But I wish we had had a Tchekoff to answer it. As for this author,
he leads his characters to a conveniently deserted house, lights a
fire on the hearth, sets water boiling for tea, and in a few pages
of charming romance would persuade us that with a few economies in
this rural residence, true love may have its course and a
successful marriage crown the morning's adventure. Thus in one
dazzling sweep, the greatest and most sugary plum of all drops
from the very tip of the Christmas tree into the lap of the lady,
who had just learned that happiness in the real world comes in no
such haphazard and undeserved a fashion. Really! have we
degenerated from Lincoln's day? Is it easy now to fool all of us
all of the time, so that a tale-teller dares to expose silly
romance at the beginning of his story, and yet dose us with it at
the end? Not that one objects to romance. It is as necessary as
food, and almost as valuable. But romance that pretends to be
realism, realism that fizzles out into sentimental romance--is
there any excuse for that? Even if it provides "heart interest"
and an effective climax?

The truth is, of course, that the Russian stories are based upon
life; the typical stories of the American magazines, for all their
realistic details, are too often studied, not from American life
but from literary convention. Even when their substance is fresh,
their unfoldings and above all their solutions are second-hand. If
the Russian authors could write American stories I believe that
their work would be more truly popular than what we are now
getting. They would be free to be interesting in any direction and
by any method. The writer of the American short story is not free.

I should like to leave the subject here with a comparison that