The Birmingham age-herald., 1908-10-18
Best Short Stories in Litera-
 ture.

When St Thomas Aquinas was asked in what manner a man might best be-
 come learned, he answered: By reading
 one book"
 Indeed the homounius libri is proverb= ially formidable to all conversational figurantes. Our friend, Dr. Johnson, ob- served that "a man will turn over a whole library to make one book. So much for these great people-but | the man or woman of today is not of the "one book type" An omnvorous lit l erary appetite characterizes most read CTS of the present-and among authors | the short story is not only from com mercial point of view, considered desir- able, but it has made many writers | tremendously popular who perhaps would never have been heard of but for this | fact.
 Pre-Elizabethan Post-Shakespearan | through the classics down to the present l day writers, we love the technique or | the short story In variegated form For symbolism and purity of purpose l nothing so emphasizes these attributes as this especial style of literature While 1 so called une ecole symboliste, it is not l a school in the sense of clique TOT ! the short story-it is simply drift in art The greatest exponent of sympol- ism today are Mallarme in France, Mae terlier in Belgium, Gilbert Parker in Eng l land and Bliss Charmen in America,
 which includes the drama, the short story and the poetical side of writing Gilbert Parkers "Pierre and Ills Peo-
 ple" contains a story, "The Man and the l Stone" which for perfect symbolism I is unsurpassed, while "The Young Ravens Who Call upon Him of Charles | G. D. Roberts, makes symbolic these | stories almost as much as Aesop 1 Fables or Goethes Reinicke Fuchs And yet in the list of "The Worlds
 Best Short Stories,' which l am going l to append, and which instigated tnls | dissertation, we find these authors l omitted.
 Poe. whom Bayard Taylor called "A Bird of the Night-A Noctambulist, and who begat all such temperaments as Villers de LIsle Adam, Baudelaire, l J. K. Huysmans Verlaine, Guy de Mau- passant and others, stands in my hum ble opinion as perhaps the greatest l short story writer literature has ever l known. He is represented by "The Gold l Bug" one of the best of the snort | story contributions of this wonderful man, whose literary ancestry stands 1 responsible for nearly all the Par nassian and diabolic writers of the essay and the short story. | Another of my favorites, MT. Henry l James misses a place in the list; and l why? Surely not the crime of amateur 1 ism of which he himself says in one 1 of his most attractive stories, After 1 all they were only amateurs and the l ruling passion of my life has been the l detestation of the amateur, the innate l preference of the represented subject over the real one.'
 l Hawthorne's name responds to the Troll call" with "The Great Stone
 Face" while Washington Irving com l pletes the number of our country men who are represented. | Kipling, who seems to belong to every l body, furnished The Man Who Would Be l King" Indeed, Kipling's cosmopolitan ] ism amounts almost to weakness. He has l been termed the literary globe-trotter, , the trolling stone which gathers no moss, 1 but who wants to gather moss, but silly | old ladies when one can gather fame and 1 name and universal friendship, like he 1 has, whether writing of the army, rail l way sailors or engineers.
 l After all, recommending a book Is like l recommending a cook or a dressmaker. In nine cases out of ten you will wish | you hadn't and so leach man for him.
 self' as the song goes.
 l Sherwin Cody's list of the 12 greatest ! short stories, which has attracted my at- | tenton, is as follows:
 | l. Patient Griselda, From the "Deca- | meron" of Bodcaccio.
 1 ?. Aladdin, or the Wonderful Lamp, l from '"rhe Arabian Nights | 8. Rip Van Wrinkle, by Washington
 Irving.
 4 A Passion in the Desert, by Honore de
 Balzac.
 5. A Child's Dream of Star. by Charles
 | Dickens.
 1 G. A Christmas Carol, by Charles Dick l ems.
 1 I. A Princess Tragedy, from Barry 1 Lyndon" by w. M. Thackeray. | g. The Gold Bug, by Edgar Allen Poe. l g. The Great Stone Face, by Nathaniel l Hawthorne.
 I 10. The Necklace and the String, by de ! Maupassant.
 | Il. The Man Who Would Be King, by Rudyard Kipling.
 12. How Gavin Birse Put It to Mag
 Lownie, from "A Window in Thrums, by J. M. Barrie.
 ID