e present excellence of the American novel is due
in great measure to the Short-story; for nearly every one of the
American novelists whose works are now read by the whole
English-speaking race began as a writer of Short-stories. Although as a
form of fiction the Short-story is not inferior to the Novel, and
although it is not easier, all things considered, yet its brevity makes
its composition simpler for the 'prentice hand. Though the Short-stories
of the beginner may not be good, yet in the writing of Short-stories he
shall learn how to tell a story, he shall discover by experience the
elements of the art of fiction more readily and, above all, more quickly
than if he had begun on a long and exhausting novel. The physical strain
of writing a full-sized novel is far greater than the reader can well
imagine. To this strain the beginner in fiction may gradually accustom
himself by the composition of Short stories.

Here, if the digression may be pardoned, occasion serves to say that if
our writers of plays had the same chance that our writers of novels
have, we might now have a school of American dramatists of which we
should be as proud as of our school of American novelists. In dramatic
composition, the equivalent of the Short-story is the one-act play, be
it drama or comedy or comedietta or farce. As the novelists have learned
their trade by the writing of Short-stories, so the dramatists might
learn their trade, far more difficult as it is and more complicated, by
the writing of one-act plays. But, while the magazines of the United
States are hungry for good Short-stories, and sift carefully all that
are sent to them, in the hope of happening on a treasure, the theatres
of the United States are closed to one-act plays, and the dramatist is
denied the opportunity of making a humble and tentative beginning. The
conditions of the theatre are such that there is little hope of a change
for the better in this respect,--more's the pity. The manager has a
tradition that a "broken bill," a programme containing more than one
play, is a confession of weakness, and he prefers, so far as possible,
to keep his weakness concealed.

When we read the roll of American novelists, we see that nearly all of
them began as writers of Short-stories. Some of them, Mr. Bret Harte,
for instance, and Mr. Edward Everett Hale, never got any farther, or, at
least, if they wrote novels, their novels did not receive the full
artistic appreciation