff, Walter, The Workers, 55.
.
Whitcomb,
White, William Allen, 210, 308; The Home-coming of Colonel Hucks, 292; The King of Boyville, 144.
Zangwill, Israel, 180. Zola, Emile, The Death Olivier Becaille, 115;
of
Le
64,
Roman
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