Nov. 18, 1893. Story and Anecdote.
I suppose I am no more favored than most people who write stories in
receiving from unknown correspondents a variety of suggestions,
outlines of plots, sketches of situations, characters, and so forth.
One cannot but feel grateful for all this spontaneous beneficence. The
mischief is that in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred (the fraction
is really much smaller) these suggestions are of no possible use.
Why should this be? Put briefly, the reason is that a story differs
from an anecdote. I take the first two instances that come into my
head: but they happen to be striking ones, and, as they occur in a
book of Mr. Kipling's, are safe to be well known to all my
correspondents. In Mr. Kipling's fascinating book, _Life's Handicap,
On Greenhow Hill_ is a story; _The Lang Men o' Larut_ is an anecdote.
_On Greenhow Hill_ is founded on a study of the human heart, and it is
upon the human heart that the tale constrains one's interest. _The
Lang Men o' Larut_ is just a yarn spun for the yarn's sake: it informs
us of nothing, and is closely related (if I may use some of Mr.
Howells' expressive language for the occasion) to "the lies swapped
between men after the ladies have left the table." And the reason why
the story-teller, when (as will happen at times) his invention runs
dry, can take no comfort in the generous outpourings of his unknown
friends, is just this--that the plots are merely plots, and the
anecdotes merely anecdotes, and the difference between these and a
story that shall reveal something concerning men and women is just the
difference between bad and good art.
Let us go a step further. At first sight it seems a superfluous
contention that a novelist's rank depends upon what he can see and
what he can tell us of the human heart. But, as a matter of fact, you
will find that four-fifths at least of contemporary criticism is
devoted to matters quite different--to what I will call Externals, or
the Accidents of Story-telling: and that, as a consequence, our
novelists are spending a quite unreasonable proportion of their labor
upon Externals. I wrote "as a consequence" hastily, because it is
always easier to blame the critics. If the truth were known, I dare
say the novelists began it with their talk about "documents," "the
scientific method," "observation and experiment," and the like.