Lecture on "The Short Story".

The third of the lectures by Professor Bliss Perry was given yesterday afternoon in Sever 11 on the subject "The Short Story." Professor Perry said:

However far back we go in ancient tales and traditions, we find all of the characteristics of the short story given in unrivalled perfection. The modern short story writers, however, stand for a new movement because of their attempt to accomplish a certain end by taking a certain attitude. The ordinary novel is objectionable, as Poe says, because it cannot be read at one sitting, but the combination of brevity and unity in the short story is its greatest charm. Every work of fiction depends for its success on its characters, its plot, or its action and circumstances. In character delineation alone there are many differences between the novel and the short story. While in the latter a character must catch the eye at once, in a novel a commonplace character can be tolerated for a time, because of the greater opportunity for its final development.

Again, a story may depend on its plot for sustaining the reader's attention. Indeed if the plot can be made sufficiently attractive, the characters may be kept entirely in the background, as in the case in many of Poe's pseudo-scientific tales.

The author can play equally well upon his reader's feelings if he can discover a new corner of the earth or illumine any great human problem. In this way many readers take up Mrs. Wilkins for New England scenes, J. M. Barrie for Scotch peasant life or Stephen Crane for the field of battle. On the whole the short story offers greater opportunities for a young writer than the novel. In the short story one may be didactic and yet not wearisome, and then the short story can pose problems and leave them unanswered. Now the novelists George Sand Dickens and Thackeray not only stated problems, but also answered them. The modern method of the short story, however, is to treat the matter in such an ambiguous manner, that two opposing answers may be possible. Again, a short story writer always asks his readers to take a great deal for granted, which if he were a novelist he might have to spend several chapters in explaining. For aesthetic effects also, it is necessary for the short story writer to follow a selective method, as Bert Harte does in his western stories. Finally, the short story gives the writer an opportunity to take advantage of impressions and to convey his thoughts in poetic symbolism.

But, aside from these advantages, the art of telling short stories is dependent on several great laws. It calls for a visual power of a high order and demands certain selective power. In the novel the writer has many opportunities to make his characters vivid, but the short story writer has but one chance. Lastly, the writer of short stories must combine with a vivid imagination, beauty and clearness of expression.

There are also many qualities that the short story does not demand. To write one does not require a sustained imagination, nor broadness and sanity in point of view. We do not require that the short story writer should have a philosophy of life or be a particularly deep thinker. The novelist deals with a whole, but the short story writer with a fragment, a mere sketch.

The short story holds the field now because it is suited to our mode of life; we have no time for anything longer. As to its quality no rules can be given,--one age wishes for romance and another for stories of the weird and supernatural. The best motto for the short story is that given by Wilkie Collins: "It is best to make'em laugh, make 'em cry, and make 'em wait."