Similar stories are to be found in many different literatures because
human nature is fundamentally the same the world over; that is, people
are swayed by the same motives, such as love, hate, fear, and the like.
Another reason for this similarity is the fact that nations borrowed
stories from other nations, changing the names and circumstances.
Writers of power took old and crude stories and made of them matchless
tales which endure in their new form, e.g. Hawthorne's _Rappaccini's
Daughter_. Finally the present day dawned and with it what we call the
short-story.

The short-story--Prof. Brander Matthews has suggested the hyphen to
differentiate it from the story which is merely short and to indicate
that it is a new species[1]--is a narrative which is short and has
unity, compression, originality, and ingenuity, each in a high
degree.[2] The notion of shortness as used in this definition may be
inexactly though easily grasped by considering the length of the average
magazine story. Compression means that nothing must be included that can
be left out. Clayton Hamilton expresses this idea by the convenient
phrase "economy of means."[3] By originality is meant something new in
plot, point, outcome, or character. (See Introduction III for a
discussion of these terms.) Ingenuity suggests cleverness in handling
the theme. The short-story also is impressionistic because it leaves to
the reader the reconstruction from hints of much of the setting and
details.

[Footnote 1: _The Philosophy of the Short-Story in Pen and Ink_, page
72. (Longmans, Green & Co., 1888.)]

[Footnote 2: _Ibid._]

[Footnote 3: _Materials of Fiction_, page 175. (Doubleday, Page & Co.,
1912.)]

Mr. Hamilton has also constructed another useful definition. He says:
"The aim of a short-story is to produce a single narrative effect with
the greatest economy of means that is consistent with the utmost
emphasis."[4]

[Footnote 4: _Materials of Fiction_, page 173. (Doubleday, Page & Co.,
1912.)]

However, years before, in 1842, in his celebrated review of Hawthorne's
_Tales_[5] Edgar Allan Poe had laid down the same theory, in which he
emphasizes what he elsewhere calls, after Schlegel, the unity or
totality of interest, _i.e._ unity of impression, effect, and economy.
Stevenson, too, has written critically of the short-story, laying stress
on this essential unity, pointing out how each effect leads to the next,
and how the end is part of the begin