vii INTRODUCTION I OUR NATIONAL READING Is there anyone who has not read a short story? Is there anyone who has not stopped at a news-stand to buy a short-story magazine? Is there anyone who has not drawn a volume of short stories from the library, or bought one at the book-store? Short stories are everywhere. There are bed-time stories and fairy stories for little children; athletic stories, adventure stories, and cheerful good-time stories for boys and girls; humorous stories for those who like to laugh, and serious stories for those who like to think. The World and his Wife still say, “Tell me a story,” just as they did a thousand years ago. Our printing presses have fairly roared an answer, and, at this moment, are busy printing short stories. Even the newspapers, hardly able to find room for news and for advertisements, often give space to re-printing short stories. Our people are so fond of soda water that some one has laughingly called it our national drink. Our people of every class, young and old, are so fond of short stories that, with an equal degree of truth, we may call the short story our national reading. II THE DEFINITION The short story and the railroad are about equally old,—or, rather, equally new, for both were perfected in distinctly recent times. The railroad is the modern development of older ways of moving people and goods from one place to another,—of litters, carts, and wagons. The short story is the viiimodern development of older ways of telling what actually had happened, or might happen, or what might be imagined to happen,—of tales, fables, anecdotes, and character studies. A great number of men led the way to the locomotive, but it remained for the nineteenth century, in the person of George Stephenson, to perfect it. In like manner, many authors led the way to the short story of to-day, but it remained for the nineteenth century, and particularly for Edgar Allan Poe, to perfect it, and give it definition. viii Before Poe’s time the short story had sometimes been written well, and sometimes poorly. It had often been of too great length, wandering, and without point. Poe wrote stories that are different from many earlier stories in that they are all comparatively short. Another difference is that Poe’s stories do not wander, producing now one effect, and now another. Like a Roman road, every one goes straight to the point that the maker had in mind at the beginning, and produces one single
Prev.
Back
Top