SHORT STORIES
OLD AND NEW
SELECTED AND EDITED
BY
C. ALPHONSO SMITH
EDGAR ALLAN POE PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH IN THE
UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA, AUTHOR OF
"THE AMERICAN SHORT STORY," ETC.
1916
INTRODUCTION
Every short story has three parts, which may be called Setting or
Background, Plot or Plan, and Characters or Character. If you are going
to write a short story, as I hope you are, you will find it necessary to
think through these three parts so as to relate them interestingly and
naturally one to the other; and if you want to assimilate the best that
is in the following stories, you will do well to approach them by the
same three routes.
The Setting or Background gives us the time and the place of the story
with such details of custom, scenery, and dialect as time and place
imply. It answers the questions _When? Where?_ The Plot tells us what
happened. It gives us the incidents and events, the haps or mishaps,
that are interwoven to make up the warp and woof of the story. Sometimes
there is hardly any interweaving; just a plain plan or simple outline is
followed, as in "The Christmas Carol" or "The Great Stone Face." We may
still call the core of these two stories the Plot, if we want to, but
Plan would be the more accurate. This part of the story answers the
question _What_? Under the heading Characters or Character we study the
personalities of the men and women who move through the story and give
it unity and coherence. Sometimes, as in "The Christmas Carol" or
"Markheim," one character so dominates the others that they are mere
spokes in his hub or incidents in his career. But in "The Gift of the
Magi," though more space is given to Della, she and Jim act from the
same motive and contribute equally to the development of the story. In
one of our stories the main character is a dog, but he is so human that
we may still say that the chief question to be answered under this
heading is _Who?_
Many books have been written about these three parts of a short story,
but the great lesson to be learned is that the excellence of a story,
long or short, consists not in the separate excellence of the Setting or
of the Plot or of the Characters but in the perfect blending of the
three to produce a single effect or to impress a single truth. If the
Setting does not fit the Plot, if the Plot does not rise gracefully from
the Setting, if the Characters do not move naturally and
self-revealingly through both, the story is a failure. Emerson might
well have had our three parts of the short story in mind when he wrote,
All are needed by each one;
Nothing is fair or good alone.
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
I. ESTHER, From the Old Testament
II. THE HISTORY OF ALI BABA AND THE FORTY ROBBERS, From "The
Arabian Nights"
III. RIP VAN WINKLE, By Washington Irving
IV. THE GOLD-BUG, By Edgar Allan Poe
V. A CHRISTMAS CAROL, By Charles Dickens
VI. THE GREAT STONE FACE, By Nathaniel Hawthorne
VII. RAB AND HIS FRIENDS, By Dr. John Brown
VIII. THE OUTCASTS OF POKER FLAT, By Bret Harte
IX. MARKHEIM, By Robert Louis Stevenson
X. THE NECKLACE, By Guy de Maupassant
XI. THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING, By Rudyard Kipling
XII. THE GIFT OF THE MAGI, By O. Henry
SHORT STORIES
I. ESTHER[*]
[* From the Old Testament, Authorized Version.]
AUTHOR UNKNOWN
[_Setting_. The events take place in Susa, the capital of Persia, in the
reign of Ahasuerus, or Xerxes (485-465 B.C.). This foreign locale
intensifies the splendid Jewish patriotism that breathes through the
story from beginning to end. If the setting had been in Jerusalem,
Esther could not have preached the noble doctrine, "When in Rome, don't
do as Rome does, but be true to the old ideals of home and race."
_Plot_. "Esther" seems to me the best-told story in the Bible. Observe
how the note of empty Persian bigness versus simple Jewish faith is
struck at the very beginning and is echoed to the end. Thus, Ahasuerus
ruled over one hundred and twenty-seven provinces, the opening banquet
lasted one hundred and eighty-seven days, the king's bulletins were as
unalterable as the tides, the gallows erected was eighty-three feet
high, the beds were of gold and silver upon a pavement of red and blue
and white and black marble, the money wrested from the Jews was to be
eighteen million dollars, etc. The word "banquet" occurs twenty times in
this short story and only twenty times in all the remaining thirty-eight
books of the Old Testament. In other words, Ahasuerus and his
trencher-mates ate and drank as much in five days as had been eaten and
drunk by all the other Old Testament characters from "Genesis" to
"Malachi."
Note also the contrast between the two queens, the two prime ministers,
the two edicts, and the two later banquets. The most masterly part of
the plot is the handling of events between these banquets. Read again
from chapter v, beginning at verse 9, through chapter vi, and note how
skillfully the pen is held. In motivation as well as in symmetry and
naturalness the story is without a peer. There is humor, too, in the
solemn deliberations over Vashti's "No" (chapter i, verses 12-22) and in
the strange procession led by pedestrian Haman (chapter vi, verses
6-11).
The purpose of the story was to encourage the feast of Purim (chapter
ix, verses 20-32) and to promote national solidarity. It may be compared
to "A Christmas Carol," which was written to restore the waning
celebration of Christmas, and to our Declaration of Independence, which
is re-read on every Fourth of July to quicken our sense of national
fellowship. But "Esther" is more than an institution. It is the old
story of two conflicting civilizations, one representing bigness, the
other greatness; one standing for materialism, the other for idealism;
one enthroning the body, the other the spirit.
_Characters_. These are finely individualized, though each seems to me a
type. Ahasuerus is a tank that runs blood or wine according to the hand
that turns the spigot. He was used for good but deserves and receives no
credit for it. No man ever missed a greater opportunity. He was brought
face to face with the two greatest world-civilizations of history; but,
understanding neither, he remains only a muddy place in the road along
which Greek and Hebrew passed to world-conquest. Haman, a blend of
vanity and cruelty and cowardice but not without some power of
initiative, was a fit minister for his king. He lives in history as one
who, better than in Hamlet's illustration, was "hoist with his own
petard," the petard in his case being a gallows. He typifies also the
just fate of the man who, spurred by the hate of one, includes in his
scheme of extermination a whole people. Collective vengeance never
received a better illustration nor a more exemplary punishment. Mordecai
is altogether admirable in refusing to kowtow to Haman and in his
unselfish devotion to his fair cousin, Esther. The noblest sentiment in
the book--"Who knoweth whether thou art come to the kingdom for such a
time as this?"--comes from Mordecai.
But the leading character is Esther, not because she was "fair and
beautiful" but because she was hospitable to the great thought suggested
by Mordecai. None but a Jew could have asked, "Who knoweth whether thou
art come to the kingdom for such a time as this?" and none but a Jew
could have answered as Esther answered. The question implied a sense of
personal responsibility and of divine guidance far beyond the reach of
Persian or Mede or Greek of that time. It calls up many a quiet hour
when Esther and Mordecai talked together of their strange lot in this
heathen land and wondered if the time would ever come when they could
interpret their trials in terms of national service rather than of
meaningless fate. Imagine the blank and bovine expression that Ahasuerus
or Haman would have turned upon you if you had put such a question to
either of them. But in the case of Esther, Mordecai's appeal unlocked an
unused reservoir of power that has made her one of the world's heroines.
She had her faults, or rather her limitations, but since her time men
have gone to the stake, have built up and torn down principalities and
powers, on the dynamic conviction that they had been sent to the kingdom
"for such a time as this."]
CHAPTER I
THE STORY OF VASHTI
1. Now it came to pass in the days of Ahasuerus, (this is Ahasuerus
which reigned from India even unto Ethiopia, over a hundred and seven
and twenty provinces,)
2. That in those days, when the king Ahasuerus sat on the throne of his
kingdom, which was in Shushan the palace,
3. In the third year of his reign, he made a feast unto all his princes
and his servants; the power of Persia and Media, the nobles and princes
of the provinces, being before him:
4. When he shewed the riches of his glorious kingdom and the honour of
his excellent majesty many days, even a hundred and fourscore days.
5. And when these days were expired, the king made a feast unto all the
people that were present in Shushan the palace, both unto great and
small, seven days, in the court of the garden of the king's palace.
6. Where were white, green, and blue hangings, fastened with cords of
fine linen and purple to silver rings and pillars of marble: the beds
were of gold and silver, upon a pavement of red, and blue, and white,
and black marble.
7. And they gave them drink in vessels of gold, (the vessels being
diverse one from another,) and royal wine in abundance, according to the
state of the king.
8. And the drinking was according to the law; none did compel: for so
the king had appointed to all the officers of his house, that they
should do according to every man's pleasure.
9. Also Vashti the queen made a feast for the women in the royal house
which belonged to king Ahasuerus.
10. On the seventh day, when the heart of the king was merry with wine,
he commanded Mehuman, Biztha, Harbona, Bigtha, and Abagtha, Zethar, and
Carcas, the seven chamberlains that served in the presence of Ahasuerus
the king,
11. To bring Vashti the queen before the king with the crown royal, to
shew the people and the princes her beauty: for she was fair to look on.
12. But the queen Vashti refused to come at the king's commandment by
his chamberlains: therefore was the king very wroth, and his anger
burned in him.
13. Then the king said to the wise men, which knew the times, (for so
was the king's manner toward all that knew law and judgment:
14. And the next unto him was Carshena, Shethar, Admatha, Tarshish,
Meres, Marsena, and Memucan, the seven princes of Persia and Media,
which saw the king's face, and which sat the first in the kingdom,)
15. What shall we do unto the queen Vashti according to law, because she
hath not performed the commandment of the king Ahasuerus by the
chamberlains?
16. And Memucan answered before the king and the princes, Vashti the
queen hath not done wrong to the king only, but also to all the princes,
and to all the people that are in all the provinces of the king
Ahasuerus.
17. For this deed of the queen shall come abroad unto all women, so that
they shall despise their husbands in their eyes, when it shall be
reported, The king Ahasuerus commanded Vashti the queen to be brought in
before him, but she came not.
18. Likewise shall the ladies of Persia and Media say this day unto all
the king's princes, which have heard of the deed of the queen. Thus
shall there arise too much contempt and wrath.
19. If it please the king, let there go a royal commandment from him,
and let it be written among the laws of the Persians and the Medes, that
it be not altered, That Vashti come no more before king Ahasuerus; and
let the king give her royal estate unto another that is better than she.
20. And when the king's decree, which he shall make, shall be published
throughout all his empire, (for it is great,) all the wives shall give
to their husbands honour, both to great and small.
21. And the saying pleased the king and the princes; and the king did
according to the word of Memucan:
22. For he sent letters into all the king's provinces, into every
province according to the writing thereof, and to every people after
their language, that every man should bear rule in his own house, and
that it should be published according to the language of every people.