Lippincott's Magazine, October 1885 by Various
page 104 of 234 (44%)
page 104 of 234 (44%)
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were made larger or if it were incorporated into a more elaborate work.
The difference in spirit and in form between the Lyric and the Epic is scarcely greater than the difference between the Short-story and the Novel; and "The Raven" and "How we brought the good news from Ghent to Aix" are not more unlike "The Lady of the Lake" and "Paradise Lost," in form and in spirit, than "The Luck of Roaring Camp" and "The Man without a Country"--two typical Short-stories--are unlike "Vanity Fair" and "The Heart of Midlothian,"--two typical Novels. Another great difference between the Short-story and the Novel lies in the fact that the Novel, nowadays at least, must be a love-tale, while the Short-story need not deal with love at all. Although "Vanity Fair" was a Novel without a hero, nearly every other Novel has a hero and a heroine, and the novelist, however unwillingly, must concern himself in their love-affairs. But the writer of Short-stories is under no bonds of this sort. Of course he may tell a tale of love if he choose, and if love enters into his tale naturally and to its enriching, but he need not bother with love at all unless he please. Some of the best of Short-stories are love-stories too,--Mr. Aldrich's "Margery Daw," for instance, Mr. Stimpson's "Mrs. Knollys," Mr. Bunner's "Love in Old Clothes;" but more of them are not love-stories at all. If we were to pick out the ten best Short-stories, I think we should find that fewer than half of them made any mention at all of love. In "The Snow Image" and in "The Ambitious Guest," in "The Gold-Bug" and in "The Fall of the House of Usher," in "My Double and how he Undid me," in "Devil-Puzzlers," in "The Outcasts of Poker Flat," in "Jean-ah Poquelin," in "A Bundle of Letters," there is little or no mention of the love of man for woman, which is the chief topic of conversation in a Novel. While the Novel cannot get on without love, the Short-story can. Since love is almost the only thing which will give interest to a long |
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