t by them
from Africa. Whether they originated there, or with the Arabs, or
Egyptians, or with yet more ancient nations, must still be an open
question. Whether the Indians got them from the negroes or from some
earlier source is equally uncertain." Whatever be the final solution
to this problem, enough has been said to show that the beast-fable is,
in all probability, the most primitive form of short-story which we
possess.

III

For our purpose, that of tracing the evolution of the English
short-story, its history commences with the _Gesta Romanorum_. At the
authorship of this collection of mediaeval tales, many guesses have
been made. Nothing is known with certainty; it seems probable,
however, judging from the idioms which occur, that it took its present
form in England, about the end of the thirteenth or the beginning of
the fourteenth century, and thence passed to the Continent. The work
is written in Latin, and was evidently compiled by a man in holy
orders, for its guiding purpose is to edify. In this we can trace the
influence of Aesop's beast-fables, which were moral lessons drawn from
the animal creation for the instruction of mankind. Every chapter of
the _Gesta Romanorum_ consists of a moral tale; so much so that in
many cases the application of the moral is as long as the tale itself.

The title of the collection, _The Deeds of the Romans_, is scarcely
justified; in the main it is a garnering of all the deathless plots
and dramatic motives which we find scattered up and down the ages, in
the legend and folklore of whatsoever nation. The themes of many of
its stories were being told, their characters passing under other
names, when Romulus and Remus were suckled by their wolf-mother,
before there was a Roman nation or a city named Rome.

In the Bible we have many admirable specimens of the short-story.
Jotham's parable of the trees of the wood choosing a king is as good
an instance of the nature-fable, touched with fine irony and humor, as
could be found. The Hebrew prophet himself was often a story-teller.
Thus, when Nathan would bring home the nature of his guilt to David,
he does it by a story of the most dramatic character, which loses
nothing, and indeed gains all its terrific impact, by being strongly
impregnated with moral passion. Many such instances will occur to
the student of the Bible. In the absence of a written or printed
literature the story-teller had a distinct vocation, as he still