ier to recognize in specific books than to state
abstractedly. "The Ebb-Tide," though not a short story in point of
length, is somewhat brief, and it is a short story in structure, in
point of the singleness of its story-idea, the small number of its
characters, and the comparative simplicity of its action. Of course, it
is none the less a fine novel, a fine long story; the point is that
there are thousands of other stories, equally fine, perhaps more humanly
significant, which cannot be written so concisely, but which need not
run to the length of "David Copperfield," "The Virginians," or "The
Cloister and the Hearth." To attempt to set mechanical limits of length
for the novel would be mere silliness, but it is true that the average
idea for a long story can be given complete and adequate expression in
one or two hundred thousand words. Usually there is no need to write at
much greater or inordinate length, unless irrelevant matter is
introduced for its own sake. And the introduction of such matter for its
own sake can only hinder the effect of the story itself on a reader. It
may render the book, the mere sequence of words, more interesting, but
irrelevant matter cannot render the story itself more interesting. The
distinction should be noted and realized, for the novelist's aim is to
interest through his story, not merely to interest.

There is another way to approach the matter of the novel's relative
inclusiveness and length, perhaps a better way. Where the novelist first
conceives his story definitely as such, as a course of events, he should
bring all matter which suggests itself for writing to the test of
relation to the story. He has only to write the story, duly elaborated,
and thereby he will take care of the matters of length and complexity
and inclusiveness without detached calculation to that end. But if the
novelist finds his initial idea in terms of a life or of a phase of
society, the idea does not plot or diagram the whole story for him. He
has yet to evolve the story as such, and he may devise as short and
simple a thing as "The Ebb-Tide" or as long and complicated a thing as
Tolstoi's "War and Peace." Usually it will be found, I think, that the
very long novel--"Tom Jones," "Jean Christophe," "David Copperfield,"
"Anna Karenina," "Les Miserables," "The Virginians"--was first conceived
in terms of a life or a society, rather than in terms of a definite
story. It is certainly true that only the life of