in sub-plots, relatively unimportant stories of their
own. Generally, the novelist will seek to develop personality with
greater fullness and detail than the writer of the short story, and, as
a result, the action of the novel will be more diffused and looser, less
pointed, than the action of the short story. Or, conversely, the long
story necessarily involves more varied action than the briefer form, and
therefore develops more varied traits in the actors. Relative to the
short story, the novel is a natural type of fiction in that it can make
some approach to presenting the whole man, with all his contradictory
and inconsistent traits and impulses; relative to the novel, the short
story is an artificial type of fiction in that the comparatively direct
and pointed character of its action forbids that it develop more than
one or a few significant traits of personality. The writer of the short
story cannot qualify and distinguish as to his people's natures, and
that is why the fine short story is less humanly significant than the
fine novel, for no man is pure saint or pure villain, pure this or pure
that. We are all bewilderingly inconsistent, wherein lies most of the
interest of life. The novel can show its people blown here and there by
the winds of desire, as in life, and that is what the short story cannot
do.

Each story is a rule to itself, so far as the question of scope and
variety of action is concerned, but the novelist will derive small
benefit from introducing unnecessary people and unnecessary events
merely to lend a greater illusion of movement or bustle to the whole.
Action, in fiction, is action which plays a necessary part in the story,
and the novelist should not interpolate insignificant events any more
than he should interpolate his own opinions on life and morals. His task
is to tell some particular story, no more, no less.

It is difficult to state the relative inclusiveness of the novel without
laying a false emphasis on its permissible scope and variety of content,
for the novel should be exclusive as well as inclusive. That is, it
should not be a mere welter of people and what they do, but should
possess some single human significance, some primary reason for being,
by which its writer can test the availability of matter that suggests
itself to him. Between the conciseness and singleness of "The Ebb-Tide"
and the unnecessary length and complexity of some of the Victorians lies
a golden mean eas