TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES
In the plain text version words in Italics are denoted by _underscores_
and bold text like =this=.
The book cover was modified by the Transcriber and has been added to
the public domain.
A number of words in this book have both hyphenated and non-hyphenated
variants. For the words with both variants present the one more used
has been kept.
Obvious punctuation and other printing errors have been corrected.
* * * * *
[Illustration: =_“Havelok had all he wanted to eat.”_=]
MODERN ESSAYS
AND STORIES
A BOOK TO AWAKEN APPRECIATION OF
MODERN PROSE, AND TO DEVELOP
ABILITY AND ORIGINALITY IN WRITING
EDITED, WITH INTRODUCTION, NOTES, SUGGESTIVE
QUESTIONS, SUBJECTS FOR WRITTEN IMITATION, DIRECTIONS
FOR WRITING, AND ORIGINAL ILLUSTRATIONS
BY
FREDERICK HOUK LAW, PH.D.
Head of the Department of English in the Stuyvesant High School,
New York City, Editor of Modern Short Stories, etc.
[Illustration]
NEW YORK
THE CENTURY CO.
COPYRIGHT, 1922, BY THE CENTURY CO.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, INCLUDING THE
RIGHT TO REPRODUCE THIS BOOK, OR
PORTIONS THEREOF, IN ANY FORM. 3120
PREFACE
In all schools pupils are expected to write “essays” but, curiously
enough, essay-reading and essay-writing are taught but little. In spite
of that neglect, the essay is so altogether natural and spontaneous
in spirit, so intensely personal in expression, and so demanding of
excellence of prose style, that it is _the_ form, _par excellence_, for
consideration in school if teachers are to show pupils much concerning
the art of writing well. The essay is to prose what the lyric is to
poetry--complete, genuine and beautiful self-expression, or better
still, self-revelation.
Most of the writing done in schools is straightforward narration of
events, without much, if any, attempt to show personal reactions
on those events--mere diary-like accounts, at best; mechanical
descriptions that aim to present exterior appearance without attempting
to reveal inner meanings or to show awakened emotions; and stereotyped
explanations and arguments drawn, for the most part, from books of
reference or from slight observation.
Beyond all this mechanical work lies a field of throbbing personal
life, of joyous reactions on all the myriads of interests that lie
close at hand, of meditations on the wonders of plant and animal life,
of humorous or philosophic comments on human nature, and of all manner
of vague dreams and aspirations aroused by
“Such sights as youthful poets dream
On summer eves by haunted stream.”
Without the slightest question, it is the duty of the school, and of
the teacher in particular, to lead pupils to appreciate honesty and
originality in unapplied, unpragmatic self-expression, and to show
pupils how they themselves may gain the very real pleasure of putting
down on paper permanent records of their own intimate thinking.
Joseph Addison's _The Sir Roger de Coverley Papers_ and Washington
Irving's _Sketch Book_ have for many years made valiant but
unsuccessful efforts to fill the places that should be filled by more
modern representatives of the essay. Macaulay's _Essay on Johnson_ is
a biographical article for an encyclopedia; his essays on Clive and on
Hastings are polemics; and Carlyle's _Essay on Burns_ is a critical
disquisition. With the exception of _The Sir Roger de Coverley Papers_,
all these so-called essays are of considerable length and are unfitted
to serve as the best examples of the essay form;--for the essay, like
the lyric, demands brevity: it is, after all, only a quick flash of
self-revelation,--not a sustained effort.
Then again, who would wish to learn to write like Addison, like
Washington Irving, like Macaulay, or like Carlyle! Those great writers
couched their thoughts in the language-fashions of their days, just as
they clothed their bodies in the garments of their times. To imitate
either their style of expression or their costumes would be to make
one's self ridiculous, or to take part in a species of masquerade.
The extremely Latinized vocabulary of 1711, or the resonant periods and
marked antitheses of 1850, are as old-fashioned to-day as are the once
highly respected periwigs, great-coats and silver shoe buckles of the
past.
The thoughts of yesterday are not the thoughts of to-day. There is,
in serious reality, such a thing as “an old-fashioned point of view.”
With all due reverence for the past, the best teachers of to-day
believe that it is just as necessary for students to use present-day
methods of expression and to cultivate present-day interests as it is
to take advantage of the railroad, the telegraph, the telephone, the
automobile, and the thousand other mechanical contrivances that aid
life to-day, but which were unknown in 1711 or in 1850.
The type of essay that should be studied in school should concern
modern interests; represent the modern point of view; discuss subjects
in which young students are interested; be expressed in present-day
language and, in general, should set forward an example that pupils
may directly and successfully imitate.
In order to do all this to the best advantage the essays chosen for
study should be exceedingly short. To a young student essays of
any considerable length, unless the subject matter is of unusually
intensive interest, present insuperable difficulties. Short essays,
on the other hand, appear to him exactly what they are,--charmingly
delightful expressions of personal opinion.
The essays in this book, instead of telling about coffee houses or
stage coaches, Scotch peasants or literary circles in London or
Edinburgh, tell about such subjects as Christmas crowds, church bells,
walking, dogs, the wind, children, the streets of New York, school
experiences, and various modern ideals in work, in literature, and in
life. Most of the essays are exceedingly short, only one or two being
more than a few pages in length.
The essays here given represent various types, including not only the
chatty, familiar essay but also informational essays, critical essays,
biographical essays, story essays, and one or two examples of highly
poetic prose.
An informal introduction, paving the way to a sympathetic
understanding, precedes every essay. Notes below the pages of text
explain immediately all the literary or historical allusions with which
a young reader might not be familiar, their close position to the text
making it unnecessary for a student to hunt for an explanation.
Suggestive questions given immediately after every essay make it
possible for the teacher to assign lessons quickly; they also enable
the student to study by himself and to feel assured that he will not
miss any important point.
Twenty subjects, suitable as subjects for essays to be written by the
student in direct imitation of the essay that immediately precedes
them, follow every selection. In addition to this great number of
appropriate modern subjects, more than 500 in number, on which young
students can express their real selves, there are given, in connection
with every list of subjects, directions for writing,--such as a
teacher might give a class when assigning written work.
The subject-lists and the directions for writing give the teacher a
remarkable opportunity to stimulate a class as never before; to awaken
a spirit of genuine self-expression; and to teach English composition
in a way that he can not possibly do through the medium of any of our
present-day rhetorics.
* * * * *
For the advantage of those teachers who wish to combine the teaching
of the essay and of the short story, and who may not have at hand
any suitable collection of short stories, the book includes not only
introductory material concerning the nature of the short story and
the development of the short story form, but also a series of stories
of unusual interest for young readers, so chosen and so arranged that
they represent the development of the short story through the legendary
tale, the historical story, and the romantic story of adventure, to
the story of realism and of character. In every case the story chosen
is one that any student will enjoy and will understand immediately, as
well as one that he can imitate both with pleasure and with success.
Introductions, foot notes, suggestive questions, subjects for written
imitation, and directions for writing, follow every story.
* * * * *
If the book is used both as a means of awakening literary
appreciation and developing honesty, originality, and power in written
self-expression it will give pleasure to teachers and students alike.
INTRODUCTION
I
THE WRITING OF ESSAYS
“The plowman, near at hand,
Whistles o'er the furrowed land,
And the milkmaid singeth blithe....”
Why? Simply because they are happy; because they are healthy and
vigorous, and at work; because they are doing something that interests
them; because their hearty enjoyment in life must express itself in
some other way than in work alone: in fact, they whistle and sing just
for the doing of it,--not that they wish any other person to hear them,
and not that they wish to teach anything to anyone. Their whistling and
singing are spontaneous, and for the sake of expression alone.
Many of the best English essays were written just for the joy of
self-expression. Serious workers in life, in their leisure moments,
have let their pens move, as it were, automatically, in a sort of frank
and full expression somewhat akin to the plowman's whistling and the
milkmaid's singing.
Certainly in that joyous spirit Michel de Montaigne, in the sixteenth
century, wrote the delightfully familiar essays that have charmed
readers for over three hundred years, and that established the essay as
a literary type. In a like vein, frankly and personally, Charles Lamb,
who died in the first half of the nineteenth century, wrote intimate
confessions of his thoughts,--his memories of schooldays and of early
companionships and familiar places,--writing with all the warmth and
color of affectionate regard. Happily, and because he was glad to be
alive, Robert Louis Stevenson, almost in our own days, wrote of his
love of the good outdoor world with its brooks and trees and stars,
of his love of books and high thought, and his admiration of a manly
attitude toward life.
For such people writing for the sake of expression was just as pure joy
as the plowman's whistling and the milkmaid's singing.
Ordinary people write at least the beginnings of essays when they write
letters,--not business letters in which they order yards of cloth, or
complain that goods have not been delivered,--not letters that convey
any of the business of life,--but rambling, gossipy, self-revealing
letters, so illuminated with personality that they carry the very
spirit of the writers.
Everyone, at times, talks or writes in a gossipy way of the things that
interest him. He likes to escape from the world of daily tasks, of
orders, directions, explanations and arguments, and to talk or write
almost without purpose and just for the sake of saying something. In
that sense everyone is a natural essayist.
The true essayist, like the pleasant conversationalist, expresses
himself because it gives him pleasure. Out of his rich experience and
wide observation he speaks wisely and kindly. He has no one story to
tell and no one picture to present. He follows no rules and he aims
at no very serious purpose. He does not desire to instruct nor to
convince. Like the conversationalist, he is ready to leave some things
half-said and to emphasize some subjects, not because it is logical to
do so but because he happens to like them. He is ready at any moment to
tell an anecdote, to introduce humor or pathos, or to describe a scene
or a person--if so doing fits his mood. In general, the true essayist
is like the musician who improvises: he
“Lets his fingers wander as they list,
And builds a bridge from dreamland.”
Of all possible kinds of prose writing, the essay, therefore, gives the
greatest freedom. The essayist may reveal himself completely and in
any manner that he pleases. He may tell of his delight in wandering by
mountain streams, or in mingling with the crowds in city streets; he
may tell of his thoughts as he meditated by ancient buildings or in the
solemn half-darkness of age-old churches; he may dream of a long-gone
childhood or look ahead into a roseate future; he may talk of people
whom he has known, of books that he has read, or of the ideals of life.
Any subject is his, and any method of treatment is his,--just so long
as his first thought is the frank and full expression of himself.
To write an essay,--even though it be only a paragraph,--is to gain
the pleasure of putting at least a little of one's real self down on
paper--just because to do so is pleasure.
II
THE NATURE OF THE ESSAY
The essay, then, instead of being a formal composition, is
characterized by a lack of formality. It is a species of very
friendly and familiar writing. Like good conversation, it turns in
any direction, and drops now and then into interesting anecdotes
or pleasant descriptions, but never makes any attempt to go to the
heart of a subject. However serious an essay may be it never becomes
extremely formal or all-inclusive.
A chapter in a textbook includes all that the subject demands and
all that the scope of treatment permits. It presents well-organized
information in clear, logical form. It aims definitely to explain or
to instruct. It may reveal nothing whatever concerning its writer. An
essay, on the other hand, includes only those parts of the subject that
interest the writer; it avoids logical form, and is just as chatty,
wandering, anecdotal and aimless as is familiar talk. It focuses
attention, not on subject-matter but on the personality of the writer.
The essay does not reveal a subject: it reveals personal interests in
a subject. It touches instead of analyzing. It comments instead of
classifying.
Truth may sparkle in an essay as gold sparkles in the sand of an
Alaskan river, but the presentation of the truth in a scientific
sense is no more the purpose of the essay than is the presentation
of the gold the purpose of the river. In the eighteenth century,
essayists like Joseph Addison, Richard Steele, Oliver Goldsmith and
Samuel Johnson, commented freely upon eighteenth century manners and
customs, but they made no attempt to present a careful survey of the
subject. Every writer wrote of what happened to interest him. To-day it
is possible to draw from the great body of eighteenth century essays
material for an almost complete survey of manners and customs in that
period--but that result is only an accident. The writers did not intend
it.
The essayist is not concerned with giving accurate and
logically-arranged information. He thinks only of telling how his
subject appeals to him, of telling whether or not he likes it, and
why. The more personally he writes, the better we like his work. In
his revelation of himself we find a sort of revelation of ourselves as
well,--and we like his work in proportion to that revelation.
Naturally, a good essay is short; for self-revelation is given in
flashes, as it were,--in sparkles of thought that gleam only for a
moment. Many so-called essays of great length are either only partly
essays, or else are made up of a number of essays put together.
Stevenson's _An Inland Voyage_ is partly a straightforward story of a
canoe trip, and partly a series of essays on subjects suggested by the
trip. It is possible to draw from a self-revealing book of considerable
length a great number of essays on a wide variety of subjects. The
essays gleam in the pages of ordinary material as diamonds gleam in
their settings of gold.
The essay, as a literary type, is written comment upon any subject,
highly informal in nature, extremely personal in character, and brief
in expression. It is also usually marked by a notable beauty of style.
III
TYPES OF THE ESSAY
Just as there are many kinds of houses and many kinds of boats so
there are many kinds of essays. Some essays tend to emphasize the
giving of information, lean very strongly toward formality, and place
comparatively little weight on personality,--and yet even such essays,
as compared with other and more serious writings, are discursive and
personal. They are like some people who seem to favor extreme formality
without ever quite attaining it.
Other essays are critical. They point out the good and the bad, and
they set forward ideals that should be reached. The criticism they give
is not measured and accurate like the criticism a cabinet-maker might
make concerning the construction of a desk. It is more or less personal
and haphazard like the remarks of one who knows what he likes and what
he does not like but who does not wish to bother himself by going into
minute details.
Many essays tell stories, but never for the sake of the stories alone.
They use the stories as frameworks on which to hang thought, or as
illustrations to emphasize thought. The essays hold beyond and above
everything the personality of the one who writes.
Almost all essays are in some sense biographical, but they reveal
stories of lives, instead of telling the stories in organized form.
The little of biography that essays tell is just enough to permit the
writers to recall the memories of childhood, and the varied affections
and interests of life. For real biography one must go elsewhere than to
essays.
Some essays lift one into a fine and close communion with their
writers, and give intimate companionship with a human soul. They are
the best of all essays. Such essays are always extremely familiar, and
deeply personal, like the essays of Michel de Montaigne and Charles
Lamb. About such essays is an aroma, a fascination, a delight, that
makes them a joy forever. As one reads such essays he feels that he is
walking and talking with the writers, and that he hears them express
noble and uplifting thoughts.
The terse style of Francis Bacon; the magical phrases of Sir Thomas
Browne; the well-rounded sentences of Joseph Addison, Sir Richard
Steele and Oliver Goldsmith; the poetic prose of Thomas de Quincey; the
charm of the pages of Charles Lamb and Robert Louis Stevenson,--all
this is in no sense accidental. The intimate revelation of self, such
as is always made by the best essayists, creates the most pleasing
style. Genuine self-expression, whether it be the fervor of an
impassioned orator, the ardor of a lyric poet, or the meditative mood
of the essayist, always tends to embody itself in an appropriate style.
For that reason much of the best prose of the language is to be found
in the works of the great essayists.
Some writers, like Thomas de Quincey, have so felt the significance
of beauty of style, and have so appreciated its relationship to the
revelation of mood and personality, that they seem, in some cases, to
have written for style alone. Their essays are unsurpassed tissues of
prose and poetry.
IV
THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE ESSAY
Through the medium of spoken or written meditations men have always
expressed their personalities, and thereby have approached the
writing of essays. Many sections of the Bible are practically essays,
especially those passages in Ecclesiastes that speak concerning
friendship, wisdom, pride, gossip, vengeance, punishment and topics of
similar type. In the ancient Greek and Roman orations are essay-like
sections in which the speakers paused for a moment to express their
innermost thoughts about life, patriotism, duty, or the great fact of
death. Cicero, one of the most remarkable Romans, wrote admirably and
with a spirit of familiarity and frankness, on friendship, old age, and
immortality. In all ages, in speeches, in letters, and in longer works,
essay-like productions appeared.
The invention of the modern essay,--that is, of the extremely informal,
intimate and personal meditation,--came in 1571, in France. The
inventor of the new type of literature was Michel de Montaigne, a
retired scholar, counsellor and courtier, who found a studious refuge
in the old tower of Montaigne, where he meditated and wrote for
nine years. His essays, which were first published in 1580, are so
delightfully informal, so frankly personal, so clever and well-aimed in
humor, and so wise, that they are almost without parallel. In 1601 an
Italian, Giovanni Florio, translated Montaigne's essays into English.
Immediately the essays became popular and they have deeply influenced
the writing of essays in English. In 1597 Francis Bacon published the
first of his essays, but he did not write with the familiarity that
characterized Montaigne. Nevertheless, his work, together with that
of Montaigne, is to be regarded as representing the beginning of the
modern essay.
It was not until the development of the newspaper in the eighteenth
century that the essay found its real period of growth as a literary
type. In the first half of the eighteenth century _The Tatler_ and
_The Spectator_, and similar periodicals, gave an opportunity for the
publication of short prose compositions of a popular nature. Joseph
Addison and Richard Steele, writing with kindly humor on the foibles
of the day, did much to establish the popularity of the essay. Samuel
Johnson, Oliver Goldsmith and other writers, in other periodicals,
continued the writing of essays, and made the power of the essay known.
Until the time of Charles Lamb, in the first half of the nineteenth
century, no English writer had even approached the familiar charm
of Montaigne. Bacon had written in a formal manner; his followers
had held before them the thought of teaching rather than the thought
of self-revelation; the eighteenth century writers had delighted in
character studies and in observations on social life and customs. Lamb,
on the other hand, wrote not to instruct but to communicate; not about
the world but about himself. He restored the essay to its position as a
means of self-revelation. The most notable fact about Lamb's essays is
that they reveal him to us as one of the persons whom we know best. At
the same time humor, pathos and beauty of expression are so remarkable
in Lamb's essays that they alone give them permanent value.
Other writers of the essay, like Leigh Hunt, Sydney Smith, William
Hazlitt, and Francis Jeffrey, wrote powerfully but none of them with
a charm equal to that of Lamb. Thomas de Quincey, writing in a highly
poetic style, did much to stimulate poetic prose. Lord Macaulay,
in a number of critical and biographical essays, wrote forcefully,
logically, and with a high degree of mastery of style but he paid
slight attention to self-revelation.
It is evident, then, that there are two marked types of the
essay,--one, the formal, purposive composition; and the other informal
and intensely personal in nature. Ralph Waldo Emerson, Matthew Arnold,
John Ruskin, and James Russell Lowell represent the first type. Many
excellent articles in periodicals, and many of the best of editorial
articles in newspapers are in reality essays of the formal kind.
Washington Irving, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Henry D. Thoreau, George
William Curtis and many others represent the second type.
In modern times the world has been blessed by the writing of a number
of essays of the charming, familiar type. John Burroughs has revealed
his love for the world of nature; Henry Van Dyke has taken us among
the mountains and along the rivers; and Gilbert K. Chesterton, Arnold
Bennett, Samuel M. Crothers, Charles Dudley Warner, Hamilton Wright
Mabie, Brander Matthews, Agnes Repplier and a host of others have
written on many and varied subjects.
Great essayists, like great novelists or great poets or great
dramatists, are rare. It is only now and then that a Montaigne, a
Charles Lamb, or a Robert Louis Stevenson appears. It is to the glory
of literature, however, that there are so many who write in the field
of the essay, and who approach true greatness, even if they do not
attain it.
V
ESSAYS WELL WORTH READING
Joseph Addison │
│─> The Spectator
Sir Richard Steele │
Apochrypha, The Ecclesiasticus
Arnold, Matthew Culture and Anarchy
Bacon, Francis Essays
Bennett, Arnold How to Live on 24 Hours a Day
Browne, Sir Thomas Religio Medici
Bible, The Holy Ecclesiastes
Burroughs, John Birds and Bees
” ” Locusts and Wild Honey
” ” Wake Robin
” ” Winter Sunshine
” ” Accepting the Universe
Carlyle, Thomas Heroes and Hero Worship
Curtis, George William Prue and I
Chesterfield, Lord Letters to His Son
Crothers, Samuel M. The Gentle Reader
Emerson, Ralph Waldo Essays
Goldsmith, Oliver The Citizen of the World
Grayson, David Adventures in Contentment
Harrison, Frederic The Choice of Books
Hearn, Lafcadio Out of the East
Holmes, Oliver Wendell The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table
” ” ” The Professor at the BreakfastTable
” ” ” The Poet at the Breakfast Table
” ” ” Over the Teacups
Irving, Washington The Sketch Book
Johnson, Samuel The Idler
” ” The Rambler
Lamb, Charles Essays
Lowell, James Russell Among My Books
Matthews, Brander Aspects of Fiction
Mabie, Hamilton Wright Essays on Nature and Culture
Macaulay, Thomas Babington Milton
Maeterlinck, Maurice Field Flowers
” ” News of the Spring
” ” Old Fashioned Flowers
Mitchell, Donald G. Reveries of a Bachelor
” ” ” Dream Life
Montaigne, Michel de Essays
Pater, Walter Appreciations
De Quincey, Thomas Vision of Sudden Death
” ” Dream Fugue
Repplier, Agnes In Our Convent Days
Ruskin, John Sesame and Lilies
Roosevelt, Theodore The Strenuous Life
Ross, E. A. Sin and Society
Shairp, John Campbell Studies in Poetry and Philosophy
Stevenson, Robert Louis Inland Voyage
” ” ” Travels with a Donkey
” ” ” Virginibus Puerisque
” ” ” Memories and Portraits
” ” ” Later Essays
Thoreau, Henry David A Week on the Concord and Merrimac
Rivers
” ” ” Walden
” ” ” The Maine Woods
” ” ” Cape Cod
Van Dyke, Henry Little Rivers
” ” ” Fisherman's Luck
Wagner, Charles The Simple Life
White, Gilbert The Natural History and Antiquities
of Selborne
VI
THE WRITING OF SHORT STORIES
You cross a street and narrowly escape being run over by an
automobile; or you go on a picnic and have delightful experiences;
or you return from travel, with the memory of happy adventures--at
once an uncontrollable impulse besets you to tell some one what you
experienced. That desire to interest some one else in the series of
actions that interested you, is the basis of all story-telling.
In one of its simplest forms story-telling is personal and concerns
events that actually occurred to the story-teller. Such narration
uses the words “I,” “me” and “mine,” seeks no development, aims at no
climax, and strikes at interest only through telling of the unusual.
When you stand before an abandoned farm-house and see its half-fallen
chimney, its decayed boards, its gaping windows, and the wild vines
that clamber into what was once a home your imagination takes fire,
and you think of happier days that the house has seen. You imagine the
man and woman who built it; the children who played in its doorways;
and the happy gatherings or sad scenes that marked its story. That
quick imagination of the _might-be_ and the _might-have-been_ is the
beginning both of realism and of romance. The story you would tell
would use the third person, in all probability; would seek an orderly
development, and would aim at climax.
When you stand in your window on a winter day and watch thousands of
snow-flakes float down from the sky, circling in fantastic whirls,
you see them as so many white fairies led by a master spirit in revel
and dance. You are ready to tell, with whatever degree of fancy
and skill you can command, the story of the-world-as-it-is-not and
as-it-never-will-be. A story of that kind is pure romance.
Whenever you tell what happened to you or to some one else; or what
might have been or might be; or of what could not possibly be, your
object is to interest some one else in what interests you. You use many
expedients to capture and to hold interest: you make a quick beginning,
or careful preparation for the climax; you make your story as real or
as striking as you can make it; you cut it short or you tell it at
length; or you hold the reader's attention on some point of interest
that you do not reveal in full until the last. Whatever you do to
capture and to hold interest makes for art in story-telling.
When an airplane descends unexpectedly in a country town every one in
the place wishes, as soon as possible, to learn whence the aviator came
and what experiences he had. Human curiosity is insatiable, and for
that reason people love to hear stories as well as to tell them.
In fact, people gain distinct advantages by reading stories. They
become acquainted with many types of character; they see all sorts of
interesting events that they could never see in reality; they see what
happens under certain circumstances, and thereby they gain practical
lessons. Through their reading they gain such vivid experiences that
they are likely to have a larger outlook upon life.
VII
NATURE OF THE SHORT STORY
Brevity is the first essential of a short story, and yet under the
term, “brief,” may be included a story that is told in one or two
paragraphs, and a story that is told in many pages. A story that is so
long that it cannot be read easily at a single sitting is not a short
story.
To make one strong impression on the mind of the reader, and to make
that impression so powerfully that it will leave the reader pleased,
convinced and emotionally moved is the principal aim of a good
short story. To the production of that one effect everything in the
story,--characters, action, description, and exposition,--points with
the definiteness of an established purpose. All else is omitted, and
thus all the parts of the story are both necessary and harmonious.
Centralizing everything on the production of one effect makes every
short story complete in itself. The purpose having been accomplished
there is nothing more to be said. The end is the end.
A convincing sense of reality characterizes every excellent short
story. The author himself appears only as one who narrates truth, not
at all as one who has moved the puppets of imagination. The story
seems a transcript from real experience. The characters,--not the
author,--make the plot. Their personalities reveal themselves in
action. The entire story is founded substantially upon life and appears
as a photographic glimpse of reality.
As in all other writing, the greater the art of the writer in adapting
style to thought, in using language effectively, the better production.
Word-choice, power of phrasing, and skill in artistic construction
count for as much in the short story as in any other type of literature.
VIII
TYPES OF THE SHORT STORY
Since the short story represents life, it has as many types as there
are interests in life. It may confine itself to the ordinary events
of life in city or country, at home or abroad; it may concern past
events in various regions; or it may look with a prophetic glance into
the distant future. It may concern nothing but verifiable truth or be
highly imaginative, delicately fanciful, or notably grotesque. It may
draw interest from quaint places and odd characters, or it may appeal
through vividness of action. It may aim to do nothing more than to
arouse interest and to give pleasure for a moment, or it may endeavor
to teach a truth.
Among the many types of the short story, a few are especially worthy of
note.
Folk-lore stories are stories that have been told by common people for
ages. They come direct from the experience and the common sense of
ordinary people. They represent the interests, the faith and the ideals
of the race from which they come.
Fables are very short stories that point out virtues and defects in
human character presented in the guise of animal life.
Legends are stories that have come down to us from a time beyond our
own. They are less simple and direct than the ordinary folk-lore story.
Undoubtedly founded on actual occurrences they have tinged fact with a
poetic beauty that ennobles them and often gives them highly ethical
values.
Stories of adventure emphasize startling events rather than character.
Love stories emphasize courtship and the episodes of romantic love.
Local color stories reveal marked characteristics of custom and
language, and the oddities of life notable in a particular locality.
Dialect stories make use of the language peculiarities found in common
use by a particular type of people.
Stories of the supernatural deal with ghostly characters and uncanny
forces.
Stories of mystery present puzzling problems, and slowly, step by step,
lead the readers to satisfactory solutions.
Animal stories, whether realistic or romantic, concern the lives of
animals.
Stories of allegory, through symbolic characters and events, reveal
moral truths.
Stories of satire, by ridiculing types of character, social customs, or
methods of action, tend to awaken a spirit of reform.
Stories of science present narratives based upon the exposition and the
actual use of scientific facts.
Stories of character emphasize notable personalities, place stress upon
motive and the inner nature rather than upon outer action, and clarify
the reader's understanding of human character.
IX
THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE SHORT STORY
Although the beginnings of the short story existed in the past, and
although tales were told in all ages, the short story, in its present
form, is a comparatively new type of literature. The short, complete,
realistic narrative designed to produce a single strong impression,
came into being in the first half of the nineteenth century. The first
writer to point out and to exemplify the principles of the modern short
story was Edgar Allan Poe, 1809-1849.
As early as 4000 B.C. the Egyptians composed the _Tales of the
Magicians_, and in the pre-Christian eras the Greeks and other peoples
wrote short prose narratives. Folk-lore tales go back to very early
times. The celebrated _Gesta Romanorum_ is a collection of anecdotes
and tales drawn from many ages and peoples, including the Greeks, the
Egyptians and the peoples of Asia. In the early periods of the history
of Europe and of England many narratives centered around the supposed
exploits of romantic characters like the ancient Greeks and Trojans,
Alexander the Great, Charlemagne and King Arthur.
In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries the Italians became
skilful in the telling of tales called _novelle_. Giovanni Boccaccio,
1313-1375, brought together from wide and varied sources a collection
of one hundred such tales in a volume called _Il Decamerone_. He
united the tales by imagining that seven ladies and three gentlemen
who had fled from Florence to avoid the plague, pass their time in
story-telling. His work had the deepest influence on many later
writers, including particularly the English poet, Geoffrey Chaucer,
1340-1400, whose _Canterbury Tales_ re-tell some of Boccaccio's
stories. Chaucer imagines that a number of people, representing all
the types of English life, tell stories as they journey slowly to the
shrine of Thomas à Becket at Canterbury. His stories intimately reveal
the actual England of his day. He is the first great realist.
In the sixteenth century many writers, particularly in Italy, France
and Spain, told ingenious stories that developed new interest in
story-telling and story-reading.
The writing of character studies and the development of periodicals
led, in the eighteenth century, to such essays as _The Sir Roger de
Coverley Papers_, written for _The Spectator_ by Joseph Addison,
1672-1719, and Sir Richard Steele, 1672-1729. The doings of Sir Roger
de Coverley are told so realistically and so entertainingly that it was
evident that such material could be used not only to illustrate the
thought of an essayist but also for its own sake in stories founded on
character.
About the beginning of the nineteenth century stories of an uncanny
nature,--of ghosts and strange events,--the so-called “Gothic”
stories,--became widely popular. Two German writers, E. T. A. Hoffmann,
1776-1822, and Ludwig Tieck, 1773-1853, wrote with such peculiar power
that they led other writers to imitate them. Among the followers of
Tieck and Hoffmann the most notable name is that of Edgar Allan Poe.
Poe's contemporaries, Washington Irving, 1783-1859, and Nathaniel
Hawthorne, 1804-1864, likewise showed the influence of the “Gothic”
school of writing. Irving turned the ghostly into humor, as in _The
Legend of Sleepy Hollow_; Hawthorne wrote of the mysterious in terms
of fancy and allegory, as in _Ethan Brand_, _The Birth Mark_, and
_Rappaccini's Daughter_; Poe directed all his energy to the production
of single effect,--frequently the effect of horror, as in _The Cask of
Amontillado_, _The Black Cat_ and _The Pit and the Pendulum_. Poe's
natural ability as a constructive artist, and his genuine interest in
story-telling, led him to formulate the five principles of the short
story:--brevity, single effect, verisimilitude, the omission of the
non-essential, and finality.
From the time when Poe pointed the way the short story has had an
unparalleled development. French writers like Guy de Maupassant;
British writers like Rudyard Kipling; Russian writers like Count Leo
Tolstoi, and American writers like O. Henry, Richard Harding Davis,
Frank R. Stockton, Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, Thomas Bailey Aldrich, F.
Hopkinson Smith, Jack London, and a thousand others, have carried on
the great tradition.
X
AUTHORS OF SHORT STORIES WELL WORTH READING
Volumes containing short stories by the following writers will be found
in any public library. Any one who wishes to gain an understanding of
the principles of the short story should read a number of stories by
every writer named in the list.
Thomas Bailey Aldrich Washington Irving
Hans Christian Andersen Myra Kelly
James Matthew Barrie Rudyard Kipling
Alice Brown Jack London
Henry Cuyler Bunner Brander Matthews
Richard Harding Davis Ian Maclaren
Margaret Deland Fiona McLeod
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle Edgar Allan Poe
Eugene Field Thomas Nelson Page
Mary E. Wilkins Freeman Ernest Thompson Seton
Hamlin Garland F. Hopkinson Smith
Nathaniel Hawthorne Frank R. Stockton
Joel Chandler Harris Robert Louis Stevenson
O. Henry Ruth McEnery Stuart
Bret Harte Henry Van Dyke
CONTENTS
PAGE
PREFACE v
INTRODUCTION ix
I THE WRITING OF ESSAYS ix
II NATURE OF THE ESSAY xi
III TYPES OF THE ESSAY xii
IV THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE ESSAY xiv
V ESSAYS WELL WORTH READING xvi
VI THE WRITING OF SHORT STORIES xviii
VII NATURE OF THE SHORT STORY xix
VIII TYPES OF THE SHORT STORY xx
IX THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE SHORT STORY xxii
X AUTHORS OF SHORT STORIES WELL WORTH READING xxiv
THE FAMILIAR ESSAY
THE PUP-DOG _Robert Palfrey Utter_ 3
CHEWING GUM _Charles Dudley Warner_ 11
THE MYSTERY OF AH SING _Robert L. Duffus_ 16
OLD DOC _Opie Read_ 19
CHRISTMAS SHOPPING _Helen Davenport_ 26
SUNDAY BELLS _Gertrude Henderson_ 28
DISCOVERY _Georges Duhamel_ 31
THE FURROWS _Gilbert K. Chesterton_ 36
MEDITATION AND IMAGINATION _Hamilton Wright Mabie_ 40
WHO OWNS THE MOUNTAINS? _Henry Van Dyke_ 49
THE LEGENDARY STORY
RUNNING WOLF _Algernon Blackwood_ 55
THE BIOGRAPHICAL ESSAY
HOW I FOUND AMERICA _Anzia Yezierska_ 77
MEMORIES OF CHILDHOOD _William Henry Shelton_ 94
A VISIT TO JOHN BURROUGHS _Sadakichi Hartmann_ 100
WASHINGTON ON HORSEBACK _H. A. Ogden_ 108
THE HISTORICAL STORY
HAVELOK THE DANE _George Philip Krapp_ 118
THE STORY ESSAY
POLITICS UP TO DATE _Frederick Lewis Allen_ 136
FREE! _Charles Hanson Towne_ 143
THE STORY OF ADVENTURE
PRUNIER TELLS A STORY _T. Morris Longstreth_ 148
THE DIDACTIC ESSAY
THE AMERICAN BOY _Theodore Roosevelt_ 168
THE SPIRIT OF ADVENTURE _Hildegarde Hawthorne_ 176
VANISHING NEW YORK _Robert and Elizabeth Shackleton_ 184
THE SONGS OF THE CIVIL WAR _Brander Matthews_ 203
LOCOMOTION IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY _H. G. Wells_ 210
THE WRITING OF ESSAYS _Charles S. Brooks_ 219
THE RHYTHM OF PROSE _Abram Lipsky_ 225
THE REALISTIC STORY
THE CHINAMAN'S HEAD _William Rose Benét_ 230
GETTING UP TO DATE _Roberta Wayne_ 239
THE LION AND THE MOUSE _Joseph B. Ames_ 253
THE CRITICAL ESSAY
CODDLING IN EDUCATION _Henry Seidel Canby_ 267
A SUCCESSFUL FAILURE _Glenn Frank_ 271
THE DROLLERIES OF CLOTHES _Agnes Repplier_ 278
POETIC PROSE
CHILDREN _Yukio Ozaki_ 284
SHIPS THAT LIFT TALL SPIRES OF CANVAS _Ralph D. Paine_ 287
PERSONALITY IN CORRESPONDENCE
THE STATUE OF GENERAL SHERMAN _Theodore Roosevelt_ 291
THE ROOSEVELT SAINT-GAUDENS CORRESPONDENCE CONCERNING
COINAGE _Theodore Roosevelt and Augustus Saint-Gaudens_ 292
THE SYMBOLIC STORY
HI-BRASIL _Ralph Durand_ 300
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
FACING
PAGE
“Havelok had all he wanted to eat.” _Frontispiece_
The feeling stole over him without the slightest warning.
He was not alone 60
My great-grandmother 96
Colonel Humphreys landed in the ditch 116
“You made a fine signal” 164
It has been called the oldest building in New York 188
“A-ah, mystery!” said Mrs. Revis, clasping her beautiful hands
and gazing upward. “I adore mystery!” 236
“Isn't this great! They're here, every one of them! You're
awfully good to let us use the phonograph” 248
At the very take-off, a gasp of horror was jolted from
his lips 264
The fluctuations of fashion are alternately a grievance and a
solace 280
Its humming shrouds were vibrant with the eternal call of
the sea 288
Designing the ten- and twenty-dollar gold pieces 292
MODERN ESSAYS
AND STORIES
THE FAMILIAR ESSAY
THE PUP-DOG
By ROBERT PALFREY UTTER
_(1875--). Associate Professor of English in the University of
California. He taught for a time at Harvard and also at Amherst.
He is a delightful essayist, and contributes frequently to various
magazines._
=The writer of a familiar essay selects any subject in which he is
interested. Sometimes the more trifling the subject seems to be,
the more delightful is the essay. Trifles, in fact, make up life,
and around them center many of our deepest interests. The very
charm of the familiar essay lies in its ability to call attention
to the value of trifles,--to the little things in life, to little
events, and to all the odds and ends of human interests.=
=The familiar essay is nothing more than happy talk that gives us,
as it were, a walk or a chat with one who has a keen mind, a ready
wit, and a pleasant spirit.=
=_The Pup-Dog_ is an unusually excellent illustration of the
familiar essay. We all love him,--the pup-dog,--the good friend
about whom Mr. Utter has written so amusingly, so understandingly,
and so sympathetically. As we read we can see the dog jumping and
hear him barking; we laugh at his antics; we are, in fact, taking a
walk with Mr. Utter while he talks to us about his dog,--or our dog.=
Any dog is a pup-dog so long as he prefers a rat, dead or alive, to
chocolate fudge, a moldy bone to sponge cake, a fight with a woodchuck
to hanging round the tea-table for sweet biscuit. Of course he will
show traits of age as years advance, but usually they are physical
traits, not emotional. For the most part dogs’ affections burn warmly,
and their love of life and experience brightly, while life lasts. They
remain young, as poets do. Every dog is a pup-dog, but some are more so
than others.
Most so of all is the Irish terrier. To me he stands as the archetype
of the dog, and the doggier a dog is, the better I like him. I love
the collie; none better. I have lived with him, and ranged the hills
with him in every kind of weather, and you can hardly tell me a story
of his loyalty and intelligence that I cannot go you one better. But
the collie is a gentleman. He has risen from the ranks, to be sure, but
he is every inch the gentleman, and just now I am speaking of dogs.
The terrier is every inch a dog, and the Irish is the terrier _par
excellence_.
The man who mistakes him for an Airedale, as many do, is one who does
not know an Irishman from a Scot. The Airedale has a touch of the
national dourness; I believe that he is a Calvinist at heart, with a
severe sense of personal responsibility. The Irish terrier can atone
vicariously or not at all for his light-hearted sins. The Airedale
takes his romance and his fighting as seriously as an _Alan Breck_. The
Irish terrier has all the imagination and humor of his race; he has a
rollicking air; he is whimsical, warm-hearted, jaunty, and has the gift
of blarney. He loves a scrimmage better than his dinner, but he bears
no malice.
His fellest earthly foes,
Cats, he does but affect to hate.
The terrier family is primarily a jolly, good-natured crowd whose
business it is to dig into the lairs of burrowing creatures and fight
them at narrow quarters. The signal for the fight is the attack on
the intrusive nose. You can read this family history in the pup-dog's
treatment of the cat. The cat of his own household with whom he is
brought up he rallies with good-humored banter, but he is less likely
to hurt her than she him. He will take her with him on his morning
round of neighborhood garbage-pails, and even warm her kittens on
his back as he lies in the square of sunshine on the kitchen floor,
till they begin to knead their tiny claws into him in a futile search
for nourishment; then he shakes them patiently off and seeks rest
elsewhere. He will chase any cat as long as she will run; if she
refuses to run, he will dance round her and bark, trying to get up a
game. “Be a sport!” he taunts her. “Take a chance!” But if she claws
his nose, she treads on the tail of his coat, and no Irish gentleman
will stand for that.
Similar are his tactics with human creatures. First he tries a small
bluff to see if he can start anything. If his victim shows signs of
fear, he redoubles his effort, his tail the while signaling huge
delight at his success. If the victim shows fight, he may develop the
attack in earnest. The victim who shows either fear or fight betrays
complete ignorance of dog nature, for the initial bluff is always
naïvely transparent; the pup-dog may have a poker face, but his tail
is a rank traitor. A nest of yellow-jackets in a hole in the ground
challenges his every instinct. He cocks his ear at the subterranean
buzzing, tries a little tentative excavation with cautious paw. Soon
one of the inmates scores on the tip of his nose, and war is declared
in earnest. There are leaping attacks with clashing of teeth, and
wildly gyrating rear-guard actions. Custom cannot stale the charm of
the spot; all summer, so long as there is a wing stirring, hornets
shall be hot i' the mouth.
The degree of youth which the pup-dog attains and holds is that of the
human male of eleven or twelve years. He nurses an inextinguishable
quarrel with the hair-brush. His hatred of the formal bath is chronic,
but he will paddle delightedly in any casual water out of doors,
regardless of temperatures and seasons. At home he will sometimes scoff
at plain, wholesome food, but to the public he gives the impression
that his family systematically starve him, and his dietetic experiments
often have weird and disastrous results. You can never count on his
behavior except on formal occasions, when you know to a certainty that
he will disgrace you. His curiosity is equaled only by his adroitness
in getting out of awkward situations into which it plunges him. His
love of play is unquenchable by weariness or hunger; there is no time
when the sight of a ball will not rouse him to clamorous activity.
For fine clothes he has a satiric contempt, and will almost invariably
manage to land a dirty footprint on white waist-coat or “ice-cream
pants” in the first five minutes of their immaculacy. He is one hundred
per cent. motor-minded; when he is “stung with the splendor of a sudden
thought,” he springs to immediate action. In the absence of any ideas
he relaxes and sleeps with the abandon of a jute door-mat.