On the other hand, when speaking of the development of narrative
prose, we should remember what we have already accomplished in that
line. The "Novelle" alone has attained a fixed form, as a not too
voluminous account of a remarkable occurrence. It is formally
regulated in advance by the absolute domination of a decisive
incident--as, for example, the outbreak of a concealed love in Heyse,
or the moment of farewell in Theodor Storm. All previous incidents are
required to assist in working up to this climax; all later ones are
introduced merely to allow its echo to die away. In this austerity of
concentration the German "Novelle," the one rigidly artistic form of
German prose, is related to the "Short Story" which has been so
eagerly heralded in recent times, especially by America. The "Novelle"
differs, however, from this form of literary composition, which
Maupassant cultivated with the most masterly and unrivaled success, by
its subordination to a climax; whereas the Short Story, in reality, is
usually a condensed novel, that is to say, the history of a
development concentrated in a few incidents. Our literature also
possesses such short "sketches," but the love of psychological detail
in the development of the plot nearly always results in the greater
diffuseness of the novel. The real "Novelle" is, however, at least as
typical of the Germans as the Short Story is of the Americans, and in
no other form of literary composition has Germany produced so many
masters as in this--and in the lyric. For the latter is closely
related to the German "Novelle" because it loves to invest the way to
and from the culminating point with the charm produced by a certain
mood, as the half-German Bret Harte loves to do in similar artistic
studies, but the Russian Tschechow never indulges himself in, and the
Frenchman Maupassant but seldom. On this account our best writers of
"Novellen" have also been, almost without exception, eminent lyric