Dooley" (Finley Peter Dunne, 1867- ) and George Ade (1866- ) stands
out. But while these two writers successfully conform to the exacting
critical requirements of good humor and--especially the former--of
good literature, neither--though Ade more so--attains to the greatest
excellence of the short story. Mr. Dooley of the Archey Road is
essentially a wholesome and wide-poised humorous philosopher, and the
author of _Fables in Slang_ is chiefly a satirist, whether in fable,
play or what not.

This volume might well have started with something by Washington
Irving, I suppose many critics would say. It does not seem to me,
however, that Irving's best short stories, such as _The Legend of
Sleepy Hollow_ and _Rip Van Winkle_, are essentially humorous stories,
although they are o'erspread with the genial light of reminiscence. It
is the armchair geniality of the eighteenth century essayists, a
constituent of the author rather than of his material and product.
Irving's best humorous creations, indeed, are scarcely short stories
at all, but rather essaylike sketches, or sketchlike essays. James
Lawson (1799-1880) in his _Tales and Sketches: by a Cosmopolite_
(1830), notably in _The Dapper Gentleman's Story_, is also plainly a
follower of Irving. We come to a different vein in the work of such
writers as William Tappan Thompson (1812-1882), author of the amusing
stories in letter form, _Major Jones's Courtship_ (1840); Johnson
Jones Hooper (1815-1862), author of _Widow Rugby's Husband, and Other
Tales of Alabama_ (1851); Joseph G. Baldwin (1815-1864), who wrote
_The Flush Times of Alabama and Mississippi_ (1853); and Augustus
Baldwin Longstreet (1790-1870), whose _Georgia Scenes_ (1835) are as
important in "local color" as they are racy in humor. Yet none of
these writers yield the excellent short story which is also a good
piece of humorous literature. But they opened the way for the work of
later writers who did attain these combined excellences.

The sentimental vein of the midcentury is seen in the work of Seba
Smith (1792-1868), Eliza Leslie (1787-1858), Frances Miriam Whitcher
("Widow Bedott," 1811-1852), Mary W. Janvrin (1830-1870), and Alice
Bradley Haven Neal (1828-1863). The well-known work of Joseph Clay
Neal (1807-1847) is so all pervaded with caricature and humor that it
belongs with the work of the professional humorist school rather than
with the short story writers. To mention his _Charcoal Sketches, or
Scene