hich is
short; and the stories which make up this book are amusing enough and
clever enough, but they are wanting in the individuality and in the
completeness of the genuine Short-story. Like the brief tales to be
seen in the English monthly magazines and in the Sunday editions of
American newspapers into which they are copied, they are, for the most
part, either merely amplified anecdotes or else incidents which might
have been used in a Novel just as well as not. Now, the genuine
Short-story abhors the idea of the Novel. It can be conceived neither as
part of a Novel nor as elaborated and expanded so as to form a Novel. A
good Short-story is no more the synopsis of a Novel than it is an
episode from a Novel. A slight Novel, or a Novel cut down, is a
Novelette: it is not a Short-story. Mr. Howells's "Their Wedding
Journey" and Miss Howard's "One Summer" are Novelettes, although an
American editor, who had offered a prize for a list of the ten best
Short-stories, allowed them to be included. Mr. Anstey's "Vice Versa,"
Mr. Besant's "Case of Mr. Lucraft," and Mr. Hugh Conway's "Called Back"
are Short-stories in conception, although they are without the
compression which the Short-story requires. In the acute and learned
essay on _vers de societe_ which Mr. Frederick Locker prefixed to his
admirable "Lyra Elegantiarum," he declared that the two characteristics
of the best _vers de societe_ were brevity and brilliancy, and that "The
Rape of the Lock" would be the type and model of the best _vers de
societe_--if it were not just a little too long. So it is with "The Case
of Mr. Lucraft," with "Vice Versa," with "Called Back:" they are just a
little too long.

It is to be noted as a curious coincidence that there is no exact word
in English to designate either _vers de societe_ or the Short-story, and
yet in no language are there better _vers de societe_ or Short-stories
than in English. It may be remarked also that there is a certain
likeness between _vers de societe_ and Short-stories: for one thing,
both seem easy and are hard to write. And the typical qualifications of
each may apply with almost equal force to the other: _vers de societe_
should reveal compression, ingenuity, and originality, and Short-stories
should have brevity and brilliancy. In no class of writing are neatness
of construction and polish of execution more needed than in the writing
of _vers de societe_ and of Short-stories. The writer of Short-stories