- •Important in "local color" as they are racy in humor. Yet none of
- •1848, _Godey's Lady's Book_) and _Aunt Magwire's Account of the
- •Included in the present volume; others are _The Batson Cottage_
- •Influence on structure in the short story has been great, it is
- •14, 1832, Philadelphia _Saturday Courier_), _Ms. Found in a Bottle_
- •1854, Is given in this volume because it is a good humorous short
- •Ironsides_, _The Last Leaf_, _The Chambered Nautilus_ and _Homesick in
- •Instantly the night becomes resonant with the impassioned reply (the
- •1897), _Salomy Jane's Kiss_ (in _Stories in Light and Shadow_, 1898),
- •Into the twentieth century and Mary e. Wilkins Freeman (1862- ) is
- •In letters. American literature has always been strong in its "stray"
- •It has the advantage--is this not also an author's advantage?--of a
- •Introduction
- •Volume, _Short Sixes_, by permission of its publishers, Charles
- •Interesting "back to Nature" experiment at Westfield, Massachusetts.
- •Immediately after the sale. How much for them? Give them a start at
- •In the very wantonness of joy as he repaired to Delmonico's, and
- •It was near night when he arrived at the auction-room--his horse in a
- •Imp ab te wing, und te head-teuffel ab te wing. Te angel ab _not_ te
- •I gave the matter no further consideration, and at my usual hour
- •In the mud, took it suddenly into his head that his left shoulder
- •Implacable heart. The fates were again propitious for a brief period,
- •In grasping the end of a long guide-rope, which depended from a
- •Into a relaxation of the muscles, it was "in such a sort" as if he was
- •Inadmissible requisite for his place. The rest is more readily taken
- •Very well why the master did not undertake him on the spot.
- •Invigorated authority. Twice certified, who should dare doubt his
- •Improvement; and although at the end of the term he could not quite
- •Invention not new in the country, the harness of Mr. Kingsbury's
- •If he had been born within the shadow of the Tombs.
- •It suited his purposes, but for the untimely intrusion of the weaver's
- •Visitors, and that her servants had general orders to that effect. But
- •In the ladies' drawing-room, after dinner, the Morlands heard a
- •It out of his hand. "I'll use it to your full satisfaction."
- •It was only half past ten when Jane was in the midst of her piece. The
- •Inquired of the driver if he could not take them to Rutgers Place. The
- •Instruments in their hands.
- •It grew dark as we stood in the office talking, and taking our hats we
- •In truth, I have observed, down town, that the fact of your ancestors
- •I shall soon be gone, but I want to leave with you some memento of my
- •I saw strange sights when I looked at them through the glasses. If two
- •Itself against a stone. I wept, until my spectacles were dimmed for
- •I was constantly lost in a world, of which those companions were part,
- •Xerxes and his army tossing and glittering, rank upon rank, multitude
- •Into pets. Anger is an expensive luxury, in which only men of a
- •Into the safe, where his bills payable were hived, and the other into
- •I escaped from her arms, and ran home and seized the glasses and
- •Intelligent and successful. But when I looked at them through my
- •I did not feel as they felt who saw in all this, not only propriety,
- •Indifference to such homage, and had declared it was astonishing she
- •Vanity by haunting the apartment in which were stored the trophies of
- •Indeed, half bright enough. If one could only have been left to do his
- •I launched him by sending him to a meeting of the Enlightenment Board.
- •I ought to go to their exhibitions. But think, reader, of sitting
- •It happened; upon which Dennis had risen, and had said, "There has
- •Inherited from her father some shares in that enterprise, which is not
- •Very gligloglum, that is, that you were m-m-m-m-m." By gradually
- •I know, indeed, that public men of the highest rank have resorted to
- •Italian, Spanish, German and English began to take polish. Heavens!
- •Is chosen president of the Young Men's Library, there must be a
- •Instead of the metal. Children have bad habits in that way. The
- •Isaacs, to give him his due, shook his head. But the look was enough.
- •In his time, and well known in the business world, but lost his
- •In Tartary for establishing Insane Hospitals?"
- •Is that any reason why Mr. Webster's publishers should hitch one on in
- •Immediately asked, "Why is Douglas like the earth?"
- •Venerable gentleman with flowing locks, who was propounding questions
- •Italy?" asked the Patriarch.
- •I had to laugh.
- •It; why, if there was two birds setting on a fence, he would bet you
- •I'll risk forty dollars that he can outjump any frog in Calaveras
- •Idea what the matter was, of course.
- •If he don't weigh five pounds!" and turned him upside down and he
- •It was a queer figure that crept along the road that cheery May
- •Invigorating motion, bent only on making the air ring with the lines
- •Interest was at one and a half per cent. For seven months, and a
- •Item of his memoranda would come to light, and thrusting his hand into
- •It was from sheer good-nature only that Elder Brown replied, with his
- •Infernal ole fool 'sulted me, an' I lef' him to walk home."
- •Into the saloon and to the bar. The reaction was too much for his
- •Is due to pure veracity I will. On as many as three different
- •In her hand. Such uncommon conduct in a woman like Mrs. Pink Fluker of
- •I've said freckwent, a _very_ fa'r house. I let them infloonces go to
- •It? Jes' so. Twenty-five breakfasts at a quarter makes six an' a
- •I was not surprised when, after breakfast, my wife invited the Bredes
- •I went up to my wife's room.
- •It was a pretty, delicate, dainty dress, a graceful, narrow-striped
- •In a broad, uneven band, bright in the morning sun.
- •Visited the other in his country home.
- •Very fond of horses and always drove himself, while Buller was more
- •Very much.
- •Is that I hear? Is that a train?"
- •In a husky voice. "Thomas, the water is over my shoes!"
- •Instinctively he clutched Buller.
- •I'll have you in a dry suit of clothes in less than fifteen minutes."
- •Informed that he might have to wait for an hour or more. This did not
- •It didn't throw me out."
- •If the Colonel had been surprised before, he was now really startled,
- •In a jury.
- •I want to know first is, kin you take the case?"
- •It all the easier for you," said the young woman.
- •Illuminated, in that single glance. And when the eyelids fell again,
- •In regard to the distinct promise of marriage--was there--er--no
- •Voice, "what you mean by what you call 'my attentions' to--any one--or
- •Indiscretion committed in behalf of a lady--my--er--client."
- •Inspiration and a prophecy.
- •In her smile. She dragged her chair nearer his desk. "Then you'll
- •Injin! And when you rolled it all off at the end--never missing a
- •If that act had condoned for his first omissions and awkwardness, he
- •It was therefore not remarkable that the courthouse three weeks later
- •Vaguely, in this bizarre figure, something of an honored past in their
- •It." After a pause he added, addressing the Colonel, who remained
- •It was his duty to tell them that this was not one of those ordinary
- •Venus--and the inspired writings themselves were used as the medium of
- •In their memory by the knowledge that the defendant was capable of
- •In the republic low enough to represent its value.
- •Inordinate weakness of the flesh, with shameless hypocrisy underscores
- •Inamorata--but a number of flagons or vessels, each possibly holding
- •Voice had the unmistakable Western-American ring in it, as of one who
- •Voice was heard saying, "We rest here, your Honor," and he sat down.
- •It was not long before the two were like old chums. The Major set
- •Invitations went for fifty miles around; the occasional feuds with the
- •It was a fascination to Hargraves to watch him make it. He took rank
- •It on the table.
- •Individual. The way the audience caught on shows that. Half the
- •I would consider your insulting offer of a financial adjustment of the
- •Volcanically.
- •It is marvelous how much one can see out of the corner of the eye,
- •Is quite a draught from that broken window."
- •Impatiently.
- •In the confusion of rescuing the fluffery, the owner of the suitcase
- •Vinegar and wormwood to Mrs. Ellsworth, and she gazed after the
- •In nutmegs and chicory. No task seemed impossible. He walked in to see
- •Insisted, gathering up her armload of branches. "I couldn't think of
- •In spite of the sly smile that he had permitted to himself, he was
- •It, and never the suspicion of a smile deepened the dimple in the
- •Van Kamp.
- •I've had a big pot o' stewed chicken ready on the stove fer two mortal
- •Veil the all-too-brilliant polish of his cowhide shoes. Also the
- •Intelligently. He could do that.
- •I'm here. What's likely to happen after we get rid of the card?"
- •It was characteristic that the freckled boy remained standing. He
- •Into the shadows of the big hall: "You Babe! Go put two extra plates
- •If your mothers let you eat all you want, say so, and I don't care;
- •Intention with result became village talk? Ross bit fiercely upon an
- •Interest. Which one that management might become was a matter of
- •Its heels in the face of the best that Squire Hopkins drove. In his
- •It was nip and tuck, the deacon encouraging his horse and the widow
- •It possible for him to win. The deacon shivered as he thought of it,
- •Indian River in search of various fish. On days when fish had been
- •Imagination, others charming by their number and crispness--the
- •Inner coast of Florida which Gideon knew best, which was home.
- •Inherent in the negro. He gave one regretful thought to the gorgeous
- •In his head. But for the most part his broad black face was turned up
- •It was as excruciatingly funny as it had ever been, when his boat
- •Ingenerate familiars of his wild, forgotten blood. He groaned aloud in
- •Inclining her head coquettishly; but it evidently meant nothing to
- •Vashti rose to her feet with a sigh.
- •In this sudden act of violence. He was aglow with happiness; he was
- •Vashti's sobbing had grown small and ceased; he wondered if she had
- •International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
Instantly the night becomes resonant with the impassioned reply (the
Colonel here lifted his voice in stentorian tones), Kerrow!' Again,
as he passes, rises the soft Kerree!'; again, as his form is lost in
the distance, comes back the deep Kerrow!'"
While Harte's stories all have in them a certain element or background
of humor, yet perhaps the majority of them are chiefly romantic or
dramatic even more than they are humorous.
Among the best of his short stories may be mentioned: _The Luck of
Roaring Camp_ (August, 1868, _Overland_), _The Outcasts of Poker Flat_
(January, 1869, _Overland_), _Tennessee's Partner_ (October, 1869,
_Overland_), _Brown of Calaveras_ (March, 1870, _Overland_), _Flip: a
California Romance_ (in _Flip, and Other Stories_, 1882), _Left Out on
Lone Star Mountain_ (January, 1884, _Longman's_), _An Ingenue of the
Sierras_ (July, 1894, _McClure's_), _The Bell-Ringer of Angel's_ (in
_The Bell-Ringer of Angel's, and Other Stories_, 1894), _Chu Chu_ (in
_The Bell-Ringer of Angel's, and Other Stories_, 1894), _The Man and
the Mountain_ (in _The Ancestors of Peter Atherly, and Other Tales_,
1897), _Salomy Jane's Kiss_ (in _Stories in Light and Shadow_, 1898),
_The Youngest Miss Piper_ (February, 1900, _Leslie's Monthly_),
_Colonel Starbottle for the Plaintiff_ (March, 1901, _Harper's_), _A
Mercury of the Foothills_ (July, 1901, _Cosmopolitan_), _Lanty
Foster's Mistake_ (December, 1901, _New England_), _An Ali Baba of the
Sierras_ (January 4, 1902, _Saturday Evening Post_), and _Dick Boyle's
Business Card_ (in _Trent's Trust, and Other Stories_, 1903). Among
his notable collections of stories are: _The Luck of Roaring Camp, and
Other Sketches_ (1870), _Flip, and Other Stories_ (1882), _On the
Frontier_ (1884), _Colonel Starbottle's Client, and Some Other People_
(1892), _A Protégé of Jack Hamlin's, and Other Stories_ (1894), _The
Bell-Ringer of Angel's, and Other Stories_ (1894), _The Ancestors of
Peter Atherly, and Other Tales_ (1897), _Openings in the Old Trail_
(1902), and _Trent's Trust, and Other Stories_ (1903). The titles and
makeup of several of his collections were changed when they came to be
arranged in the complete edition of his works.[5]
Henry Cuyler Bunner (1855-1896) is one of the humorous geniuses of
American literature. He is equally at home in clever verse or the
brief short story. Prof. Fred Lewis Pattee has summed up his
achievement as follows: "Another [than Stockton] who did much to
advance the short story toward the mechanical perfection it had
attained to at the close of the century was Henry Cuyler Bunner,
editor of _Puck_ and creator of some of the most exquisite _vers de
société_ of the period. The title of one of his collections, _Made in
France: French Tales Retold with a U.S. Twist_ (1893), forms an
introduction to his fiction. Not that he was an imitator; few have
been more original or have put more of their own personality into
their work. His genius was Gallic. Like Aldrich, he approached the
short story from the fastidious standpoint of the lyric poet. With
him, as with Aldrich, art was a matter of exquisite touches, of
infinite compression, of almost imperceptible shadings. The lurid
splashes and the heavy emphasis of the local colorists offended his
sensitive taste: he would work with suggestion, with microscopic
focussings, and always with dignity and elegance. He was more American
than Henry James, more even than Aldrich. He chose always
distinctively American subjects--New York City was his favorite
theme--and his work had more depth of soul than Stockton's or
Aldrich's. The story may be trivial, a mere expanded anecdote, yet it
is sure to be so vitally treated that, like Maupassant's work, it
grips and remains, and, what is more, it lifts and chastens or
explains. It may be said with assurance that _Short Sixes_ marks one
of the high places which have been attained by the American short
story."[6]
Among Bunner's best stories are: _Love in Old Cloathes_ (September,
1883, _Century), A Successful Failure_ (July, 1887, _Puck_), _The
Love-Letters of Smith_ (July 23, 1890, _Puck_) _The Nice People_ (July
30, 1890, _Puck_), _The Nine Cent-Girls_ (August 13, 1890, _Puck_),
_The Two Churches of 'Quawket_ (August 27, 1890, _Puck_), _A Round-Up_
(September 10, 1890, _Puck_), _A Sisterly Scheme_ (September 24, 1890,
_Puck_), _Our Aromatic Uncle_ (August, 1895, _Scribner's_), _The
Time-Table Test_ (in _The Suburban Sage_, 1896). He collaborated with
Prof. Brander Matthews in several stories, notably in _The Documents
in the Case_ (Sept., 1879, _Scribner's Monthly_). His best collections
are: _Short Sixes: _Stories to be Read While the Candle Burns_ (1891),
_More Short Sixes _(1894), and _Love in Old Cloathes, and Other
Stories_ (1896).
After Poe and Hawthorne almost the first author in America to make a
vertiginous impression by his short stories was Bret Harte. The wide
and sudden popularity he attained by the publication of his two short
stories, _The Luck of Roaring Camp_ (1868) and _The Outcasts of Poker
Flat_ (1869), has already been noted.[7] But one story just before
Harte that astonished the fiction audience with its power and art was
Harriet Prescott Spofford's (1835- ) _The Amber Gods_ (January and
February, 1860, Atlantic), with its startling ending, "I must have
died at ten minutes past one." After Harte the next story to make a
great sensation was Thomas Bailey Aldrich's _Marjorie Daw_ (April,
1873, _Atlantic_), a story with a surprise at the end, as had been his
_A Struggle for Life_ (July, 1867, _Atlantic_), although it was only
_Marjorie Daw_ that attracted much attention at the time. Then came
George Washington Cable's (1844- ) _"Posson Jone',"_ (April 1, 1876,
_Appleton's Journal_) and a little later Charles Egbert Craddock's
(1850- ) _The Dancin' Party at Harrison's Cove_ (May, 1878,
_Atlantic_) and _The Star in the Valley_ (November, 1878, _Atlantic_).
But the work of Cable and Craddock, though of sterling worth, won its
way gradually. Even Edward Everett Hale's (1822-1909) _My Double; and
How He Undid Me_ (September, 1859, _Atlantic_) and _The Man Without a
Country_ (December, 1863, _Atlantic_) had fallen comparatively
still-born. The truly astounding short story successes, after Poe and
Hawthorne, then, were Spofford, Bret Harte and Aldrich. Next came
Frank Richard Stockton (1834-1902). "The interest created by the
appearance of _Marjorie Daw_," says Prof. Pattee, "was mild compared
with that accorded to Frank R. Stockton's _The Lady or the Tiger?_
(1884). Stockton had not the technique of Aldrich nor his naturalness
and ease. Certainly he had not his atmosphere of the _beau monde_ and
his grace of style, but in whimsicality and unexpectedness and in that
subtle art that makes the obviously impossible seem perfectly
plausible and commonplace he surpassed not only him but Edward Everett
Hale and all others. After Stockton and _The Lady or the Tiger?_ it
was realized even by the uncritical that short story writing had
become a subtle art and that the master of its subtleties had his
reader at his mercy."[8] The publication of Stockton's short stories
covers a period of over forty years, from _Mahala's Drive_ (November,
1868, _Lippincott's_) to _The Trouble She Caused When She Kissed_
(December, 1911, _Ladies' Home Journal_), published nine years after
his death. Among the more notable of his stories may be mentioned:
_The Transferred Ghost_ (May, 1882, _Century_), _The Lady or the
Tiger?_ (November, 1882, _Century_), _The Reversible Landscape_ (July,
1884, _Century_), _The Remarkable Wreck of the "Thomas Hyke"_ (August,
1884, _Century_), _"His Wife's Deceased Sister"_ (January, 1884,
_Century_), _A Tale of Negative Gravity_ (December, 1884, _Century_),
_The Christmas Wreck_ (in _The Christmas Wreck, and Other Stories_,
1886), _Amos Kilbright_ (in _Amos Kilbright, His Adscititious
Experiences, with Other Stories_, 1888), _Asaph_ (May, 1892,
_Cosmopolitan_), _My Terminal Moraine_ (April 26, 1892, Collier's
_Once a Week Library_), _The Magic Egg_ (June, 1894, _Century_), _The
Buller-Podington Compact_ (August, 1897, _Scribner's_), and _The
Widow's Cruise_ (in _A Story-Teller's Pack_, 1897). Most of his best
work was gathered into the collections: _The Lady or the Tiger?, and
Other Stories_ (1884), _The Bee-Man of Orn, and Other Fanciful Tales_
(1887), _Amos Kilbright, His Adscititious Experiences, with Other
Stories_ (1888), _The Clocks of Rondaine, and Other Stories_ (1892),
_A Chosen Few_ (1895), _A Story-Teller's Pack_ (1897), and _The
Queen's Museum, and Other Fanciful Tales_ (1906).
After Stockton and Bunner come O. Henry (1862-1910) and Jack London
(1876-1916), apostles of the burly and vigorous in fiction. Beside or
above them stand Henry James (1843-1916)--although he belongs to an
earlier period as well--Edith Wharton (1862- ), Alice Brown (1857- ),
Margaret Wade Deland (1857- ), and Katharine Fullerton Gerould
(1879- ), practitioners in all that O. Henry and London are not, of
the finer fields, the more subtle nuances of modern life. With O.
Henry and London, though perhaps less noteworthy, are to be grouped
George Randolph Chester (1869- ) and Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb (1876- ).
Then, standing rather each by himself, are Melville Davisson Post
(1871- ), a master of psychological mystery stories, and Wilbur Daniel
Steele (1886- ), whose work it is hard to classify. These ten names
represent much that is best in American short story production since
the beginning of the twentieth century (1900). Not all are notable for
humor; but inasmuch as any consideration of the American humorous
short story cannot be wholly dissociated from a consideration of the
American short story in general, it has seemed not amiss to mention
these authors here. Although Sarah Orne Jewett (1849-1909) lived on