Short-Stories
by
Various
Part 1 out of 5
Produced by Charles Aldarondo, Keith M. Eckrich, and the Online
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SHORT-STORIES
EDITED BY L.A. PITTENGER, A.M., CRITIC IN ENGLISH, INDIANA UNIVERSITY
New York: THE MACMILLAN COMPANY, 1914
Set up and electrotyped. Published November, 1913. Reprinted January,
1914.
Norwood Press, J.S. Cushing Co.--Berwick & Smith Co., Norwood, Mass.,
U.S.A.
A PREFATORY NOTE
This collection of short-stories does not illustrate the history of
short-story writing, nor does it pretend that these are the ten best
stories ever written, but it does attempt to present selections from a
list of the greatest short-stories that have proved, in actual use,
most beneficial to high school students.
The introduction presents a concise statement of the essentials of the
history, qualities, and composition of the short-story. A brief
biography of each author and a criticism covering the main
characteristics of his writings serve as starting points for the
recitation. The references following both the biography and criticism
are given in order that the study of the short-story may be amplified,
and that high school teachers may build a systematic and serviceable
library about their class work in the teaching of the story. The
collateral readings, listed after each story, will aid in the creation
of a suitable atmosphere for the story studied, and explain many
questions developed in the recitation. Only such definitions as are
not easily found in school dictionaries are included in the notes.
CONTENTS
PREFATORY NOTE
INTRODUCTION:
History of the Short-story
Qualities of the Short-story
Composition of the Short-story
Books for Reference
Collections of Short-stories
THE FATHER. 1860. Bjoernstjerne Bjoernson.
THE GRIFFIN AND THE MINOR CANON. 1887. Frank R. Stockton.
THE PIECE OF STRING. 1884. Guy de Maupassant.
THE MAN WHO WAS. 1889. Rudyard Kipling.
THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER. 1839. Edgar Allan Poe.
THE GOLD-BUG. 1843. Edgar Allan Poe.
THE BIRTHMARK. 1843. Nathaniel Hawthorne.
ETHAN BRAND. 1848. Nathaniel Hawthorne.
THE SIRE DE MALETROIT'S DOOR. 1878. Robert Louis Stevenson.
MARKHEIM. 1884. Robert Louis Stevenson.
INTRODUCTION
HISTORY OF THE SHORT-STORY
Just when, where, and by whom story-telling was begun no one can say.
From the first use of speech, no doubt, our ancestors have told
stories of war, love, mysteries, and the miraculous performances of
lower animals and inanimate objects. The ultimate source of all
stories lies in a thorough democracy, unhampered by the restrictions
of a higher civilization. Many tales spring from a loathsome filth
that is extremely obnoxious to our present day tastes. The remarkable
and gratifying truth is, however, that the short-story, beginning in
the crude and brutal stages of man's development, has gradually
unfolded to greater and more useful possibilities, until in our own
time it is a most flexible and moral literary form.
The first historical evidence in the development of the story shows no
conception of a short-story other than that it is not so long as other
narratives. This judgment of the short-story obtained until the
beginning of the nineteenth century, when a new version of its meaning
was given, and an enlarged vision of its possibilities was experienced
by a number of writers almost simultaneously. In the early centuries
of story-telling there was only one purpose in mind--that of narrating
for the joy of the telling and hearing. The story-tellers sacrificed
unity and totality of effect as well as originality for an
entertaining method of reciting their incidents.
The story of _Ruth_ and the _Prodigal Son_ are excellent short tales,
but they do not fulfill the requirements of our modern short-story for
the reason that they are not constructed for one single impression,
but are in reality parts of possible longer stories. They are, as it
were, parts of stories not unlike _Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde_ and _A
Lear of the Steppes_, and lack those complete and concise artistic
effects found in the short-stories, _Markheim_ and _Mumu_, by the same
authors. Both _Ruth_ and the _Prodigal Son_ are exceptionally well
told, possess a splendid moral tone, and are excellent prophecies of
what the nineteenth century has developed for us in the art of
short-story writing.
The Greeks did very little writing in prose until the era of their
decadence, and showed little instinct to use the concise and unified
form of the short-story. The conquering Romans followed closely in the
paths of their predecessors and did little work in the shorter
narratives. The myths of Greece and Rome were not bound by facts, and
opened a wonderland where writers were free to roam. The epics were
slow in movement, and presented a list of loosely organized stories
arranged about some character like Ulysses or AEneas.
During the mediaeval period story-tellers and stories appeared
everywhere. The more ignorant of these story-tellers produced the
fable, and the educated monks produced the simple, crude and
disjointed tales. The _Gesta Romanorum_ is a wonderful storehouse of
these mediaeval stories. In the _Decameron_ Boccaccio deals with
traditional and contemporary materials. He is a born story-teller and
presents many interesting and well-told narratives, but as Professor
Baldwin[1] has said, more than half are merely anecdotes, and the
remaining stories are bare plots, ingeniously done in a kind of
scenario form. Three approach our modern idea of the short-story, and
two, the second story of the second day and the sixth story of the
ninth day, actually attain to our standard. Boccaccio was not
conscious of a standard in short-story telling, for he had none in the
sense that Poe and Maupassant defined and practiced it. Chaucer in
England told his stories in verse and added the charm of humor and
well defined characters to the development of story-telling.
In the seventeenth century Cervantes gave the world its first great
novel, _Don Quixote_. Cervantes was careless in his work and did not
write short-stories, but tales that are fairly brief. Spain added to
the story a high sense of chivalry and a richness of character that
the Greek romance and the Italian novella did not possess. France
followed this loose composition and lack of beauty in form. Scarron
and Le Sage, the two French fiction writers of this period,
contributed little or nothing to the advancement of story-telling.
Cervantes' _The Liberal Lover_ is as near as this period came to
producing a real short-story.
The story-telling of the seventeenth century was largely shaped by the
popularity of the drama. In the eighteenth century the drama gave
place to the essay, and it is to the sketch and essay that we must go
to trace the evolution of the story during this period. Voltaire in
France had a burning message in every essay, and he paid far greater
attention to the development of the thought of his message than to the
story he was telling. Addison and Steele in the _Spectator_ developed
some real characters of the fiction type and told some good stories,
but even their best, like _Theodosius and Constantia_, fall far short
of developing all the dramatic possibilities, and lack the focusing of
interest found in the nineteenth century stories. Some of Lamb's
_Essays of Elia_, especially the _Dream Children_, introduce a
delicate fancy and an essayist's clearness of thought and statement
into the story. At the close of this century German romanticism began
to seep into English thought and prepare the way for things new in
literary thought and treatment.
The nineteenth century opened with a decided preference for fiction.
Washington Irving, reverting to the _Spectator_, produced his
sketches, and, following the trend of his time, looked forward to a
new form and wrote _The Spectre Bridegroom_ and _Rip Van Winkle_. It
is only by a precise definition of short-story that Irving is robbed
of the honor of being the founder of the modern short-story. He loved
to meander and to fit his materials to his story scheme in a leisurely
manner. He did not quite see what Hawthorne instinctively followed and
Poe consciously defined and practiced, and he did not realize that
terseness of statement and totality of impression were the chief
qualities he needed to make him the father of a new literary form. Poe
and Maupassant have reduced the form of the short-story to an exact
science; Hawthorne and Harte have done successfully in the field of
romanticism what the Germans, Tieck and Hoffman, did not do so well;
Bjornson and Henry James have analyzed character psychologically in
their short-stories; Kipling has used the short-story as a vehicle for
the conveyance of specific knowledge; Stevenson has gathered most, if
not all, of the literary possibilities adaptable to short-story use,
and has incorporated them in his _Markheim_.
France with her literary newspapers and artistic tendencies, and the
United States with magazines calling incessantly for good
short-stories, and with every section of its conglomerate life
clamoring to express itself, lead in the production and rank of
short-stories. Maupassant and Stevenson and Hawthorne and Poe are the
great names in the ranks of short-story writers. The list of present
day writers is interminable, and high school students can best acquire
a reasonable appreciation of the great work these writers are doing by
reading regularly some of the better grade literary magazines.
For a comprehensive view of specimens representing the history and
development of the short-story, students should have access to Brander
Matthews' _The Short Story_, Jessup and Canby's _The Book of the
Short-Story_, and Waite and Taylor's _Modern Masterpieces of Short
Prose Fiction_.
NOTE: [1] _American Short-Stories_, by Charles Sears Baldwin, New
York: Longmans, Green, & Company, 1904.
QUALITIES OF THE SHORT-STORY
It was not until well along in the nineteenth century that any one
attempted to define the short-story. The three quotations given here
are among the best things that have been spoken on this subject.
"The right novella is never a novel cropped back from the size of a
tree to a bush, or the branch of a tree stuck into the ground and made
to serve for a bush. It is another species, destined by the agencies
at work in the realm of unconsciousness to be brought into being of
its own kind, and not of another,"--W.D. Howells, _North American
Review_, 173:429.
"A true short-story is something other and something more than a mere
story which is short. A true short-story differs from the novel
chiefly in its essential unity of impression. In a far more exact and
precise use of the word, a short-story has unity as a novel cannot
have it.... A short-story deals with a single character, a single
event, a single emotion, or the series of emotions called forth by a
single situation.--Brander Matthews, _The Philosophy of the
Short-Story_.
"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."--Clayton Hamilton, _Materials and Methods of Fiction_.
The short-story must always have a compact unity and a direct
simplicity. In such stories as Bjoernson's _The Father_ and
Maupassant's _The Piece of String_ this simplicity is equal to that of
the anecdote, but in no case can an anecdote possess the dramatic
possibilities of these simple short-stories; for a short-story must
always have that tensity of emotion that comes only in the crucial
tests of life.
The short-story does not demand the consistency in treatment of the
long story, for there are not so many elements to marshal and direct
properly, but the short-story must be original and varied in its
themes, cleverly constructed, and lighted through and through with the
glow of vivid imaginings. A single incident in daily life is caught as
in a snap-shot exposure and held before the reader in such a manner
that the impression of the whole is derived largely from suggestion.
The single incident may be the turning-point in life history, as in
_The Man Who Was_; it may be a mental surrender of habits fixed
seemingly in indelible colors in the soul and a sudden, inflexible
decision to be a man, as in the case of _Markheim;_ or it may be a
gradual realization of the value of spiritual gifts, as Bjoernson has
concisely presented it in his little story _The Father_.
The aim of the short-story is always to present a cross-section of
life in such a vivid manner that the importance of the incident
becomes universal. Some short-stories are told with the definite end
in view of telling a story for the sake of exploiting a plot. _The
Cask of Amontillado_ is all action in comparison with _The Masque of
the Red Death. The Gold-Bug_ sets for itself the task of solving a
puzzle and possesses action from first to last. Other stories teach a
moral. _Ethan Brand_ deals with the unpardonable sin, and _The Great
Stone Face_ is our classic story in the field of ideals and their
development. Hawthorne, above all writers, is most interested in
ethical laws and moral development. Still other stories aim to portray
character. Miss Jewett and Mrs. Freeman veraciously picture the
faded-put womanhood in New England; Henry James and Bjoernson turn the
x-rays of psychology and sociology on their characters; Stevenson
follows with the precision of the tick of a watch the steps in
Markheim's mental evolution.
The types of the short-story are as varied as life itself. Addison,
Lamb, Irving, Warner, and many others have used the story in their
sketches and essays with wonderful effect. _The Legend of Sleepy
Hollow_ is as impressive as any of Scott's tales. The allegory in _The
Great Stone Face_ loses little or nothing when compared with Bunyan's
_Pilgrim's Progress_. No better type of detective story has been
written than the two short-stories, _The Murders in the Rue Morgue_
and _The Purloined Letter_. Every emotion is subject to the call of
the short-story. Humor with its expansive free air is not so well
adapted to the short-story as is pathos. There is a sadness in the
stories of Dickens, Garland, Page, Mrs. Freeman, Miss Jewett,
Maupassant, Poe, and many others that runs the whole gamut from
pleasing tenderness in _A Child's Dream of a Star_ to unutterable
horror in _The Fall of the House of Usher_.
The short-story is stripped of all the incongruities that led
Fielding, Scott, and Dickens far afield. All its parts harmonize in
the simplest manner to give unity and "totality" of impression through
strict unity of form. It is a concentrated piece of life snatched from
the ordinary and uneventful round of living and steeped in fancy until
it becomes the acme of literary art.
COMPOSITION OF THE SHORT-STORY
Any student who wishes to express himself correctly and pleasingly,
and desires a keener sense for the appreciation of literary work must
write. The way others have done the thing never appears in a forceful
light until one sets himself at a task of like nature. Just so in the
study of this text. To find and appreciate the better points of the
short-story, students must write stories of their own, patterned in a
small way on the technique of the masterpieces.
The process of short-story writing follows in a general way the
following program. In the first place the class must have something
interesting and suggestive to write about. Sometimes the class can
suggest a subject; newspapers almost every day give incidents worthy
of story treatment; happenings in the community often give the very
best material for stories; and phases of the literature work may well
be used in the development of students' themes. Change the type of
character and place, reconstruct the plot, or require a different
ending for the story, leaving the plot virtually as it is, and then
assign to the class. Boys and girls should invariably be taught to see
stories in the life about them, in the newspapers and magazines on
their library tables, and in the masterpieces they study in their
class work.
After the idea that the class wishes to develop has been definitely
determined and the material for this development has been gathered and
grouped about the idea, the class should select a viewpoint and
proceed to write. Sometimes the author should tell the story,
sometimes a third person who may be of secondary importance in the
story should be given the role of the story-teller, sometimes the
whole may be in dialogue. The class should choose a fitting method.
Young writers should be very careful about the beginning of a story.
An action story should start with a striking incident that catches the
reader's attention at once and forecasts subsequent happenings. In
every case this first incident must have in it the essence of the end
of the story and should be perfectly logical to the reader after he
has finished the reading. A story in which the setting is emphasized
can well begin, with a description and contain a number of
descriptions and expositions, distributed with a sense of propriety
throughout the theme. A good method to use in the opening of a
character story is that of conversation. An excellent example of a
sharp use of this device is Mrs. Freeman's _Revolt of Mother_, where
the first paragraph is a single spoken word.
Every incident included in the story should be tested for its value in
the development of the theme. An incident that does not amplify
certain phases of the story has no right to be included, and great
care should be used in an effort to incorporate just the material
necessary for the proper evolution of the thought. The problem is not
so much what can be secured to be included in the story, but rather,
after making a thorough collection of the material, what of all these
points should be cast out.
The ending must be a natural outgrowth of the development found in the
body of the composition. Even in a story with a surprise ending, of
which we are tempted to say that we have had no preparation for such a
turn in the story, there must be hints--the subtler the better--that
point unerringly and always toward the end. The end is presupposed in
the beginning and the changing of one means the altering of the other.
Young writers have trouble in stopping at the right place. They should
learn, as soon as possible, that to drag on after the logical ending
has been reached spoils the best of stories. It is just as bad to stop
before arriving at the true end. In other words there is only one
place for the ending of a story, and in no case can it be shifted
without ruining the idea that has obtained throughout the theme.
There are certain steps in the development of story-writing that
should be followed if the best results are to be obtained. The first
assignment should require only the writing of straight narrative. _The
Arabian Nights Tales_ and children's stories represent this type of
writing and will give the teacher valuable aid in the presentation of
this work. After the students have produced simple stories resembling
the Sinbad Voyages, they should next add descriptions of persons and
places and explanations of situations to develop clearness and
interest in their original productions. Taking these themes in turn
students should be required to introduce plot incidents that
complicate the simple happenings and divert the straightforward trend
of the narrative. Now that the stories are well developed in their
descriptions, expositions, and plot interests they should be tested
for their emotional effects. Students should go through their themes,
and by making the proper changes give in some cases a humorous and in
others a pathetic or tragic effect. These few suggestions are given to
emphasize the facts that no one conceives a story in all its details
in a moment of inspiration, and that there is a way of proceeding that
passes in logical gradations from the simplest to the most complex
phases of story writing.
Franklin and Stevenson knew no rules for writing other than to
practice incessantly on some form they wished to imitate. Hard work is
the first lesson that boys and girls must learn in the art of writing,
and a systematic gradation of assignments is what the teacher must
provide for his students. Walter Besant gave the following rules for
novel writers. Some of them may be suggestive to writers of the high
school age, so the list is given in its complete form. "(1) Practice
writing something original every day. (2) Cultivate the habit of
observation. (3) Work regularly at certain hours. (4) Read no rubbish.
(5) Aim at the formation of style. (6) Endeavor to be dramatic. (7) A
great element of dramatic skill is selection. (8) Avoid the sin of
writing about a character. (9) Never attempt to describe any kind of
life except that with which you are familiar. (10) Learn as much as
you can about men and women. (11) For the sake of forming a good
natural style, and acquiring command of language, write poetry."
SHORT-STORY LIBRARY
_BOOKS FOR REFERENCE_:
_American Short-Stories_, Charles Baldwin, Longmans, Green, & Co.
_A Study of Prose Fiction_, Chapter XII, Bliss Perry, Houghton,
Mifflin Co.
_Composition Rhetoric_, T.C. Blaisdell, American Book Co.
_Forms of Prose Literature_, J.H. Gardiner, Charles Scribner's Sons.
_Materials and Methods of Fiction_, Clayton Hamilton, The Baker and
Taylor Co.
_Principles of Literary Criticism_, C.T. Winchester, The Macmillan Co.
_Short-Story Writing_, C.R. Barrett. The Baker and Taylor Co.
_Specimens of the Short-Story_, G.H. Nettleton, H. Holt & Co.
_Story-Writing and Journalism_, Sherwin Cody, Funk & Wagnalls Co.
_Talks on Writing English_, Arlo Bates, Houghton Mifflin Co.
_The Writing of the Short-Story_, L.W. Smith, D.C. Heath & Co.
_The Philosophy of the Short-Story_, Brander Matthews, Longmans,
Green, & Co.
_The World's Greatest Short-Stories_, Sherwin Cody, A.C. McClurg & Co.
_The Short-Story_, Henry Canby, Henry Holt & Co.
_The Short-Story_, Evelyn May Albright, The Macmillan Co.
_The Book of the Short-Story_, Jessup and Canby, D. Appleton & Co.
_Modern Masterpieces of Short Prose Fiction_, Waite and Taylor, D.
Appleton & Co.
_The Short-Story_, Brander Matthews, American Book Co.
_Writing the Short-Story_, Esenwein, Hinds, Noble & Eldredge.
_A Study of the Short-Story in English_, Henry Seidel Canby, Henry
Holt & Co.
COLLECTIONS OF SHORT-STORIES:_
_American Short-Stories_, Charles S. Baldwin, Longmans, Green, & Co.
_Great Short-Stories_, 3 vols., William Patten, P.F. Collier & Son.
_Little French Masterpieces_, 6 vols. Alexander Jessup, G.P. Putnam's
Sons.
_Short-Story Classics_ (American), 5 vols., William Patten, P.F.
Collier & Son.
_Short-Story Classics_ (Foreign), 5 vols., William Patten, P.F.
Collier & Son.
_Stories by American Authors_, 10 vols., Charles Scribner's Sons.
_Stories by English Authors_, 10 vols., Charles Scribner's Sons.
_Stories by Foreign Authors_, 10 vols., Charles Scribner's Sons.
_Stories New and Old_ (American and English), Hamilton W. Mabie, The
Macmillan Co.
_World's Greatest Short-Stories_, Sherwin Cody, A.C. McClurg & Co.
_The American Short-Story_, Elias Lieberman.
THE FATHER[1]
_By Bjoernstjerne Bjoernson (1838-1910)_
The man whose story is here to be told was the wealthiest and most
influential person in his parish; his name was Thord Oeveraas. He
appeared in the priest's study one day, tall and earnest.
"I have gotten a son," said he, "and I wish to present him for
baptism."
"What shall his name be?"
"Finn,--after my father."
"And the sponsors?"
They were mentioned, and proved to be the best men and women of
Thord's relations in the parish.
"Is there anything else?" inquired the priest, and looked up. The
peasant hesitated a little.
"I should like very much to have him baptized by himself," said he,
finally.
"That is to say on a week-day?"
"Next Saturday, at twelve o'clock noon."
"Is there anything else?" inquired the priest,
"There is nothing else;" and the peasant twirled his cap, as though he
were about to go.
Then the priest rose. "There is yet this, however." said he, and
walking toward Thord, he took him by the hand and looked gravely into
his eyes: "God grant that the child may become a blessing to you!"
One day sixteen years later, Thord stood once more in the priest's
study.
"Really, you carry your age astonishingly well, Thord," said the
priest; for he saw no change whatever in the man.
"That is because I have no troubles," replied Thord. To this the
priest said nothing, but after a while he asked: "What is your
pleasure this evening?"
"I have come this evening about that son of mine who is to be
confirmed to-morrow."
"He is a bright boy."
"I did not wish to pay the priest until I heard what number the boy
would have when he takes his place in the church to-morrow."
"He will stand number one."
"So I have heard; and here are ten dollars for the priest."
"Is there anything else I can do for you?" inquired the priest, fixing
his eyes on Thord.
"There is nothing else."
Thord went out.
Eight years more rolled by, and then one day a noise was heard outside
of the priest's study, for many men were approaching, and at their
head was Thord, who entered first.
The priest looked up and recognized him.
"You come well attended this evening, Thord," said he.
"I am here to request that the banns may be published for my son: he
is about to marry Karen Storliden, daughter of Gudmund, who stands
here beside me."
"Why, that is the richest girl in the parish."
"So they say," replied the peasant, stroking back his hair with one
hand.
The priest sat a while as if in deep thought, then entered the names
in his book, without making any comments, and the men wrote their
signatures underneath. Thord laid three dollars on the table.
"One is all I am to have," said the priest.
"I know that very well; but he is my only child; I want to do it
handsomely."
The priest took the money.
"This is now the third time, Thord, that you have come here on your
son's account."
"But now I am through with him," said Thord, and folding up his
pocket-book he said farewell and walked away.
The men slowly followed him.
A fortnight later, the father and son were rowing across the lake, one
calm, still day, to Storliden to make arrangements for the wedding.
"This thwart[2] is not secure," said the son, and stood up to
straighten the seat on which he was sitting.
At the same moment the board he was standing on slipped from under
him; he threw out his arms, uttered a shriek, and fell overboard.
"Take hold-of the oar!" shouted the father, springing to his feet, and
holding out the oar.
But when the son had made a couple of efforts he grew stiff.
"Wait a moment!" cried the father, and began to row toward his son.
Then the son rolled over on his back, gave his father one long look,
and sank.
Thord could scarcely believe it; he held the boat still, and stared at
the spot where his son had gone down, as though he must surely come to
the surface again. There rose some bubbles, then some more, and
finally one large one that burst; and the lake lay there as smooth and
bright as a mirror again.
For three days and three nights people saw the father rowing round and
round the spot, without taking either food or sleep; he was dragging
the lake for the body of his son. And toward morning of the third day
he found it, and carried it in his arms up over the hills to his
gard[3].
It might have been about a year from that day, when the priest, late
one autumn evening, heard some one in the passage outside of the door,
carefully trying to find the latch. The priest opened the door, and in
walked a tall, thin man, with bowed form and white hair. The priest
looked long at him before he recognized him. It was Thord.
"Are you out walking so late?" said the priest, and stood still in
front of him.
"Ah, yes! it is late," said Thord, and took a seat.
The priest sat down also, as though waiting. A long, long silence
followed. At last Thord said,--
"I have something with me that I should like to give to the poor; I
want it to be invested as a legacy in my son's name."
He rose, laid some money on the table, and sat down again. The priest
counted it.
"It is a great deal of money," said he.
"It is half the price of my gard. I sold it to-day."
The priest sat long in silence. At last he asked, but gently,--
"What do you propose to do now, Thord?"
"Something better."
They sat there for a while, Thord with downcast eyes, the priest with
his eyes fixed on Thord. Presently the priest said, slowly and
softly,--
"I think your son has at last brought you a true blessing."
"Yes, I think so myself," said Thord, looking up, while two big tears
coursed slowly down his cheeks.
NOTES
[1] This story was written in 1860. Translated from the Norwegian by
Professor Rasmus B. Anderson. It is printed by permission of and
special arrangement with _Houghton Mifflin Co._, publishers.
[2] 3:28 thwart. A seat, across a boat, on which the oarsman, sits.
[3] 4:21 gard. A Norwegian farm.
BIOGRAPHY
Bjoernstjerne Bjoernson, Norse poet, novelist, dramatist, orator, and
political leader, was born December 8, 1832, and died in Paris, April
26, 1910. From his strenuous father, a Lutheran priest who preached
with tongue and fist, he inherited the physique of a Norse god. He
possessed the mind of a poet and the arm of a warrior. At the age of
twelve he was sent to the Molde grammar school, where he proved
himself a very dull student. In 1852 ho entered the university in
Christiana. Here he neglected his studies to write poetry and
journalistic articles.
In politics Bjoernson was a tremendous force. Dr. Brandes has said; "To
speak the name of Bjoernson is like hoisting the colors of Norway." He
was honored as a king in his native land. He won this recognition by
no party affiliation, but by his natural gifts as a poet. His magnetic
eloquence, great message, and sterling character compelled his
countrymen to follow and honor him. He says of his success in this
field: "The secret with me is that in success as in failure, in the
consciousness of my doing as in my habits, I am myself. There are a
great many who dare not, or lack the ability, to be themselves." For
his views on political issues the following references may well be
used: _Independent_. January 31, 1901, pp. 253-257; _Current
Literature_, November, 1906, p. 581; and _Independent_, July 13, 1905,
pp. 92-94.
Bjoernson and Ibsen, the two foremost men of Norway, were very closely
associated throughout life. They were schoolmates, and both were
interested in writing and producing plays. Ibsen's son, Dr. Sigurd
Ibsen, married Bjoernson's daughter, Bergilot. These two great writers
were direct contrasts in nearly everything: Bjoernson lived among his
people, Ibsen was reserved; Bjoernson played the role of an optimistic
prophet, Ibsen, that of a pessimistic judge; the former was always a
conciliatory spirit, the latter a revolutionist; and Bjoernson proved
himself a patriotic Norwegian, Ibsen, a man of the entire world.
Lack of space forbids the inclusion of a list of Bjoernson's writing's.
High school teachers will find suitable selections in the list of
collateral readings that follows. Those who wish a complete
bibliography of his works will find it in _Bookman_, Volume II, p. 65.
Translations of his works by Rasmus B. Anderson, Houghton Mifflin Co.,
and Edmund Gosse, the Macmillan Co., will furnish students extensive
and standard readings of this master story-teller.
CRITICISMS
Bjoernson, in his masterly character delineations, seldom produces
portraits. He gives the reader suggestive glimpses often enough and of
the right quality and arrangement to produce a full and vigorous
conception of his characters. His female parts are especially well
done. His characters present themselves to the reader by unique
thinking and choice expressions. Students should analyze _The Father_
for this phase of character building. Note also the simplicity of the
words, sentences, paragraphs, and complete story arrangement, the
author's originality of story conception and expression, his short,
passionate, panting sentences, the poetic atmosphere that sweetens and
enriches his virile writing, and the correct, religious pictures he
paints of his beloved northland.
After having read a number of selections from Bjoernson, students will
see that he has a wonderful breadth of treatment for every imaginable
subject. He is so universal in his choice of subjects that Lemaitre in
his _Impressions of the Theatre_ half-humorously and half-ironically
puts these words in Bjoernson's mouth, "I am king in the spiritual
kingdom," and "there are two men in Europe who have genius, I and
Ibsen, granting that Ibsen has it."
GENERAL REFERENCES
_Adventures in Criticism_, A.T.Q. Couch.
_Essays on Modern Novelists_, William Lyon Phelps.
"Bjoernsoniana," _Dial_, January 16, 1903, pp. 37-38.
"Prophet-Poet of Norway," _Cosmopolitan_, April, 1903, pp. 621-631.
"Three Score and Ten," _Dial_, December, 1902, pp. 383-385.
COLLATERAL READINGS
_Lectures_, Volume I, John L. Stoddard.
_The Making of an American_, Chapters 1, 7, and Jacob Riis.
_Myths of Northern Lands_. Guerber.
_Synnove Solbakken_, Bjoernson.
_A Happy Boy_, Bjoernson.
_The Fisher Maiden_, Bjoernson.
_The Bridal March_, Bjoernson.
_Magnhild_, Bjoernson.
_A Dangerous Wooing_, Bjoernson.
_The Eagle's Nest_, Bjoernson.
_The Bear Hunter_, Bjoernson.
_Master and Man_, Leo Tolstoi.
_The Doll's House_, Henrik Ibsen.
_The Minister's Black Veil_, Nathaniel Hawthorne.
_The Ambitious Guest_, Nathaniel Hawthorne.
_The Beeman of Orn_, Frank R. Stockton.
_A Branch Road_, Hamlin Garland.
_Mateo Falcone_, Prosper Merimee.
_The Death of the Dauphin_, Alphonse Dadoed.
_The Birds' Christmas Carol_, Kate Douglas Wiggin.
_Tennessee's Partner_, Bret Harte.
THE GRIFFIN AND THE MINOR CANAAN[1]
_By Frank R. Stockton (1834-1902)_
Over the great door of an old, old church which stood in a quiet town
of a far-away land there was carved in stone the figure of a large
griffin. The old-time sculptor had done his work with great care, but
the image he had made was not a pleasant one to look at. It had a
large head, with enormous open mouth and savage teeth; from its back
arose great wings, armed with sharp hooks and prongs; it had stout
legs in front, with projecting claws; but there were no legs
behind,--the body running out into a long and powerful tail, finished
off at the end with a barbed point. This tail was coiled up under him,
the end sticking up just back of his wings.
The sculptor, or the people who had ordered this stone figure, had
evidently been very much pleased with it, for little copies of it,
also in stone, had been placed here and there along the sides of the
church, not very far from the ground, so that people could easily look
at them, and ponder on their curious forms. There were a great many
other sculptures on the outside of this church,--saints, martyrs,
grotesque heads of men, beasts, and birds, as well as those of other
creatures which cannot be named, because nobody knows exactly what
they were; but none were so curious and interesting as the great
griffin over the door, and the little griffins on the sides of the
church.
A long, long distance from the town, in the midst of dreadful wilds
scarcely known to man, there dwelt the Griffin whose image had been
put up over the churchgoer. In some way or other, the old-time
sculptor had seen him, and afterward, to the best of his memory, had
copied his figure in stone. The Griffin had never known this, until,
hundreds of years afterward, he heard from a bird, from a wild animal,
or in some manner which it is not now easy to find out, that there was
a likeness of him on the old church in the distant town. Now this
Griffin had no idea how he looked. He had never seen a mirror, and the
streams where he lived were so turbulent and violent that a quiet
piece of water, which would reflect the image of anything looking into
it, could not be found. Being, as far as could be ascertained, the
very last of his race, he had never seen another griffin. Therefore it
was, that, when he heard of this stone image of himself, he became
very anxious to know what he looked like, and at last he determined to
go to the old church, and see for himself what manner of being he was.
So he started off from the dreadful wilds, and flew on and on until he
came to the countries inhabited by men, where his appearance in the
air created great consternation; but he alighted nowhere, keeping up a
steady flight until he reached the suburbs of the town which had his
image on its church. Here, late in the afternoon, he alighted in a
green meadow by the side of a brook, and stretched himself on the
grass to rest. His great wings were tired, for he had not made such a
long flight in a century, or more.
The news of his coming spread quickly over the town, and the people,
frightened nearly out of their wits by the arrival of so extraordinary
a visitor, fled into their houses, and shut themselves up. The Griffin
called loudly for some one to come to him, but the more he called, the
more afraid the people were to show themselves. At length he saw two
laborers hurrying to their homes through the fields, and in a terrible
voice he commanded them to stop. Not daring to disobey, the men stood,
trembling.
"What is the matter with you all?" cried the Griffin. "Is there not a
man in your town who is brave enough to speak to me?"
"I think," said one of the laborers, his voice shaking so that his
words could hardly be understood, "that--perhaps--the Minor
Canon--would come."
"Go, call him, then!" said the Griffin; "I want to see him."
The Minor Canon, who filled a subordinate position in the church, had
just finished the afternoon services, and was coming out of a side
door, with three aged women who had formed the week-day congregation.
He was a young man of a kind disposition, and very anxious to do good
to the people of the town. Apart from his duties in the church, where
he conducted services every week-day, he visited the sick and the
poor, counseled and assisted persons who were in trouble, and taught a
school composed entirely of the bad children in the town with whom
nobody else would have anything to do. Whenever the people wanted
something difficult done for them, they always went to the Minor
Canon. Thus it was that the laborer thought of the young priest when
he found that some one must come and speak to the Griffin.
The Minor Canon had not heard of the strange event, which was known to
the whole town except himself and the three old women, and when he was
informed of it, and was told that the Griffin had asked to see him, he
was greatly amazed, and frightened.
"Me!" he exclaimed. "He has never heard of me! What should he want
with _me?_"
"Oh! you must go instantly!" cried the two men.
"He is very angry now because he has been kept waiting so long; and
nobody knows what may happen if you don't hurry to him."
The poor Minor Canon would rather have had his hand cut off than go
out to meet an angry griffin; but he felt that it was his duty to go,
or it would be a woeful thing if injury should come to the people of
the town because he was not brave enough to obey the summons of the
Griffin.
So, pale and frightened, he started off.
"Well," said the Griffin, as soon as the young man came near, "I am
glad to see that there is some one who has the courage to come to me."
The Minor Canon did not feel very courageous, but he bowed his head.
"Is this the town," said the Griffin, "where there is a church with a
likeness of myself over one of the doors?"
The Minor Canon looked at the frightful creature before him and saw
that it was, without doubt, exactly like the stone image on the
church. "Yes," he said, "you are right."
"Well, then," said the Griffin, "will you take me to it? I wish very
much to see it."
The Minor Canon instantly thought that if the Griffin entered the town
without the people knowing what he came for, some of them would
probably be frightened to death, and so he sought to gain time to
prepare their minds.
"It is growing dark, now," he said, very much afraid, as he spoke,
that his words might enrage the Griffin, "and objects on the front of
the church cannot be seen clearly. It will be better to wait until
morning, if you wish to get a good view of the stone image of
yourself."
"That will suit me very well," said the Griffin. "I see you are a man
of good sense. I am tired, and I will take a nap here on this soft
grass, while I cool my tail in the little stream that runs near me.
The end of my tail gets red-hot when I am angry or excited, and it is
quite warm now. So you may go, but be sure and come early to-morrow
morning, and show me the way to the church."
The Minor Canon was glad enough to take his leave, and hurried into
the town. In front of the church he found a great many people
assembled to hear his report of his interview with the Griffin. When
they found that he had not come to spread ruin and devastation, but
simply to see his stony likeness on the church, they showed neither
relief nor gratification, but began to upbraid the Minor Canon for
consenting to conduct the creature into the town.
"What could I do?" cried the young man, "If I should not bring him he
would come himself and, perhaps, end by setting fire to the town with
his red-hot tail."
Still the people were not satisfied, and a great many plans were
proposed to prevent the Griffin from coming into the town. Some
elderly persons urged that the young men should go out and kill him;
but the young men scoffed at such a ridiculous idea. Then some one
said that it would be a good thing to destroy the stone image so that
the Griffin would have no excuse for entering the town; and this
proposal was received with such favor that many of the people ran for
hammers, chisels, and crowbars, with which to tear down and break up
the stone griffin. But the Minor Canon resisted this plan with all the
strength of his mind and body. He assured the people that this action
would enrage the Griffin beyond measure, for it would be impossible to
conceal from him that his image had been destroyed during the night.
But the people were so determined to break up the stone griffin that
the Minor Canon saw that there was nothing for him to do but to stay
there and protect it. All night he walked up and down in front of the
church-door, keeping away the men who brought ladders, by which they
might mount to the great stone griffin, and knock it to pieces with
their hammers and crowbars. After many hours the people were obliged
to give up their attempts, and went home to sleep; but the Minor Canon
remained at his post till early morning, and then he hurried away to
the field where he had left the Griffin.
The monster had just awakened, and rising to his fore-legs and shaking
himself, he said that he was ready to go into the town. The Minor
Canon, therefore, walked back, the Griffin flying slowly through the
air, at a short distance above the head of his guide. Not a person was
to be seen in the streets, and they proceeded directly to the front of
the church, where the Minor Canon pointed out the stone griffin.
The real Griffin settled down in the little square before the church
and gazed earnestly at his sculptured likeness. For a long time he
looked at it. First he put his head on one side, and then he put it on
the other; then he shut his right eye and gazed with his left, after
which he shut his left eye and gazed with his right. Then he moved a
little to one side and looked at the image, then he moved the other
way. After a while he said to the Minor Canon, who had been standing
by all this time:
"It is, it must be, an excellent likeness! That breadth between the
eyes, that expansive forehead, those massive jaws! I feel that it must
resemble me. If there is any fault to find with it, it is that the
neck seems a little stiff. But that is nothing. It is an admirable
likeness,--admirable!"
The Griffin sat looking at his image all the morning and all the
afternoon. The Minor Canon had been afraid to go away and leave him,
and had hoped all through the day that he would soon be satisfied with
his inspection and fly away home. But by evening the poor young man
was utterly exhausted, and felt that he must eat and sleep. He frankly
admitted this fact to the Griffin, and asked him if he would not like
something to eat. He said this because he felt obliged in politeness
to do so, but as soon as he had spoken the words, he was seized with
dread lest the monster should demand half a dozen babies, or some
tempting repast of that kind.
"Oh, no," said the Griffin, "I never eat between the equinoxes. At the
vernal and at the autumnal equinox I take a good meal, and that lasts
me for half a year. I am extremely regular in my habits, and do not
think it healthful to eat at odd times. But if you need food, go and
get it, and I will return to the soft grass where I slept last night
and take another nap."
The next day the Griffin came again to the little square before the
church, and remained there until evening, steadfastly regarding the
stone griffin over the door. The Minor Canon came once or twice to
look at him, and the Griffin seemed very glad to see him; but the
young clergyman could not stay as he had done before, for he had many
duties to perform. Nobody went to the church, but the people came to
the Minor Canon's house, and anxiously asked him how long the Griffin
was going to stay.
"I do not know," he answered, "but I think he will soon be satisfied
with regarding his stone likeness, and then he will go away."
But the Griffin did not go away. Morning after morning he came to the
church, but after a time he did not stay there all day. He seemed to
have taken a great fancy to the Minor Canon, and followed him about as
he pursued his various avocations. He would wait for him at the side
door of the church, for the Minor Canon held services every day,
morning and evening, though nobody came now. "If any one should come,"
he said to himself, "I must be found at my post." When the young man
came out, the Griffin would accompany him in his visits to the sick
and the poor, and would often look into the windows of the schoolhouse
where the Minor Canon was teaching his unruly scholars. All the other
schools were closed, but the parents of the Minor Canon's scholars
forced them to go to school, because they were so bad they could not
endure them all day at home,--griffin or no griffin. But it must be
said they generally behaved very well when that great monster sat up
on his tail and looked in at the schoolroom window.
When it was perceived that the Griffin showed no signs of going away,
all the people who were able to do so left the town. The canons and
the higher officers of the church had fled away during the first day
of the Griffin's visit, leaving behind only the Minor Canon and some
of the men who opened the doors and swept the church. All the citizens
who could afford it shut up their houses and travelled to distant
parts, and only the working people and the poor were left behind.
After some days these ventured to go about and attend to their
business, for if they did not work they would starve. They were
getting a little used to seeing the Griffin, and having been told that
he did not eat between equinoxes, they did not feel so much afraid of
him as before. Day by day the Griffin became more and more attached to
the Minor Canon, He kept near him a great part of the time, and often
spent the night in front of the little house where the young clergyman
lived alone. This strange companionship was often burdensome to the
Minor Canon; but, on the other hand, he could not deny that he derived
a great deal of benefit and instruction from it. The Griffin had lived
for hundreds of years, and had seen much; and he told the Minor Canon
many wonderful things.
"It is like reading an old book," said the young clergyman to himself;
"but how many books I would have had to read before I would have found
out what the Griffin has told me about the earth, the air, the water,
about minerals, and metals, and growing things, and all the wonders of
the world!"
Thus the summer went on, and drew toward its close. And now the people
of the town began to be very much troubled again.
"It will not be long," they said, "before the autumnal equinox is
here, and then that monster will want to eat. He will be dreadfully
hungry, for he has taken so much exercise since his last meal. He will
devour our children. Without doubt, he will eat them all. What is to
be done?"
To this question no one could give an answer, but all agreed that the
Griffin must not be allowed to remain until the approaching equinox.
After talking over the matter a great deal, a crowd of the people went
to the Minor Canon, at a time when the Griffin was not with him.
"It is all your fault," they said, "that that monster is among us. You
brought him here, and you ought to see that he goes away. It is only
on your account that he stays here at all, for, although he visits his
image every day, he is with you the greater part of the time. If you
were not here, he would not stay. It is your duty to go away and then
he will follow you, and we shall be free from the dreadful danger
which hangs over us."
"Go away!" cried the Minor Canon, greatly grieved at being spoken to
in such a way. "Where shall I go? If I go to some other town, shall I
not take this trouble there? Have I a right to do that?"
"No," said the people, "you must not go to any other town. There is no
town far enough away. You must go to the dreadful wilds where the
Griffin lives; and then he will follow you and stay there."
They did not say whether or not they expected the Minor Canon to stay
there also, and he did not ask them any thing about it. He bowed his
head, and went into his house, to think. The more he thought, the more
clear it became to his mind that it was his duty to go away, and thus
free the town from the presence of the Griffin.
That evening he packed a leathern bag full of bread and meat, and
early the next morning he set out on his journey to the dreadful
wilds. It was a long, weary, and doleful journey, especially after he
had gone beyond the habitations of men, but the Minor Canon kept on
bravely, and never faltered. The way was longer than he had expected,
and his provisions soon grew so scanty that he was obliged to eat but
a little every day, but he kept up his courage, and pressed on, and,
after many days of toilsome travel, he reached the dreadful wilds.
When the Griffin found that the Minor Canon had left the town he
seemed sorry, but showed no disposition to go and look for him. After
a few days had passed, he became much annoyed, and asked some of the
people where the Minor Canon had gone. But, although the citizens had
been anxious that the young clergyman should go to the dreadful wilds,
thinking that the Griffin would immediately follow him, they were now
afraid to mention the Minor Canon's destination, for the monster
seemed angry already, and, if he should suspect their trick, he would
doubtless become very much enraged. So every one said he did not know,
and the Griffin wandered about disconsolate. One morning he looked
into the Minor Canon's schoolhouse, which was always empty now, and
thought that it was a shame that every thing should suffer on account
of the young man's absence.
"It does not matter so much about the church," he said, "for nobody
went there; but it is a pity about the school. I think I will teach it
myself until he returns."
It was the hour for opening the school, and the Griffin went inside
and pulled the rope which rang the schoolbell. Some of the children
who heard the bell ran in to see what was the matter, supposing it to
be a joke of one of their companions; but when they saw the Griffin
they stood astonished, and scared.
"Go tell the other scholars," said the monster, "that school is about
to open, and that if they are not all here in ten minutes, I shall
come after them." In seven minutes every scholar was in place.
Never was seen such an orderly school. Not a boy or girl moved, or
uttered a whisper. The Griffin climbed into the master's seat, his
wide wings spread on each side of him, because he could not lean back
in his chair while they stuck out behind, and his great tail coiled
around, in front of the desk, the barbed end sticking up, ready to tap
any boy or girl who might misbehave. The Griffin now addressed the
scholars, telling them that he intended to teach them while their
master was away. In speaking he endeavored to imitate, as far as
possible, the mild and gentle tones of the Minor Canon, but it must be
admitted that in this he was not very successful. He had paid a good
deal of attention to the studies of the school, and he determined not
to attempt to teach them anything new, but to review them in what they
had been studying; so he called up the various classes, and questioned
them upon their previous lessons. The children racked their brains to
remember what they had learned. They were so afraid of the Griffin's
displeasure that they recited as they had never recited before. One of
the boys far down in his class answered so well that the Griffin was
astonished.
"I should think you would be at the head," said he. "I am sure you
have never been in the habit of reciting so well. Why is this?"
"Because I did not choose to take the trouble," said the boy,
trembling in his boots. He felt obliged to speak the truth, for all
the children thought that the great eyes of the Griffin could see
right through them, and that he would know when they told a falsehood.
"You ought to be ashamed of yourself," said the Griffin. "Go down to
the very tail of the class, and if you are not at the head in two
days, I shall know the reason why."
The next afternoon the boy was number one.
It was astonishing how much these children now learned of what they
had been studying. It was as if they had been educated over again. The
Griffin used no severity toward them, but there was a look about him
which made them unwilling to go to bed until they were sure they knew
their lessons for the next day.
The Griffin now thought that he ought to visit the sick and the poor;
and he began to go about the town for this purpose. The effect upon
the sick was miraculous. All, except those who were very ill indeed,
jumped from their beds when they heard he was coming, and declared
themselves quite well. To those who could not get up, he gave herbs
and roots, which none of them had ever before thought of as medicines,
but which the Griffin had seen used in various parts of the world; and
most of them recovered. But, for all that, they afterward said that no
matter what happened to them, they hoped that they should never again
have such a doctor coming to their bedsides, feeling their pulses and
looking at their tongues.
As for the poor, they seemed to have utterly disappeared. All those
who had depended upon charity for their daily bread were now at work
in some way or other; many of them offering to do odd jobs for their
neighbors just for the sake of their meals,--a thing which before had
been seldom heard of in the town. The Griffin could find no one who
needed his assistance.
The summer had now passed, and the autumnal equinox was rapidly
approaching. The citizens were in a state of great alarm and anxiety.
The Griffin showed no signs of going away, but seemed to have settled
himself permanently among them. In a short time, the day for his
semi-annual meal would arrive, and then what would happen? The monster
would certainly be very hungry, and would devour all their children.
Now they greatly regretted and lamented that they had sent away the
Minor Canon; he was the only one on whom they could have depended in
this trouble, for he could talk freely with the Griffin, and so find
out what could be done. But it would not do to be inactive. Some step
must be taken immediately. A meeting of the citizens was called, and
two old men were appointed to go and talk to the Griffin. They were
instructed to offer to prepare a splendid dinner for him on equinox
day,--one which would entirely satisfy his hunger. They would offer
him the fattest mutton, the most tender beef, fish, and game of
various sorts, and any thing of the kind that he might fancy. If none
of these suited, they were to mention that there was an orphan asylum
in the next town.
"Any thing would be better," said the citizens, "than to have our dear
children devoured."
The old men went to the Griffin, but their propositions were not
received with favor.
"From what I have seen of the people of this town," said the monster,
"I do not think I could relish any thing which was prepared by them.
They appear to be all cowards, and, therefore, mean and selfish. As
for eating one of them, old or young, I could not think of it for a
moment. In fact, there was only one creature in the whole place for
whom I could have had any appetite, and that is the Minor Canon, who
has gone away. He was brave, and good, and honest, and I think I
should have relished him."
"Ah!" said one of the old men very politely, "in that case I wish we
had not sent him to the dreadful wilds!"
"What!" cried the Griffin. "What do you mean? Explain instantly what
you are talking about!"
The old man, terribly frightened at what he had said, was obliged to
tell how the Minor Canon had been sent away by the people, in the hope
that the Griffin might be induced to follow him.
When the monster heard this, he became furiously angry. He dashed away
from the old men and, spreading his wings, flew backward and forward
over the town. He was so much excited that his tail became red-hot,
and glowed like a meteor against the evening sky. When at last he
settled down in the little field where he usually rested, and thrust
his tail into the brook, the steam arose like a cloud, and the water
of the stream ran hot through the town. The citizens were greatly
frightened, and bitterly blamed the old man for telling about the
Minor Canon.
"It is plain," they said, "that the Griffin intended at last to go and
look for him, and we should have been saved. Now who can tell what
misery you have brought upon us."
The Griffin did not remain long in the little field. As soon as his
tail was cool he flew to the town-hall and rang the bell. The citizens
knew that they were expected to come there, and although they were
afraid to go, they were still more afraid to stay away; and they
crowded into the hall. The Griffin was on the platform at one end,
flapping his wings and walking up and down, and the end of his tail
was still so warm that it slightly scorched the boards as he dragged
it after him.
When everybody who was able to come was there the Griffin stood still
and addressed the meeting.
"I have had a contemptible opinion of you," he said, "ever since I
discovered what cowards you are, but I had no idea that you were so
ungrateful, selfish, and cruel as I now find you to be. Here was your
Minor Canon, who labored day and night for your good, and thought of
nothing else but how he might benefit you and make you happy; and as
soon as you imagine yourselves threatened with a danger,--for well I
know you are dreadfully afraid of me,--you send him off, caring not
whether he returns or perishes, hoping thereby to save yourselves.
Now, I had conceived a great liking for that young man, and had
intended, in a day or two, to go and look him up. But I have changed
my mind about him. I shall go and find him, but I shall send him back
here to live among you, and I intend that he shall enjoy the reward of
his labor and his sacrifices. Go, some of you, to the officers of the
church, who so cowardly ran away when I first came here, and tell them
never to return to this town under penalty of death. And if, when your
Minor Canon comes back to you, you do not bow yourselves before him,
put him in the highest place among you, and serve and honor him all
his life, beware of my terrible vengeance! There were only two good
things in this town: the Minor Canon and the stone image of myself
over your church-door. One of these you have sent away, and the other
I shall carry away myself."
With these words he dismissed the meeting, and it was time, for the
end of his tail had become so hot that there was danger of its setting
fire to the building.
The next morning, the Griffin came to the church, and tearing the
stone image of himself from its fastenings over the great door, he
grasped it with his powerful fore-legs and flew up into the air. Then,
after hovering over the town for a moment, he gave his tail an angry
shake and took up his flight to the dreadful wilds. When he reached
this desolate region, he set the stone Griffin upon a ledge of a rock
which rose in front of the dismal cave he called his home. There the
image occupied a position somewhat similar to that it had had over the
church-door; and the Griffin, panting with the exertion of carrying
such an enormous load to so great a distance, lay down upon the
ground, and regarded it with much satisfaction. When he felt somewhat
rested he went to look for the Minor Canon. He found the young man,
weak and half-starved, lying under the shadow of a rock. After picking
him up and carrying him to his cave, the Griffin flew away to a
distant marsh, where he procured some roots and herbs which he well
knew were strengthening and beneficial to man, though he had never
tasted them himself. After eating these the Minor Canon was greatly
revived, and sat up and listened while the Griffin told him what had
happened in the town.
"Do you know," said the monster, when he had finished, "that I have
had, and still have, a great liking for you?"
"I am very glad to hear it," said the Minor Canon, with his usual
politeness.
"I am not at all sure that you would be," said the Griffin, "if you
thoroughly understood the state of the case, but we will not consider
that now. If some things were different, other things would be
otherwise. I have been so enraged by discovering the manner in which
you have been treated that I have determined that you shall at last
enjoy the rewards and honors to which you are entitled. Lie down and
have a good sleep, and then I will take you back to the town."
As he heard these words, a look of trouble came over the young man's
face.
"You need not give yourself any anxiety," said the Griffin, "about my
return to the town. I shall not remain there. Now that I have that
admirable likeness of myself in front of my cave, where I can sit at
my leisure, and gaze upon its noble features and magnificent
proportions, I have no wish to see that abode of cowardly and selfish
people."
The Minor Canon, relieved from his fears, lay back, and dropped into a
doze; and when he was sound asleep the Griffin took him up, and
carried him back to the town. He arrived just before daybreak, and
putting the young man gently on the grass in the little field where he
himself used to rest, the monster, without having been seen by any of
the people, flew back to his home.
When the Minor Canon made his appearance in the morning among the
citizens, the enthusiasm and cordiality with which he was received
were truly wonderful. He was taken to a house which had been occupied
by one of the vanished high officers of the place, and every one was
anxious to do all that could be done for his health and comfort. The
people crowded into the church when he held services, so that the
three old women who used to be his week-day congregation could not get
to the best seats, which they had always been in the habit of taking;
and the parents of the bad children determined to reform them at home,
in order that he might be spared the trouble of keeping up his former
school. The Minor Canon was appointed to the highest office of the old
church, and before he died, he became a bishop.
During the first years after his return from the dreadful wilds, the
people of the town looked up to him as a man to whom they were bound
to do honor and reverence; but they often, also, looked up to the sky
to see if there were any signs of the Griffin coming back. However, in
the course of time, they learned to honor and reverence their former
Minor Canon without the fear of being punished if they did not do so.
But they need never have been afraid of the Griffin. The autumnal
equinox day came round, and the monster ate nothing. If he could not
have the Minor Canon, he did not care for any thing. So, lying down,
with his eyes fixed upon the great stone griffin, he gradually
declined, and died. It was a good thing for some people of the town
that they did not know this.
If you should ever visit the old town, you would still see the little
griffins on the sides of the church; but the great stone griffin that
was over the door is gone.
NOTE: [1] Written in 1887. This story is used by permission of and
special arrangement with _Charles Scribner's Sons_, publishers.
BIOGRAPHY
Frank Richard Stockton, one of America's foremost story-tellers and
humorists, was born in Philadelphia in 1834. His father was a
Presbyterian minister who devoutly wished that his son might study
medicine. This wish was shattered early, for the son showed symptoms
of being a writer while yet in the Central High School of
Philadelphia. In competition with many of his schoolmates for a prize
offered for the best story, young Stockton won easily.
After finishing his high school course, he adopted the profession of
wood-engraver. Although he earned his living for several years by
carving wood, he never lost his desire to write, and practised, at
every spare moment, his favorite avocation. It was this careful and
patient training during his apprenticeship that finally made him the
expert story-teller that he is. It is very interesting to any one who
cares for the acquirement of an excellent style to note how all the
authors contained in this text have had to work with almost a
superhuman force to reach the heights of successful short-story
writing.
His first important publication, _Kate_, appeared in the _Southern
Literary Messenger_ in 1859. He then joined the staff of the
_Philadelphia Morning Post_, where he did regular newspaper work and
contributed to the _Riverside Magazine_ and _Hearth and Home_. In 1872
his _Stephen Skarridge's Christmas_ appeared in _Scribner's Monthly_.
Dr. J.G. Holland, editor of _Scribner's_, was so impressed with the
story that he made Mr. Stockton an assistant editor and persuaded him
to move to New York. In 1873 he joined the staff of the _St. Nicholas
Magazine_. His publication of the _Rudder Grange_ series in
_Scribner's_ _Monthly_ in 1878 made him famous. In 1882 he resigned
all editorial work and spent his entire time in literary composition.
Mr. Stockton possessed a frail body and very little physical
endurance. In spite of this physical handicap he was very vivacious
and gay. He was a genial and companionable man, loved by all who knew
him. He was very modest, even to the point of shyness, exceptionally
sincere, and quaintly humorous. He established homes in New Jersey and
West Virginia, where he spent the greater part of his time from 1882
until his death in 1902.
BIOGRAPHICAL REFERENCES
_Famous Authors_ (107-122), B.F. Harkness.
_American Authors_ (59-73), F.W. Halsey.
"Character Sketch," _Book-Buyer_, 24:355-357.
"Home at Claymont," _Current Literature_, 30:221.
"Sketch," _Outlook_, 70: 1000-1001,
"Stockton and his Work," _Atlantic Monthly_, 87:136-138.
CRITICISMS
The writings of Frank R. Stockton are excellent representatives of the
man himself. How closely allied writer and writings are is very well
stated by Hamilton W. Mabie in the _Book-Buyer_ for June, 1902, "His
talk had much of the quality of his writing; it was full of quaint
conceits, whimsicalities, impossible suggestions offered with perfect
gravity. He was always perfectly natural; he never attempted to live
up to his part; in talk, at least, he never forced the note. His
attitude toward himself was slightly tinged with humor, and he knew
how to foil easily and pleasantly too great a pressure of praise."
His tales are extravagantly impossible but extremely realistic in
effect, filled with humorous situations and singular plots, and
peopled with eccentric characters that afford amusement on every page.
His most successful writing is done when he explains contrivances upon
which his story depends. He is an original and inventive expert
juggler who moves with careless ease to the most effective ends. His
characters are little more than pieces of mechanism that act when he
pulls the string. They have little emotion and even in their
love-making they show their emotion mostly for the sake of the
reader's amusement. His negro characters are exceptions to his general
treatment and are true to life. He inveigles the reader into believing
the most extravagant incidents by having a reliable witness narrate
them.
Stockton never stoops to the burlesque, cynic, or vulgar phases of
life to secure amusement. He is grotesque and droll in his manner, and
above all always restrained. His literary life is full of sprites and
gnomes that frolic before young children and once before mature
people. _The Griffin and the Minor Canon_ is a beautiful fairy story
lifted from childhood's thought and diction into a mature realm. His
humor is plain and simple, cool and keenly calculating. A friendly
critic has said of one of his stories, "With a gentle, ceaseless
murmur of amusement, and a flickering twinkle of smiles, the story
moves steadily on in the calm triumph of its assured and unassailable
absurdity, to its logical and indisputable impossibility." This
observation is very largely true of all his stories.
GENERAL REFERENCES
_Frank R. Stockton_, A.T.Q. Couch.
"Stockton's Method of Working," _Current Literature_, 32:495.
"Criticism," _Atheneum_, 1:532.
"Estimate," _Harper's Weekly_, 46:555.
COLLATERAL READINGS
_The Beeman of Orn, and Other Fanciful Tales_, Frank R. Stockton.
_The Lady or the Tiger_, Frank R. Stockton.
_Rudder Grange_, Frank R. Stockton.
_A Tale of Negative Gravity_, Frank R. Stockton.
_The Remarkable Wreck of the Thomas Hyde_, Frank R. Stockton.
_His Wife's Deceased Sister_, Frank R. Stockton.
_Legend of Sleepy Hollow_, Washington Irving.
_Monsieur du Miroir_, Nathaniel Hawthorne.
_At the End of the Passage_, Rudyard Kipling.
_The Vacant Lot_, Mary Wilkins Freeman.
_The Princess Pourquoi_, Margaret Sherwood.
_What Was It? A Mystery_, Fitz-James O'Brien.
_Wandering Willie's Tale_, Walter Scott.
THE PIECE OF STRING[1]
_By Guy de Maupassant (1850-1893)_
On all the roads about Goderville the peasants and their wives were
coming toward the town, for it was market day. The men walked at an
easy gait, the whole body thrown forward with every movement of their
long, crooked legs, misshapen by hard work, by the bearing down on the
plough which at the same time causes the left shoulder to rise and the
figure to slant; by the mowing of the grain, which makes one hold his
knees apart in order to obtain a firm footing; by all the slow and
laborious tasks of the fields. Their starched blue blouses, glossy as
if varnished, adorned at the neck and wrists with a bit of white
stitchwork, puffed out about their bony chests like balloons on the
point of taking flight, from which protrude a head, two arms, and two
feet.
Some of them led a cow or a calf at the end of a rope. And their
wives, walking behind the beast, lashed it with a branch still covered
with leaves, to hasten its pace. They carried on their arms great
baskets, from which heads of chickens or of ducks were thrust forth.
And they walked with a shorter and quicker step than their men, their
stiff, lean figures wrapped in scanty shawls pinned over their flat
breasts, their heads enveloped in a white linen cloth close to the
hair, with a cap over all.
Then a _char-a-bancs[2]_ passed, drawn by a jerky-paced nag, with two
men seated side by side shaking like jelly, and a woman behind, who
clung to the side of the vehicle to lessen the rough jolting.
On the square at Goderville there was a crowd, a medley of men and
beasts. The horns of the cattle, the high hats, with a long, hairy
nap, of the wealthy peasants, and the head dresses of the peasant
women, appeared on the surface of the throng. And the sharp, shrill,
high-pitched voices formed an incessant, uncivilized uproar, over
which soared at times a roar of laughter from the powerful chest of a
sturdy yokel, or the prolonged bellow of a cow fastened to the wall of
a house.
There was an all-pervading smell of the stable, of milk, of the
dunghill, of hay, and of perspiration--that acrid, disgusting odor of
man and beast peculiar to country people.
Master Hauchecorne, of Breaute, had just arrived at Goderville, and
was walking toward the square, when he saw a bit of string on the
ground. Master Hauchecorne, economical like every true Norman, thought
that it was well to pick up everything that might be of use; and he
stooped painfully, for he suffered with rheumatism. He took the piece
of slender cord from the ground, and was about to roll it up
carefully, when he saw Master Malandain, the harness-maker, standing
in his doorway and looking at him. They had formerly had trouble on
the subject of a halter, and had remained at odds, being both inclined
to bear malice. Master Hauchecorne felt a sort of shame at being seen
thus by his enemy, fumbling in the mud for a bit of string. He
hurriedly concealed his treasure in his blouse, then in his breeches
pocket; then he pretended to look on the ground for something else,
which he did not find; and finally he went on toward the market, his
head thrust forward, bent double by his pains.
He lost himself at once in the slow-moving, shouting crowd, kept in a
state of excitement by the interminable bargaining. The peasants felt
of the cows, went away, returned, sorely perplexed, always afraid of
being cheated, never daring to make up their minds, watching the
vendor's eye, striving incessantly to detect the tricks of the man and
the defect in the beast.
The women, having placed their great baskets at their feet, took out
their fowls, which lay on the ground, their legs tied together, with
frightened eyes and scarlet combs.
They listened to offers, adhered to their prices, short of speech and
impassive of face; or else, suddenly deciding to accept the lower
price offered, they would call out to the customer as he walked slowly
away:--
"All right, Mast' Anthime. You can have it."
Then, little by little, the square became empty, and when the
Angelus[3] struck midday those who lived too far away to go home
betook themselves to the various inns.
At Jourdain's the common room was full of customers, as the great yard
was full of vehicles of every sort--carts, cabriolets,[4]
_char-a-bancs_, tilburys,[5] unnamable carriages, shapeless, patched,
with, their shafts reaching heavenward like arms, or with their noses
in the ground and their tails in the air.
The vast fireplace, full of clear flame, cast an intense heat against
the backs of the row on the right of the table. Three spits were
revolving, laden with chickens, pigeons, and legs of mutton; and a
delectable odor of roast meat, and of gravy dripping from the browned
skin, came forth from the hearth, stirred the guests to merriment, and
made their mouths water.
All the aristocracy of the plough ate there, at Mast' Jourdain's, the
innkeeper and horse trader--a shrewd rascal who had money.
The dishes passed and were soon emptied, like the jugs of yellow
cider. Every one told of his affairs, his sales and his purchases.
They inquired about the crops. The weather was good for green stuffs,
but a little wet for wheat.
Suddenly a drum rolled in the yard, in front of the house. In an
instant everybody was on his feet, save a few indifferent ones; and
they all ran to the door and windows with their mouths still full and
napkins in hand.
Having finished his long tattoo, the public crier shouted in a jerky
voice, making his pauses in the wrong places:--
"The people of Goderville, and all those present at the market are
informed that between--nine and ten o'clock this morning on the
Beuzeville--road, a black leather wallet was lost, containing five
hundred--francs, and business papers. The finder is requested to carry
it to--the mayor's at once, or to Master Fortune Huelbreque of
Manneville. A reward of twenty francs will be paid."
Then he went away. They heard once more in the distance the muffled
roll of the drum and the indistinct voice of the crier.
Then they began to talk about the incident, reckoning Master
Houlbreque's chance of finding or not finding his wallet.
And the meal went on.
They were finishing their coffee when the corporal of gendarmes
appeared in the doorway.
He inquired:--
"Is Master Hauchecorne of Breaute here?"
Master Hauchecorne, who was seated at the farther end of the table,
answered:--
"Here I am."
And the corporal added:--
"Master Hauchecorne, will you be kind enough to go to the mayor's
office with me? Monsieur the mayor would like to speak to you."
The peasant, surprised and disturbed, drank his _petit verre[6]_ at
one swallow, rose, and even more bent than in the morning, for the
first steps after each rest were particularly painful, he started off,
repeating:--
"Here I am, here I am."
And he followed the brigadier.
The mayor was waiting for him, seated in his arm-chair. He was the
local notary, a stout, solemn-faced man, given to pompous speeches.
"Master Hauchecorne," he said, "you were seen this morning, on the
Beuzeville road, to pick up the wallet lost by Master Huelbreque of
Manneville."
The rustic, dumfounded, stared at the mayor, already alarmed by this
suspicion which had fallen upon him, although he failed to understand
it.
"I, I--I picked up that wallet?"
"Yes, you."
"On my word of honor, I didn't even so much as see it."
"You were seen."
"They saw me, me? Who was it saw me?"
"Monsieur Malandain, the harness-maker."
Thereupon the old man remembered and understood; and flushing with
anger, he cried:--
"Ah! he saw me, did he, that sneak? He saw me pick up this string,
look, m'sieu' mayor."
And fumbling in the depths of his pocket, he produced the little piece
of cord.
But the mayor was incredulous and shook his head.
"You won't make me believe, Master Hauchecorne, that Monsieur
Malandain, who is a man deserving of credit, mistook this string for a
wallet."
The peasant, in a rage, raised his hand, spit to one side to pledge
his honor, and said:--
"It's God's own truth, the sacred truth, all the same, m'sieu' mayor.
I say it again, by my soul and my salvation."
"After picking it up," rejoined the mayor, "you hunted a long while in
the mud, to see if some piece of money hadn't fallen out."
The good man was suffocated with wrath and fear.
"If any one can tell--if any one can tell lies like that to ruin an
honest man! If any one can say--"
To no purpose did he protest; he was not believed.
He was confronted with Monsieur Malandain, who repeated and maintained
his declaration. They insulted each other for a whole hour. At his own
request, Master Hauchecorne was searched. They found nothing on him.
At last the mayor, being sorely perplexed, discharged him, but warned
him that he proposed to inform the prosecuting attorney's office and
to ask for orders.
The news had spread. On leaving the mayor's office, the old man was
surrounded and questioned with serious or bantering curiosity, in
which, however, there was no trace of indignation. And he began to
tell the story of the string. They did not believe him. They laughed.
He went his way, stopping his acquaintances, repeating again and again
his story and his protestations, showing his pockets turned inside
out, to prove that he had nothing.
They said to him:--
"You old rogue, _va!_"
And he lost his temper, lashing himself into a rage, feverish with
excitement, desperate because he was not believed, at a loss what to
do, and still telling his story. Night came. He must needs go home. He
started with three neighbors, to whom he pointed out the place where
he had picked up the bit of string: and all the way he talked of his
misadventure.
During the evening he made a circuit of the village of Breaute, in
order to tell everybody about it. He found none but incredulous
listeners.
He was ill over it all night.
The next afternoon, about one o'clock, Marius Paumelle, a farmhand
employed by Master Breton, a farmer of Ymauville, restored the wallet
and its contents to Master Huelbreque of Manneville.
The man claimed that he had found it on the road; but, being unable to
read, had carried it home and given it to his employer.
The news soon became known in the neighborhood; Master Hauchecorne was
informed of it. He started out again at once, and began to tell his
story, now made complete by the denouement. He was triumphant.
"What made me feel bad," he said, "wasn't so much the thing itself,
you understand, but the lying. There's nothing hurts you so much as
being blamed for lying."
All day long he talked of his adventure; he told it on the roads to
people who passed; at the wine-shop to people who were drinking; and
after church on the following Sunday. He even stopped strangers to
tell them about it. His mind was at rest now, and yet something
embarrassed him, although he could not say just what it was. People
seemed to laugh while they listened to him. They did not seem
convinced. He felt as if remarks were made behind his back.
On Tuesday of the next week, he went to market at Goderville, impelled
solely by the longing to tell his story.
Malandain, standing in his doorway, began to laugh when he saw him
coming. Why?
He accosted a farmer from Criquetot, who did not let him finish, but
poked him in the pit of his stomach, and shouted in his face: "Go on,
you old fox!" Then he turned on his heel.
Master Hauchecorne was speechless, and more and more disturbed. Why
did he call him "old fox"?
When he was seated at the table, in Jourdain's Inn, he set about
explaining the affair once more.
A horse-trader from Montvilliers called out to him:--
"Nonsense, nonsense, you old dodger! I know all about your string!"
"But they've found the wallet!" faltered Hauchecorne.
"None of that, old boy; there's one who finds it, and there's one who
carries it back. I don't know just how you did it, but I understand
you."
The peasant was fairly stunned. He understood at last. He was accused
of having sent the wallet back by a confederate, an accomplice.
He tried to protest. The whole table began to laugh.
He could not finish his dinner, but left the inn amid a chorus of
jeers.
He returned home, shamefaced and indignant, suffocated by wrath, by
confusion, and all the more cast down because, with his Norman
cunning, he was quite capable of doing the thing with which he was
charged, and even of boasting of it as a shrewd trick. He had a
confused idea that his innocence was impossible to establish, his
craftiness being so well known. And he was cut to the heart by the
injustice of the suspicion.
Thereupon he began once more to tell of the adventure, making the
story longer each day, adding each time new arguments, more forcible
protestations, more solemn oaths, which he devised and prepared in his
hours of solitude, his mind being wholly engrossed by the story of the
string. The more complicated his defence and the more subtle his
reasoning, the less he was believed.
"Those are a liar's reasons," people said behind his back.
He realized it: he gnawed his nails, and exhausted himself in vain
efforts.
He grew perceptibly thinner.
Now the jokers asked him to tell the story of "The Piece of String"
for their amusement, as a soldier who has seen service is asked to
tell about his battles. His mind, attacked at its source, grew
feebler.
Late in December he took to his bed.
In the first days of January he died, and in his delirium, of the
death agony, he protested his innocence, repeating:
"A little piece of string--a little piece of string--see, here it is,
m'sieu' mayor."
NOTES
[1] _The Piece of String_ was written in 1884. Reprinted from _Little
French Masterpieces_, by permission of the publishers, _G.P. Putnam's
Sons_.
[2] 34:5 char-a-bancs. A pleasure car.
[3] 35:26 Angelus. A bell tolled at morning, noon, and night,
according to the Roman Catholic Church custom, to indicate the time of
the service of song and recitation in memory of the Virgin Mary. The
name is taken from the first word of the recitation.
[4] 35:30 cabriolet. A cab. Originally a light, one-horse pleasure
carriage with two seats.
[5] 35:30 tilbury. An old form of gig, seating two persons.
[6] 37:20 petit verre. Little glass.
BIOGRAPHY
Henri Rene Albert Guy de Maupassant, French novelist, dramatist, and
short-story writer, was born in 1850. Until he was thirteen years old
he had no teacher except his mother, who personally superintended the
training of her two sons. Life for the two boys, during these early
years, was free and happy, Guy was a strong and robust Norman,
overflowing with animal spirits and exuberant with the joy of youthful
life.
When thirteen years of age Maupassant attended the seminary at Yvetot,
where he found school life irksome and a most distasteful contrast to
his former free life. Later he became a student in the Lycee in Rouen.
His experience as a student here was very pleasant, and he easily
acquired his degree. In 1870 he was appointed to a clerkship in the
Navy, and a little later to a more lucrative position in the
Department of Public Instruction. His work in these two positions
suffered very materially because of his negligence and daily practice
in writing verses and essays for Flaubert, the most careful literary
technicist in the history of literature, to criticize. For seven years
Maupassant served this severe task-master, always writing, receiving
criticisms, and publishing nothing.
Immediately after the publication of his first story Maupassant was
hailed as a finished master artist. From 1880 to 1890 he published six
novels, sixteen volumes of short-stories, three volumes of travels,
and many newspaper articles. This gigantic task was performed only
because of his regular habits and splendid physique. He wrote
regularly every morning from seven o'clock until noon, and at night
always wrote out notes on the impressions from his experiences of the
day.
Maupassant was a natural artist deeply in love with the technique of
his work. He did not write for money, although he believed that a
writer should have plenty of this world's possessions, nor did he
write for art's sake. In fact he avoided talking on the subject of
writing and to all appearances seemed to despise his profession. He
wrote because the restless, immitigable force within him compelled him
to work like a slave. He thought little of morals, or religion, but
was enamored with physical life and its insolvable problems. He was,
above everything else, a truthful man. Sometimes his subjects are
unclean and he treats them as such, but, if his subject is clean, his
treatment is undefiled.
In 1887 the shadows of insanity began to creep athwart his life. Even
in 1884 he seemed to feel a premonition of his coming catastrophe when
he wrote: "I am afraid of the walls, of the furniture, of the familiar
objects which seem to me to assume a kind of animal life. Above all, I
fear the horrible confusion of my thought, of my reason escaping,
entangled and scattered by an invisible and mysterious anguish." The
dreaded disease developed until, in 1890, he had to suspend his
writing. In 1892 he became wholly insane and had to be committed to an
insane asylum where he died in a padded cell one year later.
BIOGRAPHICAL REFERENCES
_The New International Encyclopaedia_.
_Encyclopaedia Britannica_.
_Bookman_, 25:290-294_.
CRITICISMS
Maupassant's short-stories are generally conceded to be the best in
French literature. He handles his materials with great care, and his
descriptions of scenes and characters are unequalled. In his first
writings he seems impassive to the point of frigidity. He is a
recorder who sets down exactly the life before him. This is one of the
lessons he learned from Flaubert. He was not interested in what a
character thought or felt, but he noted and fondled every action of
his characters.
He loved life, despite the lack of solutions. At times his fondness
for mere physical life leads him to the brutal stage. In his story,
_On the Water_, he gives a confession of a purely sensual man: "How
gladly, at times, I would think no more, feel no more, live the life
of a brute, in a warm, bright country, in a yellow country, without
crude and brutal verdure, in one of those Eastern countries in which
one falls asleep without concern, is active and has no cares, loves
and has no distress, and is scarcely aware that one is going on
living!"
Maupassant was a keen observer, possessed an excellent but not lofty
imagination, and never asserted a philosophy of life. His writings are
all interesting, terse, precise, and truthful, but lack the glow that
comes with a sympathetic and spiritual outlook on life. Zola says of
him: ".... a Latin of good, clear, solid head, a maker of beautiful
sentences shining like gold...." He chooses a single incident, a few
characteristics and then moulds them into a compact story. Nine-tenths
of his stories deal with selfishness and hypocrisy.
Tolstoi wrote: "Maupassant possessed genius, that gift of attention
revealing in the objects and facts of life properties not perceived by
others; he possessed a beautiful form of expression, uttering clearly,
simply, and with charm what he wished to say; and he possessed also
the merit of sincerity, without which a work of art produces no
effect; that is he did not merely pretend to love or hate, but did
indeed love or hate what he described."
GENERAL REFERENCES
_Inquiries and Opinions_, Brander Matthews.
"A Criticism," _Outlook_, 88:973-976.
"Greatest Short Story Writer that Ever Lived," _Current Literature_,
42:636-638.
COLLATERAL READINGS
_Happiness_ (Odd Number), Guy de Maupassant.
_The Wolf_, Guy de Maupassant.
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