abstract principles of the art of fiction applied quite as well to the
Short-story as to the Novel, yet all their concrete examples were
full-length Novels, and the Short-story, as such, received no
recognition at all. Yet the compatriots of Poe and of Hawthorne cannot
afford to ignore the Short-story as a form of fiction; and it has seemed
to the present writer that there is now an excellent opportunity to
venture a few remarks, slight and incomplete as they must needs be, on
the philosophy of the Short-story.

The difference between a Novel and a Novelette is one of length only: a
Novelette is a brief Novel. But the difference between a Novel and a
Short story is a difference of kind, A true Short-story is something
other and something more than a mere story which is short. A true
Short-story differs from the Novel chiefly in its essential unity of
impression. In a far more exact and precise use of the word a
Short-story has unity as a Novel cannot have it. Often, it may be noted
by the way, the Short-story fulfills the three false unities of the
French classic drama: it shows one action in one place on one day. A
Short-story deals with a single character, a single event, a single
emotion, or the series of emotions called forth by a single situation.
Poe's paradox that a poem cannot greatly exceed a hundred lines in
length under penalty of ceasing to be one poem and breaking into a
string of poems, may serve to suggest the precise difference between the
Short-story and the Novel, The Short-story is the single effect,
complete and self-contained, while the Novel is of necessity broken into
a series of episodes. Thus the Short-story has, what the Novel cannot
have, the effect of "totality," as Poe called it, the unity of
impression. The Short-story is not only not a chapter out of a Novel, or
an incident or an episode extracted from a longer tale, but at its best
it impresses the reader with the belief that it would be spoiled if it