The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1902-05-25

this should be so. when we think of all that
has come about i'm the direction Of develop
ment and change in the interval For one
thing there is no longer but one literary
center Tor our teeming intellectual life. We
may say. indeed that there are 70 true
centers whatever, so widespread and so diff
ferentiated IS the manifestation OF that life
In the present. There has recently been
running through the pages of SCTIoner's
Magazine d series OF delightful papers by
Or. Gilman. giving memories personal and
other, Of his long and busy life as an edu-
Gator and a scholar. These memories ira
verse the continent and half the closing
century. Their starting point is i'm Yale.
Their latest university scene is at Johns
Hopkins, Baltimore. One of their sta geS
is the University of California. Their Cul-
nination is in the explanation simply and
finely given, of the splendid enterprise of
the Carnegie Institution FOR the advance
ment of knowledge, an enterprise more
lofty in aim and wider in scope than the
world OF scholarship has ever before I'M
agined. Compare the field Of interest and
effort and opportunity that presented itself
TO DR.. Gilman on bis graduation with that
in which he is actively engaged a half cen
try later. and one gets a striking impress
sion of one phase of the changes with
which the story writer of to-day Is called
on to deal.
1t is in its dealing with this exceeding
variety and in the vitality OF the mode
of dealing that the story OF our tile seems
TO us 10 have its superiority over the story
of former times ana over the story that
gets itself written IL other lands. Indeed.
il may not be going too far to say that
our short stories really supply the place OF
that american novel; we have been so
long awaiting. American life IS too COM
pick and its evolution is too rapid and con-
tinuOus to be pictured in any one work.
But il is pictured with attractive and sd It's
factory truthfulness in the really surpTis-
ing body of short stories with which we
are month by month presented in our peri
Odicals. 1t IS not very safe 10 compare
these with like productions in foreign
tongues, though the comparison, so far as
il is practicable, appears unquestionably
favorable to our own, but comparison is
quite possible with the short stories of the
English periodicals. and IS in that case
still more Strikingly favorable. The Eng
lish stories. as a class, are monOtOnous in
tone and stinted in subject. large pro-
portion of them may be described as ma
chine made. substantially alike in model
and In treatment. They have the air of be
ing written for readers of fixed and rather
narrow tastes with whom reading is
habit like another neither demanding nor
tolerating novelties Of purpose or method.
Exceptions there are. of course, and inter-
eSting ones D1t the body of the output Is
such that il would not be very difficult TO
prescribe the formula on which they are
compounded.
Probably one reason of this is that the
lines of class are much more sharply and
firmly drawn in England than here, and
the average reader finds interest within
those lines which in our own country are
more slight and much more liable 10 eff
Placement. There is no one class or small
group of classes to which the American
longs for admission. or, despairing of adj
mission. longs TO know through the indis-
cretiOns of fiction. To enlist the interest
of a considerable reading public in Amer
lea the story writer must appeal to
keener, holder, more critical knowledge
of life and curiosity as 10 life. Whatever
the explanation, the fact of the greater
force and penetration and-to repeat
greater vitality of the American short
story is, we think, fairly we'll established.