ibute equally to the development of the story. In
one of our stories the main character is a dog, but he is so human that
we may still say that the chief question to be answered under this
heading is _Who?_

Many books have been written about these three parts of a short story,
but the great lesson to be learned is that the excellence of a story,
long or short, consists not in the separate excellence of the Setting or
of the Plot or of the Characters but in the perfect blending of the
three to produce a single effect or to impress a single truth. If the
Setting does not fit the Plot, if the Plot does not rise gracefully from
the Setting, if the Characters do not move naturally and
self-revealingly through both, the story is a failure. Emerson might
well have had our three parts of the short story in mind when he wrote,

All are needed by each one;
Nothing is fair or good alone.

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

I. ESTHER, From the Old Testament

II. THE HISTORY OF ALI BABA AND THE FORTY ROBBERS, From "The
Arabian Nights"

III. RIP VAN WINKLE, By Washington Irving

IV. THE GOLD-BUG, By Edgar Allan Poe

V. A CHRISTMAS CAROL, By Charles Dickens

VI. THE GREAT STONE FACE, By Nathaniel Hawthorne

VII. RAB AND HIS FRIENDS, By Dr. John Brown

VIII. THE OUTCASTS OF POKER FLAT, By Bret Harte

IX. MARKHEIM, By Robert Louis Stevenson

X. THE NECKLACE, By Guy de Maupassant

XI. THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING, By Rudyard Kipling

XII. THE GIFT OF THE MAGI, By O. Henry

SHORT STORIES

I. ESTHER[*]

[* From the Old Testament, Authorized Version.]

AUTHOR UNKNOWN

[_Setting_. The events take place in Susa, the capital of Persia, in the
reign of Ahasuerus, or Xerxes (485-465 B.C.). This foreign locale
intensifies the splendid Jewish patriotism that breathes through the
story from beginning to end. If the setting had been in Jerusalem,
Esther could not have preached the noble doctrine, "When in Rome, don't
do as Rome does, but be true to the old ideals of home and race."

_Plot_. "Esther" seems to me the best-told story in the Bible. Observe
how the note of empty Persian bigness versus simple Jewish faith is
struck at the very beginning and is echoed to the end. Thus, Ahasuerus
ruled over one hundred and twenty-seven provinces, the opening banquet
lasted one hundred and eighty-seven days, the king's bulletins were as
unalterable as the tides, the gallows erected was eighty-three feet
high