Through the Magic Door

ly good short stories than there are supremely good long books. It takes more exquisite skill to carve the cameo than the statue. But the st

behind them, with the possible exception of Wandering Willie's Tale in "Red Gauntlet." On the other hand, men who have been very great

ve sprung nearly all our modern types of story. Just think of what he did in his offhand, prodigal fashion, seldom troubling to repeat a success, but pushing on to some new achievement. To him must be ascribed the monstrous progeny of writers on the detection of crime-"quorum pars parva fui!" Each may find some little development of his own, but his main art must trace back to those admirable stories of Monsieur Dupin, so wonderful in their masterful force, their reticence, their quick dramatic point. After all, mental acuteness is the one quality which can be ascribed to the ideal detect

s of the narrator and of the principal actor, Dupin in the one case and Le Grand in the other. The same may be said of Bret Harte, also one of those great short story tellers who proved himself incapable of a longer flight. He was always like one of his own gold-miners who struck a rich pocket, but found no continuous reef. The pocket was, alas, a very limited one, but the gold was of the bes

The other story of my choice would be "The Pavilion on the Links"-the very model of dramatic narrative. That story stamped itself so clearly on my brain when I read it in Cornhill that when I came across it again many years afterwards in volume form, I was able instantly to recognize two small modifications of the text-each very much for the worse-from the original form. They were small things, but they seemed somehow like a ch

, all mark him as a great master. But which are we to choose from that long and varied collection, many of which have claims to the highest? Speaking from memory, I should say that the stories of his which have impress

ese stories is the most dangerous that any young writer could follow. There is digression, that most deadly fault in the short narrative; there is incoherence, there is want of proportion which makes the story stand still for pages and bound forward in a few sentences. But genius overrides all t

style. There is Bulwer Lytton as a claimant. His "Haunted and the Haunters" is the very best ghost story that I know. As such I should include it in my list. There was a story, too, in one of the old Blackwoods-"Metempsychosis" it was called, which left so deep an impression upon my mind that I should be inclined, though it is many years since I read it, to number it with the best. Another story which has

ould have to put this one second only to Macaulay's Essays. I read it young when my mind was plastic. It stimulated my imagination and set before me a supreme example of

ies or Poe may become a dangerous comrade. We know along what perilous tracks and into what deadly quagmires his strange mind led him, down to that grey October Sund

power, an inborn instinct towards the right way of making his effects, which mark him as a great master. He produced stories because it was in him to do so, as naturally and as perfectly as an apple tree produces apples. What a fine, se

although the inn was inhabited all the year round, still for about three months in winter it was utterly isolated, because it could at any time only be approached by winding paths on the mountain side, and when these became obliterated by snow it was impossible either to come up or to descend. They could see the lights in the valley beneath them, but were as lonely as if they lived in the moon. S

(The Inn)-and as I ran my eye down the printed page I was amazed to see the two words, "Kandersteg" and "Gemmi Pass." I settled down and read it with ever-growing amazement. The scene was laid

uy the one book in all the world which would prevent me from making a public fool of myself, for who would ever have believed that my work was not an imitation? I do not think that the hypothesis of coincidence can cover the facts. It is one of several incidents in my life

in the terms of the new theology, can learn and convey to the mind that which our own know

is as good a bit of diablerie as you could wish for. And the Frenchman has, of course, far the broader range. He has a keen sense of humour, breaking out beyond all decorum in some of his s

his works there, "In the Midst of Life." This man had a flavour quite his own, and was a great artist in

it were carved from polished jet, which is peculiarly his own. I dare say if I took down that volume

h were said by the Sybils, and holy, holy things were heard of old by the dim leaves which trembled round Dodona, but as Allah liveth, that fable which the Demon told me as he sat by my side in the shadow of the tomb, I hold to be the most wonderful of all." Or this sentence: "And then did we, the seven, start from our

e, or, as is more usual, it is a compromise between several influences. I cannot trace Poe's. And yet if H

e will pass on to my

earth," the next v

historical novel written by a man who knew his period so thoroughly. But, great as these virtues are, they are not the essential in a novel. The essential in a novel is interest, though Addison unkindly remarked that the real essential was that the pastrycooks should never run short of paper. Now "Esmond" is, in my opinion, exceedingly interesting during the campaigns in the Lowlands, and when our

ls of last century, and (speaking only for myself and within the limits of my reading) I have been more impressed by that book of Reade's and by Tolstoi's "Peace and War" than by any others. They seem to me to stand at the very top of the century's

cities of South Germany, the state of Italy, the artist-life of Rome, the monastic institutions on the eve of the Reformation. And all this between the covers of one book, so naturally introduced, too, and told with such vividness and spirit. Apart from the huge scope of it, the mere study of Gerard's own nature, his rise, his fall, his regeneration, the whole pitiable tragedy at the end, make the book a great one. It contains, I think, a blending of knowledge with imagination, which makes it stand alone in our literature. Le

melodrama. But his best have weak pieces, and his worst have good. There is always silk among his cotton, and cotton among his silk. But, for all his flaws, the man who, in addition to the

ity and the lovability of his women. It is a rare gift-very rare for a man-this power of drawing a human and delightful girl. If there is a better one in nineteenth-century fiction than Julia Dodd I have never had the pleasure of meeting her. A man who could draw a charact