THE SHORT STORY.
THE SHORT STORY.
The short story is the simplest of all forms of literary composition. It is at the same time by far the most lucrative. It has become (to use one of Dr. Caliban’s most striking phrases) “part of the atmosphere of our lives.” In a modified form, it permeates our private correspondence, our late Baron Reuter’s telegraphic messages, the replies of our cabinet ministers, the rulings of our judges; and it has become inseparable from affirmations upon oath before Magistrates, Registrars, Coroners, Courts of Common Jurisdiction, Official Receivers, and all others qualified under 17 Vic. 21, Caps. 2 and 14; sub-section III.
To return to the short story. Its very reason for being (raison d’être) is simplicity. It suits our strenuous, active race; nor would I waste the student’s time by recalling the fact that, in the stagnant civilization of China, a novel or play deals with the whole of the hero’s life, in its minutest details, through seventy years. The contrast conveys an awful lesson!
Let us confine ourselves, however, to the purpose of these lines, and consider the short story; for it is the business of every true man to do what lies straight before him as honestly and directly as he can.
The Short Story, on account of its simplicity, coupled with the high rates of pay attached to it, attracts at the outset the great mass of writers. Several are successful, and in their eager rapture (I have but to mention John and Mary Hitherspoon) produce such numerous examples of this form of art, that the student may ask what more I have to teach him? In presenting a model for his guidance, and reproducing the great skeleton lines upon which the Short Story is built up, I would remind my reader that it is my function to instruct and his to learn; and I would warn him that even in so elementary a branch of letters as is this, “pride will have a fall.”
It is not necessary to dwell further upon this unpleasant aspect of my duty.