Page:The Cambridge History of American Literature, v2.djvu/401

Aldrich: Stockton 385 was one. His little story Marjorie Daw was published in the Atlantic five years after Harte's sensational d6but. A trivial thing it was compared with such tragedies as Tennessee's Partner or Madame DelpMne, an American humorous anecdote elaborately expanded, with a "point" at the end to be followed by laughter, yet its appearance marked a new stage in the history of the American short story. Tales already there had been that had held a sensation in the last sentence. The Amber Gods had ended with the startling words: "I must have died at ten minutes past one." But in Marjorie Daw the device was handled with a skill that made the story a model for later writers. After Aldrich, Stockton and Bunner and O. Henry. Aldrich brought a style to the short story as distinctive as Cable's, a certain patrician elegance, yet a naturalness and a simplicity that concealed everywhere its art, for art is the soul of it ; every sentence, every word a studied contribution toward the final effect. There is no moral, no hidden meaning, no exotic background to be displayed, no chastening tragedy; it is a mere whimsicality light as air, a bit of American comedy. The laugh comes not from what is told but from the picture supplied by the reader's imagination. AH of Aldrich's thin repertoire of short stories is of the same texture. He may be compared with no American writer. To find a counterpart of Marjorie Daw one must go to the French — to Daudet for its whimsical lightness of touch, and to Maupassant for its exquisite technique. But the interest created by the appearance of Marjorie Daw was mild compared with that' accorded to Frank R. Stockton's The Lady or the Tiger? (1884). Stockton (1834- 1902)' had not the technique of Aldrich nor his naturalness and ease. Certainly he had not his atmosphere of the heau monde and his grace of style, but in whimsicality and un- expectedness and in that subtle art that makes the obviously impossible seem perfectly plausible and commonplace, he sur- passed not only him but Edward Everett Hale and all others. After Stockton and The Lady or the Tiger ? it was realized even by the uncritical that short story writing had become a subtle art and that the master of its subtleties had his reader at his mercy. ' See also Book III, Chap. xi. VOL. n — 2S