echo of a dream. It is one thing to build a story; it is
quite another thing to write it: and in Poe's case it is evident that
an appreciable interval of time must have elapsed between his
accomplishment of the first, and his undertaking of the second,
effort. He built his stories intellectually, in cold blood; he wrote
them emotionally, in esthetic exaltation: and the two moods are so
distinct and mutually exclusive that they must have been successive
instead of coexistent. Some authors build better than they write;
others write better than they build. Seldom, very seldom, is a man
equipped, as Poe was, with an equal mastery of structure and of style.
Yet though unity of form may be attained through structure alone,
unity of mood is dependent mainly upon style. The language should be
pitched throughout in tune with the emotional significance of the
narrative effect to be produced. Any sentence which is tuned out of
harmony will jangle and disrupt the unity of mood, which is as
necessary to a great short-story as it is to a great lyric poem.
Hawthorne, though his structure was frequently at fault, proved the
greatness of his art by maintaining, through sheer mastery of
style, an absolute unity of mood in every story that he undertook.
Mr. Kipling has not always done so, because he has frequently used
language more with manner than with style; but in his best stories,
like "The Brushwood Boy" and "They," there is a unity of tone
throughout the writing that sets them on the plane of highest art.

[8] The analysis of "Ligeia" which follows was first printed in the
_Reader_ for February, 1906. It is here resumed with a few
revisions of detail.

REVIEW QUESTIONS

1. What are the main points to be considered in constructing a
short-story?

2. Explain the technical importance of the last paragraph, and the
first paragraph, of a short-story.

3. Analyze a great short-story according to the method illustrated in
the foregoing analyses of "Ligeia" and "The Prodigal Son."

SUGGESTED READING

EDGAR ALLAN POE: "The Fall of the House of Usher."

NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE: "The White Old Maid."

BRET HARTE: "Tennessee's Pardner."

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON: "Markheim."

RUDYARD KIPLING: "Without Benefit of Clergy."

KENNETH GRAHAME: "The Roman Road."

F. J. STIMSON: "Mrs. Knollys."

GUY DE MAUPASSANT: "The Necklace."

ALPHONSE DAUDET: "The Last Class."

H. C. BUNNER: "A Sisterly Scheme."

O. HE