he stated the truth, but when it is stated that the short story meaning
both the story of atmosphere and the dramatic short story--should
manifest the unities and produce a single effect, the statement is
false. In the first place, the dramatic short story is not the result of
the same technique as the story of atmosphere; in the second place, the
unity stated by Poe to be essential to the story of emotional effect is
not the same thing as the old dramatic unities, which are mechanical.
The fact that the story of atmosphere can hardly escape manifesting the
dramatic unities does not amalgamate the two matters. Poe's unity is
unity of emotional effect: the dramatic unities are singleness of time,
place, and action, a matter that can be preserved by anyone, though
usually at the expense of the interest of the story. How few have
written and can write so as to produce a unity of emotional effect need
only be suggested to enforce my point.

The matter would not be worth treating thus minutely were it not for the
strong tendency to mislead of any statement that the short story must
manifest the dramatic unities. Within very elastic limits, the unities
are a convention of the drama, but they are not a convention of fiction,
long or short. The art of the stage and the art of the story differ
radically; the advantage given the play by the conciseness of its
spectacle is compensated by the advantage given the story by its more
inclusive character and greater flexibility. I have said that a plot or
story of plot is a dramatic problem, and the word "dramatic" has
connotations of the stage, but what was meant was that a plot is a
conflict between persons, within a single person, or with nature. It was
not meant that a plot or story of plot is subject to the conventions of
the stage. The art of fiction is infinitely more inclusive and flexible
than the art of the stage, and the writer of fiction must utilize to the
full the advantages of his art in order to compensate his work in the
eyes of a reader for its weakness--relative to the play--in vividness
and body.

One may say that the spectacle of life is infinitely various, so that
the writer of fiction has plenty of material for stories at hand. But
life, despite the efforts of Mrs. Grundy, is subject to no conventions,
social, moral, or artistic, and the short story writer who brings all
his ideas to the dramatic unities as a first test will winnow little
grain from the chaff. W