MR. H. G. WELLS AND THE SHORT STORY.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1312, 15 December 1911, Page 6

MR. H. G. WELLS AND THE SHORT STORY.

THE ART OF MAKING SOMETHING BRIGHT AND MOVING. "Tho English short story-is there a 'slump' in it as well as in poetry >" asks tho editor of the always interesting "Book Monthly." "Not exactly, but it does not llourish as it uiight-certainly not in .an artistic sense. ■■ .'•

"In Trance and also in America, its art and cralt aro valued and pursued as high literary things. Both I rouch tradition and i'rencli genius mako lor the short istory. The great magazines _ol America, the "Century,' "Harper s, "fcicribner's," attd the. others, pay golden prices tor good short stories and get theni. Moreover, if Edgar Allan J'oo was tho real first master uf tho short story, may not America almost claim to be its home: "With us a short story is.too oltcu just a fragment from a novelist's workshop. It overflows into'the popular magazines and you can take it lor what it is or leave*it. But where are the set, deliberate English short-story writers of yesteryear i , ' "Mr. H. G. Wells, in effect, asks this question in an introduction to'a collected volume of his own short stories, The Country of tho Blind,' which has recently been published by Nelson. lie was, as he reminds us, onco an industrious writer ot short stories, and now lie is no longer anything of tho kind. Why? lie gives his answer and discusses the whole | subject in this essay which is best indicated by a series of direct, linked extracts, bcKiuso then you get the writer s own words: — " 'I find it a little difficult to disentangle the. causes that liavo restricted the How of these inventions. It has happened, 1 remark, to others as well as to myself, and in spite of the kindliest encouragement to continue Irom editors and readers. There was a time when lilo bubbled with short stories; they were always coining to tho surface of my mind, and it is no deliberate cliango of will that has j thus restricted my production. Jt is rather, I think, u. diversion ot attention to more sustained and more exacting forms. " 'The 'nineties was a good and stimulating period for a short-story writer. Mr. Kipling had made his astonishing advent with a scries of little bluc-grcy books, whoso oovers opened like window-shutters to reveal the dusty sun-glare and blading colours of the East; Mr. Barrio had demonstrated what could bo done in a little spaco through tho panes of his "Window in Thrums." The "National Observer" was at tho climax of its career of heroic insistence upon lyrical brevity and a vivid finish, and Mr. Frank Harris was not only printing good short stories by other people, but writing still better ones himself in the dignified pages of tho "Fortnightly Keviow." "Longman's Magazine," too, represented n clientele of appreciative sliortetory readers that is now scattered.

" 'Then came tho generous opportunities of tho "Yellow Book," and the "National Observer' died only to give birth to the "Now lieviow." No short story of the slightest distinction went for long unrecognised. The sixponny popular magazines hful still to dnaden down the conception .of what a short story might bo to the imaginative limitation of the common reader—and a maximum length of six thousand words.

"It is now quite unusual to see any adequate criticism of sliort stories in English, _ I do not know how far the decline in short-story writing may not bo duo to tlmt. Every sort of artist demands human responses, and few men can contrive lo write merely for a publisher's cheque and silence, however reassuring that cheque may be. A mad millionaire who commissioned musterpieces to burn would find it impossible to buy tlieni.

" 'Scarcely any-artist will hesitate in tho choice between money and attention; and it was primarily for that last ami better sort of pay thai, tho short stories of tho 'nineties were written. . People talked about (hem tremendously, compared them, nnd ranked them. That was the thing that mattered. '"I refuse nlocethor to recognise any lmrd ami fast type for tho Short Story, any more than I admit any limitation upon the liberties of the' Small Picture. The short slor.v is a fiction that may be read somethini: under an ihour, anil so that it is movinc mid delightful, it: does not matter whether it is as "(rival" as a Japanese print of insects seen closely between pra»> stems, or as .spacious as the prosi>eet of the plain of italy from Monro Mottarone. It does not matter whether it is humnu or inhuman, or whether it leaves you fclmnkiiiß deeply or radiantly but .superficially pleased. ~ Some things are more easily done as short stories than others, and more abundantly done, but ono of tho many pleasures of short-story writinx is to achicvrs the imposdito,