THE STORY'S END.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XXXIV, Issue 10957, 27 April 1907, Page 5 (Supplement)

THE STORY'S END.

"Journeys end m lovers meeting, every wise man's eon dotJi know," but who cair count now upon such art end to the short story ? From some American magazines, especially, cheerful romance has . almost fled. If a young couple are introduced at all, it is only that she may tfiobly give him up because another girl wants huh, or that he may give her up because his Old mother does not want her. And the story without even this love interest is the one which appeals to the American editor who represents the American mind. Taking up two nicely illustrated magazines, for March, we find ten out of thirteen short stories move m proud independence of any sentiments; the remaining tliree, the only one with a happy ending, is classed amongst the least important contributions, as" a "Storiette.'' Perhaps this is- fair, for the exertion involved m finding some new way of making lovers miserable and happy can be nothing to the mental gymnastics gone through by these searchers after the modern plot. Here is a gruesome imagination of a brute man, fugitive from justice, comforting his lonelinesr by the affection of a female wolf whom he tamed by lialf -murdering, and with whom he lived m great content, until one day she went back to the ways of her kind, and brought home a big male to help her eat up the man for breakfast. Here is another pleasant tale showing how two partner thieves separately and independently poisoned one another at the same meal, with extremely vivid details of the spasmodic convulsions both suffered m death by strychnine. English magazines show tees of this kind of thing, and an English editor, only the other day, remarked that there was always a wide appreciation ready for the story-teller who could treat simply and gracefully the mere love-idyll. In New Zealand certainly, there should} be preserved that faith m the happy conclusion so fearlessly testified lately by a printer down South. The last lines of a serial instalment read, "And their lips met m a kiss that was to them both a sacrament." What more could there be to say, he argued, now that they have kissed each otner. And the author, who liad tliree or four more chapters to come, found things unexpectedly cut short by that wise man' 6 son, who followed the kiss with the words, "The End." Christchurch Press.