Book: Short Stories

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SHORT-STORIES


EDITED BY L.A. PITTENGER, A.M., CRITIC IN ENGLISH, INDIANA UNIVERSITY


New York: THE MACMILLAN COMPANY, 1914


Set up and electrotyped. Published November, 1913. Reprinted January,
1914.

Norwood Press, J.S. Cushing Co.--Berwick & Smith Co., Norwood, Mass.,
U.S.A.



A PREFATORY NOTE

This collection of short-stories does not illustrate the history of
short-story writing, nor does it pretend that these are the ten best
stories ever written, but it does attempt to present selections from a
list of the greatest short-stories that have proved, in actual use,
most beneficial to high school students.

The introduction presents a concise statement of the essentials of the
history, qualities, and composition of the short-story. A brief
biography of each author and a criticism covering the main
characteristics of his writings serve as starting points for the
recitation. The references following both the biography and criticism
are given in order that the study of the short-story may be amplified,
and that high school teachers may build a systematic and serviceable
library about their class work in the teaching of the story. The
collateral readings, listed after each story, will aid in the creation
of a suitable atmosphere for the story studied, and explain many
questions developed in the recitation. Only such definitions as are
not easily found in school dictionaries are included in the notes.



CONTENTS


PREFATORY NOTE

INTRODUCTION:
History of the Short-story
Qualities of the Short-story
Composition of the Short-story
Books for Reference
Collections of Short-stories

THE FATHER. 1860. Bjoernstjerne Bjoernson.

THE GRIFFIN AND THE MINOR CANON. 1887. Frank R. Stockton.

THE PIECE OF STRING. 1884. Guy de Maupassant.

THE MAN WHO WAS. 1889. Rudyard Kipling.

THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER. 1839. Edgar Allan Poe.

THE GOLD-BUG. 1843. Edgar Allan Poe.

THE BIRTHMARK. 1843. Nathaniel Hawthorne.

ETHAN BRAND. 1848. Nathaniel Hawthorne.

THE SIRE DE MALETROIT'S DOOR. 1878. Robert Louis Stevenson.

MARKHEIM. 1884. Robert Louis Stevenson.


INTRODUCTION

HISTORY OF THE SHORT-STORY

Just when, where, and by whom story-telling was begun no one can say.
From the first use of speech, no doubt, our ancestors have told
stories of war, love, mysteries, and the miraculous performances of
lower animals and inanimate objects. The ultimate source of all
stories lies in a thorough democracy, unhampered by the restrictions
of a higher civilization. Many tales spring from a loathsome filth
that is extremely obnoxious to our present day tastes. The remarkable
and gratifying truth is, however, that the short-story, beginning in
the crude and brutal stages of man's development, has gradually
unfolded to greater and more useful possibilities, until in our own
time it is a most flexible and moral literary form.

The first historical evidence in the development of the story shows no
conception of a short-story other than that it is not so long as other
narratives. This judgment of the short-story obtained until the
beginning of the nineteenth century, when a new version of its meaning
was given, and an enlarged vision of its possibilities was experienced
by a number of writers almost simultaneously. In the early centuries
of story-telling there was only one purpose in mind--that of narrating
for the joy of the telling and hearing. The story-tellers sacrificed
unity and totality of effect as well as originality for an
entertaining method of reciting their incidents.

The story of _Ruth_ and the _Prodigal Son_ are excellent short tales,
but they do not fulfill the requirements of our modern short-story for
the reason that they are not constructed for one single impression,
but are in reality parts of possible longer stories. They are, as it
were, parts of stories not unlike _Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde_ and _A
Lear of the Steppes_, and lack those complete and concise artistic
effects found in the short-stories, _Markheim_ and _Mumu_, by the same
authors. Both _Ruth_ and the _Prodigal Son_ are exceptionally well
told, possess a splendid moral tone, and are excellent prophecies of
what the nineteenth century has developed for us in the art of
short-story writing.

The Greeks did very little writing in prose until the era of their
decadence, and showed little instinct to use the concise and unified
form of the short-story. The conquering Romans followed closely in the
paths of their predecessors and did little work in the shorter
narratives. The myths of Greece and Rome were not bound by facts, and
opened a wonderland where writers were free to roam. The epics were
slow in movement, and presented a list of loosely organized stories
arranged about some character like Ulysses or AEneas.

During the mediaeval period story-tellers and stories appeared
everywhere. The more ignorant of these story-tellers produced the
fable, and the educated monks produced the simple, crude and
disjointed tales. The _Gesta Romanorum_ is a wonderful storehouse of
these mediaeval stories. In the _Decameron_ Boccaccio deals with
traditional and contemporary materials. He is a born story-teller and
presents many interesting and well-told narratives, but as Professor
Baldwin[1] has said, more than half are merely anecdotes, and the
remaining stories are bare plots, ingeniously done in a kind of
scenario form. Three approach our modern idea of the short-story, and
two, the second story of the second day and the sixth story of the
ninth day, actually attain to our standard. Boccaccio was not
conscious of a standard in short-story telling, for he had none in the
sense that Poe and Maupassant defined and practiced it. Chaucer in
England told his stories in verse and added the charm of humor and
well defined characters to the development of story-telling.

In the seventeenth century Cervantes gave the world its first great
novel, _Don Quixote_. Cervantes was careless in his work and did not
write short-stories, but tales that are fairly brief. Spain added to
the story a high sense of chivalry and a richness of character that
the Greek romance and the Italian novella did not possess. France
followed this loose composition and lack of beauty in form. Scarron
and Le Sage, the two French fiction writers of this period,
contributed little or nothing to the advancement of story-telling.
Cervantes' _The Liberal Lover_ is as near as this period came to
producing a real short-story.

The story-telling of the seventeenth century was largely shaped by the
popularity of the drama. In the eighteenth century the drama gave
place to the essay, and it is to the sketch and essay that we must go
to trace the evolution of the story during this period. Voltaire in
France had a burning message in every essay, and he paid far greater
attention to the development of the thought of his message than to the
story he was telling. Addison and Steele in the _Spectator_ developed
some real characters of the fiction type and told some good stories,
but even their best, like _Theodosius and Constantia_, fall far short
of developing all the dramatic possibilities, and lack the focusing of
interest found in the nineteenth century stories. Some of Lamb's
_Essays of Elia_, especially the _Dream Children_, introduce a
delicate fancy and an essayist's clearness of thought and statement
into the story. At the close of this century German romanticism began
to seep into English thought and prepare the way for things new in
literary thought and treatment.

The nineteenth century opened with a decided preference for fiction.
Washington Irving, reverting to the _Spectator_, produced his
sketches, and, following the trend of his time, looked forward to a
new form and wrote _The Spectre Bridegroom_ and _Rip Van Winkle_. It
is only by a precise definition of short-story that Irving is robbed
of the honor of being the founder of the modern short-story. He loved
to meander and to fit his materials to his story scheme in a leisurely
manner. He did not quite see what Hawthorne instinctively followed and
Poe consciously defined and practiced, and he did not realize that
terseness of statement and totality of impression were the chief
qualities he needed to make him the father of a new literary form. Poe
and Maupassant have reduced the form of the short-story to an exact
science; Hawthorne and Harte have done successfully in the field of
romanticism what the Germans, Tieck and Hoffman, did not do so well;
Bjornson and Henry James have analyzed character psychologically in
their short-stories; Kipling has used the short-story as a vehicle for
the conveyance of specific knowledge; Stevenson has gathered most, if
not all, of the literary possibilities adaptable to short-story use,
and has incorporated them in his _Markheim_.

France with her literary newspapers and artistic tendencies, and the
United States with magazines calling incessantly for good
short-stories, and with every section of its conglomerate life
clamoring to express itself, lead in the production and rank of
short-stories. Maupassant and Stevenson and Hawthorne and Poe are the
great names in the ranks of short-story writers. The list of present
day writers is interminable, and high school students can best acquire
a reasonable appreciation of the great work these writers are doing by
reading regularly some of the better grade literary magazines.

For a comprehensive view of specimens representing the history and
development of the short-story, students should have access to Brander
Matthews' _The Short Story_, Jessup and Canby's _The Book of the
Short-Story_, and Waite and Taylor's _Modern Masterpieces of Short
Prose Fiction_.

NOTE: [1] _American Short-Stories_, by Charles Sears Baldwin, New
York: Longmans, Green, & Company, 1904.



QUALITIES OF THE SHORT-STORY

It was not until well along in the nineteenth century that any one
attempted to define the short-story. The three quotations given here
are among the best things that have been spoken on this subject.

"The right novella is never a novel cropped back from the size of a
tree to a bush, or the branch of a tree stuck into the ground and made
to serve for a bush. It is another species, destined by the agencies
at work in the realm of unconsciousness to be brought into being of
its own kind, and not of another,"--W.D. Howells, _North American
Review_, 173:429.

"A true short-story is something other and something more than a mere
story which is short. A true short-story differs from the novel
chiefly in its essential unity of impression. In a far more exact and
precise use of the word, a short-story has unity as a novel cannot
have it.... A short-story deals with a single character, a single
event, a single emotion, or the series of emotions called forth by a
single situation.--Brander Matthews, _The Philosophy of the
Short-Story_.

"The aim of a short-story is to produce a single narrative effect with
the greatest economy of means that is consistent with the utmost
emphasis."--Clayton Hamilton, _Materials and Methods of Fiction_.

The short-story must always have a compact unity and a direct
simplicity. In such stories as Bjoernson's _The Father_ and
Maupassant's _The Piece of String_ this simplicity is equal to that of
the anecdote, but in no case can an anecdote possess the dramatic
possibilities of these simple short-stories; for a short-story must
always have that tensity of emotion that comes only in the crucial
tests of life.

The short-story does not demand the consistency in treatment of the
long story, for there are not so many elements to marshal and direct
properly, but the short-story must be original and varied in its
themes, cleverly constructed, and lighted through and through with the
glow of vivid imaginings. A single incident in daily life is caught as
in a snap-shot exposure and held before the reader in such a manner
that the impression of the whole is derived largely from suggestion.
The single incident may be the turning-point in life history, as in
_The Man Who Was_; it may be a mental surrender of habits fixed
seemingly in indelible colors in the soul and a sudden, inflexible
decision to be a man, as in the case of _Markheim;_ or it may be a
gradual realization of the value of spiritual gifts, as Bjoernson has
concisely presented it in his little story _The Father_.

The aim of the short-story is always to present a cross-section of
life in such a vivid manner that the importance of the incident
becomes universal. Some short-stories are told with the definite end
in view of telling a story for the sake of exploiting a plot. _The
Cask of Amontillado_ is all action in comparison with _The Masque of
the Red Death. The Gold-Bug_ sets for itself the task of solving a
puzzle and possesses action from first to last. Other stories teach a
moral. _Ethan Brand_ deals with the unpardonable sin, and _The Great
Stone Face_ is our classic story in the field of ideals and their
development. Hawthorne, above all writers, is most interested in
ethical laws and moral development. Still other stories aim to portray
character. Miss Jewett and Mrs. Freeman veraciously picture the
faded-put womanhood in New England; Henry James and Bjoernson turn the
x-rays of psychology and sociology on their characters; Stevenson
follows with the precision of the tick of a watch the steps in
Markheim's mental evolution.

The types of the short-story are as varied as life itself. Addison,
Lamb, Irving, Warner, and many others have used the story in their
sketches and essays with wonderful effect. _The Legend of Sleepy
Hollow_ is as impressive as any of Scott's tales. The allegory in _The
Great Stone Face_ loses little or nothing when compared with Bunyan's
_Pilgrim's Progress_. No better type of detective story has been
written than the two short-stories, _The Murders in the Rue Morgue_
and _The Purloined Letter_. Every emotion is subject to the call of
the short-story. Humor with its expansive free air is not so well
adapted to the short-story as is pathos. There is a sadness in the
stories of Dickens, Garland, Page, Mrs. Freeman, Miss Jewett,
Maupassant, Poe, and many others that runs the whole gamut from
pleasing tenderness in _A Child's Dream of a Star_ to unutterable
horror in _The Fall of the House of Usher_.

The short-story is stripped of all the incongruities that led
Fielding, Scott, and Dickens far afield. All its parts harmonize in
the simplest manner to give unity and "totality" of impression through
strict unity of form. It is a concentrated piece of life snatched from
the ordinary and uneventful round of living and steeped in fancy until
it becomes the acme of literary art.



COMPOSITION OF THE SHORT-STORY

Any student who wishes to express himself correctly and pleasingly,
and desires a keener sense for the appreciation of literary work must
write. The way others have done the thing never appears in a forceful
light until one sets himself at a task of like nature. Just so in the
study of this text. To find and appreciate the better points of the
short-story, students must write stories of their own, patterned in a
small way on the technique of the masterpieces.

The process of short-story writing follows in a general way the
following program. In the first place the class must have something
interesting and suggestive to write about. Sometimes the class can
suggest a subject; newspapers almost every day give incidents worthy
of story treatment; happenings in the community often give the very
best material for stories; and phases of the literature work may well
be used in the development of students' themes. Change the type of
character and place, reconstruct the plot, or require a different
ending for the story, leaving the plot virtually as it is, and then
assign to the class. Boys and girls should invariably be taught to see
stories in the life about them, in the newspapers and magazines on
their library tables, and in the masterpieces they study in their
class work.

After the idea that the class wishes to develop has been definitely
determined and the material for this development has been gathered and
grouped about the idea, the class should select a viewpoint and
proceed to write. Sometimes the author should tell the story,
sometimes a third person who may be of secondary importance in the
story should be given the role of the story-teller, sometimes the
whole may be in dialogue. The class should choose a fitting method.

Young writers should be very careful about the beginning of a story.
An action story should start with a striking incident that catches the
reader's attention at once and forecasts subsequent happenings. In
every case this first incident must have in it the essence of the end
of the story and should be perfectly logical to the reader after he
has finished the reading. A story in which the setting is emphasized
can well begin, with a description and contain a number of
descriptions and expositions, distributed with a sense of propriety
throughout the theme. A good method to use in the opening of a
character story is that of conversation. An excellent example of a
sharp use of this device is Mrs. Freeman's _Revolt of Mother_, where
the first paragraph is a single spoken word.

Every incident included in the story should be tested for its value in
the development of the theme. An incident that does not amplify
certain phases of the story has no right to be included, and great
care should be used in an effort to incorporate just the material
necessary for the proper evolution of the thought. The problem is not
so much what can be secured to be included in the story, but rather,
after making a thorough collection of the material, what of all these
points should be cast out.

The ending must be a natural outgrowth of the development found in the
body of the composition. Even in a story with a surprise ending, of
which we are tempted to say that we have had no preparation for such a
turn in the story, there must be hints--the subtler the better--that
point unerringly and always toward the end. The end is presupposed in
the beginning and the changing of one means the altering of the other.

Young writers have trouble in stopping at the right place. They should
learn, as soon as possible, that to drag on after the logical ending
has been reached spoils the best of stories. It is just as bad to stop
before arriving at the true end. In other words there is only one
place for the ending of a story, and in no case can it be shifted
without ruining the idea that has obtained throughout the theme.

There are certain steps in the development of story-writing that
should be followed if the best results are to be obtained. The first
assignment should require only the writing of straight narrative. _The
Arabian Nights Tales_ and children's stories represent this type of
writing and will give the teacher valuable aid in the presentation of
this work. After the students have produced simple stories resembling
the Sinbad Voyages, they should next add descriptions of persons and
places and explanations of situations to develop clearness and
interest in their original productions. Taking these themes in turn
students should be required to introduce plot incidents that
complicate the simple happenings and divert the straightforward trend
of the narrative. Now that the stories are well developed in their
descriptions, expositions, and plot interests they should be tested
for their emotional effects. Students should go through their themes,
and by making the proper changes give in some cases a humorous and in
others a pathetic or tragic effect. These few suggestions are given to
emphasize the facts that no one conceives a story in all its details
in a moment of inspiration, and that there is a way of proceeding that
passes in logical gradations from the simplest to the most complex
phases of story writing.

Franklin and Stevenson knew no rules for writing other than to
practice incessantly on some form they wished to imitate. Hard work is
the first lesson that boys and girls must learn in the art of writing,
and a systematic gradation of assignments is what the teacher must
provide for his students. Walter Besant gave the following rules for
novel writers. Some of them may be suggestive to writers of the high
school age, so the list is given in its complete form. "(1) Practice
writing something original every day. (2) Cultivate the habit of
observation. (3) Work regularly at certain hours. (4) Read no rubbish.
(5) Aim at the formation of style. (6) Endeavor to be dramatic. (7) A
great element of dramatic skill is selection. (8) Avoid the sin of
writing about a character. (9) Never attempt to describe any kind of
life except that with which you are familiar. (10) Learn as much as
you can about men and women. (11) For the sake of forming a good
natural style, and acquiring command of language, write poetry."



SHORT-STORY LIBRARY

_BOOKS FOR REFERENCE_:

_American Short-Stories_, Charles Baldwin, Longmans, Green, & Co.

_A Study of Prose Fiction_, Chapter XII, Bliss Perry, Houghton,
Mifflin Co.

_Composition Rhetoric_, T.C. Blaisdell, American Book Co.

_Forms of Prose Literature_, J.H. Gardiner, Charles Scribner's Sons.

_Materials and Methods of Fiction_, Clayton Hamilton, The Baker and
Taylor Co.

_Principles of Literary Criticism_, C.T. Winchester, The Macmillan Co.

_Short-Story Writing_, C.R. Barrett. The Baker and Taylor Co.

_Specimens of the Short-Story_, G.H. Nettleton, H. Holt & Co.

_Story-Writing and Journalism_, Sherwin Cody, Funk & Wagnalls Co.

_Talks on Writing English_, Arlo Bates, Houghton Mifflin Co.

_The Writing of the Short-Story_, L.W. Smith, D.C. Heath & Co.

_The Philosophy of the Short-Story_, Brander Matthews, Longmans,
Green, & Co.

_The World's Greatest Short-Stories_, Sherwin Cody, A.C. McClurg & Co.

_The Short-Story_, Henry Canby, Henry Holt & Co.

_The Short-Story_, Evelyn May Albright, The Macmillan Co.

_The Book of the Short-Story_, Jessup and Canby, D. Appleton & Co.

_Modern Masterpieces of Short Prose Fiction_, Waite and Taylor, D.
Appleton & Co.

_The Short-Story_, Brander Matthews, American Book Co.

_Writing the Short-Story_, Esenwein, Hinds, Noble & Eldredge.

_A Study of the Short-Story in English_, Henry Seidel Canby, Henry
Holt & Co.




COLLECTIONS OF SHORT-STORIES:_

_American Short-Stories_, Charles S. Baldwin, Longmans, Green, & Co.

_Great Short-Stories_, 3 vols., William Patten, P.F. Collier & Son.

_Little French Masterpieces_, 6 vols. Alexander Jessup, G.P. Putnam's
Sons.

_Short-Story Classics_ (American), 5 vols., William Patten, P.F.
Collier & Son.

_Short-Story Classics_ (Foreign), 5 vols., William Patten, P.F.
Collier & Son.

_Stories by American Authors_, 10 vols., Charles Scribner's Sons.

_Stories by English Authors_, 10 vols., Charles Scribner's Sons.

_Stories by Foreign Authors_, 10 vols., Charles Scribner's Sons.

_Stories New and Old_ (American and English), Hamilton W. Mabie, The
Macmillan Co.

_World's Greatest Short-Stories_, Sherwin Cody, A.C. McClurg & Co.

_The American Short-Story_, Elias Lieberman.



THE FATHER[1]

_By Bjoernstjerne Bjoernson (1838-1910)_


The man whose story is here to be told was the wealthiest and most
influential person in his parish; his name was Thord Oeveraas. He
appeared in the priest's study one day, tall and earnest.

"I have gotten a son," said he, "and I wish to present him for
baptism."

"What shall his name be?"

"Finn,--after my father."

"And the sponsors?"

They were mentioned, and proved to be the best men and women of
Thord's relations in the parish.

"Is there anything else?" inquired the priest, and looked up. The
peasant hesitated a little.

"I should like very much to have him baptized by himself," said he,
finally.

"That is to say on a week-day?"

"Next Saturday, at twelve o'clock noon."

"Is there anything else?" inquired the priest,

"There is nothing else;" and the peasant twirled his cap, as though he
were about to go.

Then the priest rose. "There is yet this, however." said he, and
walking toward Thord, he took him by the hand and looked gravely into
his eyes: "God grant that the child may become a blessing to you!"

One day sixteen years later, Thord stood once more in the priest's
study.

"Really, you carry your age astonishingly well, Thord," said the
priest; for he saw no change whatever in the man.

"That is because I have no troubles," replied Thord. To this the
priest said nothing, but after a while he asked: "What is your
pleasure this evening?"

"I have come this evening about that son of mine who is to be
confirmed to-morrow."

"He is a bright boy."

"I did not wish to pay the priest until I heard what number the boy
would have when he takes his place in the church to-morrow."

"He will stand number one."

"So I have heard; and here are ten dollars for the priest."

"Is there anything else I can do for you?" inquired the priest, fixing
his eyes on Thord.

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