ts the relation between the two forms they designate.
But it is greatly to be regretted that we do not have in English a
distinctive word that is the equivalent of _conte_. Edgar Allan Poe
used the word "tale" with similar meaning; but this term is so
indefinite and vague that it has been discarded by later critics. It
is customary at the present day to use the word "short-story," which
Professor Brander Matthews has suggested spelling with a hyphen to
indicate that it has a special and technical significance.

The French apply the term _roman_ to extensive works like "Notre Dame
de Paris" and "Eugenie Grandet"; and they apply the term _nouvelle_ to
works of briefer compass but similar method, like the "Colomba" and
the "Carmen" of Prosper Merimee. In English we may class as novels
works like "Kenilworth," "The Newcomes," "The Last of the Mohicans,"
"The Rise of Silas Lapham"; and we may class as novelettes works like
"Daisy Miller," "The Treasure of Franchard," "The Light That Failed."
The difference is merely that the novelette (or _nouvelle_) is a work
of less extent, and covers a smaller canvas, than the novel (or
_roman_). The distinction is quantitative but not qualitative. The
novelette deals with fewer characters and incidents than the novel; it
usually limits itself to a stricter economy of time and place; it
presents a less extensive view of life, with (most frequently) a more
intensive art. But these differences are not definite enough to
warrant its being considered a species distinct from the novel. Except
for the restrictions imposed by brevity of compass, the writer of
novelettes employs the same methods as the writer of novels; and,
furthermore, he sets forth similar materials.

=The Novel and the Novelette.=--More and more in recent years, the
novel has tended to shorten to the novelette. A stricter sense of art
has led to the exclusion of digressive and discursive passages; and
the hurry and preoccupation of contemporary readers has militated
against the leisurely and rambling habit of the authors of an earlier
time. The lesson of excision and condensation has been taught by
writers as different in tone as Merimee, Turgenieff, and Stevenson.
"The three-volume novel is extinct," as Mr. Kipling stated in the
motto prefixed to the poem called "The Three-Decker," in which, with a
commingling of satire and sentiment, he chanted its requiem. It was
nearly always, in the matter of structure, a slovenly form;