【英文读物】The Best American Humorous Short Stories.docx

【英文读物】The Best American Humorous Short StoriesINTRODUCTION This volume does not aim to contain all "the best American humorous short stories" there are many other stories equally as good, I suppose, in much the same vein, scattered through the range of American literature. I have tried to keep a certain unity of aim and impression in selecting these stories. In the first place I determined that the pieces of brief fiction which I included must first of all be not merely good stories, but good short stories. I put myself in the position of one who was about to select the best short stories in the whole range of American literature,1 but who, just before he started to do this, was notified that he must refrain from selecting any of the best American short stories that did not contain the element of humor to a marked degree. But I have kept in mind the wide boundaries of the term humor, and also the fact that the humorous standard should be kept secondalthough a close secondto the short story standard. In view of the necessary limitations as to the volume's size, I could not hope to represent all periods of American literature adequately, nor was this necessary in order to give examples of the best that has been done in the short story in a humorous vein in American literature. Probably all types of the short story of humor are included here, at any rate. Not only copyright restrictions but in a measure my own opinion have combined to exclude anything by Joel Chandler HarrisUncle Remusfrom the collection. Harris is primarilyin his best worka humorist, and only secondarily a short story writer. As a humorist he is of the first rank; as a writer of short stories his place is hardly so high. His humor is not mere funniness and diversion; he is a humorist in the fundamental and large sense, as are Cervantes, Rabelais, and Mark Twain. No book is duller than a book of jokes, for what is refreshing in small doses becomes nauseating when perused in large assignments. Humor in literature is at its best not when served merely by itself but when presented along with other ingredients of literary force in order to give a wide representation of life. Therefore "professional literary humorists," as they may be called, have not been much considered in making up this collection. In the history of American humor there are three names which stand out more prominently than all others before Mark Twain, who, however, also belongs to a wider classification: "Josh Billings" (Henry Wheeler Shaw, 1815-1885), "Petroleum V. Nasby" (David Ross Locke, 1833-1888), and "Artemus Ward" (Charles Farrar Browne, 1834-1867). In the history of American humor these names rank high; in the field of American literature and the American short story they do not rank so high. I have found nothing of theirs that was first-class both as humor and as short story. Perhaps just below these three should be mentioned George Horatio Derby (1823-1861), author of Phoenixiana (1855) and the Squibob Papers (1859), who wrote under the name "John Phoenix." As has been justly said, "Derby, Shaw, Locke and Browne carried to an extreme numerous tricks already invented by earlier American humorists, particularly the tricks of gigantic exaggeration and calm-faced mendacity, but they are plainly in the main channel of American humor, which had its origin in the first comments of settlers upon the conditions of the frontier, long drew its principal inspiration from the differences between that frontier and the more settled and compact regions of the country, and reached its highest development in Mark Twain, in his youth a child of the American frontier, admirer and imitator of Derby and Browne, and eventually a man of the world and one of its greatest humorists."2 Nor have such later writers who were essentially humorists as "Bill Nye" (Edgar Wilson Nye, 1850-1896) been considered, because their work does not attain the literary standard and the short story standard as creditably as it does the humorous one. When we come to the close of the nineteenth century the work of such men as "Mr. Dooley" (Finley Peter Dunne, 1867- ) and George Ade (1866- ) stands out. But while these two writers successfully conform to the exacting critical requirements of good humor andespecially the formerof good literature, neitherthough Ade more soattains to the greatest excellence of the short story. Mr. Dooley of the Archey Road is essentially a wholesome and wide-poised humorous philosopher, and the author of Fables in Slang is chiefly a satirist, whether in fable, play or what not. This volume might well have started with something by Washington Irving, I suppose many critics would say. It does not seem to me, however, that Irving's best short stories, such as The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Rip Van Winkle, are essentially humorous stories, although they are o'erspread with the genial light of reminiscence. It is the armchair geniality of the eighteenth century essayists, a constituent of the author rather than of his material and product. Irving's best humorous creations, indeed, are scarcely short stories at all, but rather essaylike sketches, or sketchlike essays. James Lawson (1799-1880) in his Tales and Sketches: by a Cosmopolite (1830), notably in The Dapper Gentleman's Story, is also plainly a follower of Irving. We come to a different vein in the work of such writers as William Tappan Thompson (1812-1882), author of the amusing stories in letter form, Major Jones's Courtship (1840); Johnson Jones Hooper (1815-1862), author of Widow Rugby's Husband, and Other Tales of Alabama (1851); Joseph G. Baldwin (1815-1864), who wrote The Flush Times of Alabama and Mississippi (1853); and Augustus Baldwin Longstreet (1790-1870), whose Georgia Scenes (1835) are as important in "local color" as they are racy in humor. Yet none of these writers yield the excellent short story which is also a good piece of humorous literature. But they opened the way for the work of later writers who did attain these combined excellences. The sentimental vein of the midcentury is seen in the work of Seba Smith (1792-1868), Eliza Leslie (1787-1858), Frances Miriam Whitcher ("Widow Bedott," 1811-1852), Mary W. Janvrin (1830-1870), and Alice Bradley Haven Neal (1828-1863). The well-known work of Joseph Clay Neal (1807-1847) is so all pervaded with caricature and humor that it belongs with the work of the professional humorist school rather than with the short story writers. To mention his Charcoal Sketches, or Scenes in a Metropolis (1837-1849) must suffice. The work of Seba Smith is sufficiently expressed in his title, Way Down East, or Portraitures of Yankee Life (1854), although his Letters of Major Jack Downing (1833) is better known. Of his single stories may be mentioned The General Court and Jane Andrews' Firkin of Butter (October, 1847, Graham's Magazine). The work of Frances Miriam Whitcher ("Widow Bedott") is of somewhat finer grain, both as humor and in other literary qualities. Her stories or sketches, such as Aunt Magwire's Account of Parson Scrantum's Donation Party (March, 1848, Godey's Lady's Book) and Aunt Magwire's Account of the Mission to Muffletegawmy (July, 1859, Godey's), were afterwards collected in The Widow Bedott Papers (1855-56-80). The scope of the work of Mary B. Haven is sufficiently suggested by her story, Mrs. Bowen's Parlor and Spare Bedroom (February, 1860, Godey's), while the best stories of Mary W. Janvrin include The Foreign Count; or, High Art in Tattletown (October, 1860, Godey's) and City Relations; or, the Newmans' Summer at Clovernook (November, 1861, Godey's). The work of Alice Bradley Haven Neal is of somewhat similar texture. Her book, The Gossips of Rivertown, with Sketches in Prose and Verse (1850) indicates her field, as does the single title, The Third-Class Hotel (December, 1861, Godey's). Perhaps the most representative figure of this school is Eliza Leslie (1787-1858), who as "Miss Leslie" was one of the most frequent contributors to the magazines of the 1830's, 1840's and 1850's. One of her best stories is The Watkinson Evening (December, 1846, Godey's Lady's Book), included in the present volume; others are The Batson Cottage (November, 1846, Godey's Lady's Book) and Juliet Irwin; or, the Carriage People (June, 1847, Godey's Lady's Book). One of her chief collections of stories is Pencil Sketches (1833-1837). "Miss Leslie," wrote Edgar Allan Poe, "is celebrated for the homely naturalness of her stories and for the broad satire of her comic style." She was the editor of The Gift one of the best annuals of the time, and in that position perhaps exerted her chief influence on American literature When one has read three or four representative stories by these seven authors one can grasp them all. Their titles as a rule strike the keynote. These writers, except "the Widow Bedott," are perhaps sentimentalists rather than humorists in intention, but read in the light of later days their apparent serious delineations of the frolics and foibles of their time take on a highly humorous aspect. George Pope Morris (1802-1864) was one of the founders of The New York Mirror, and for a time its editor. He is best known as the author of the poem, Woodman, Spare That Tree, and other poems and songs. The Little Frenchman and His Water Lots (1839), the first story in the present volume, is selected not because Morris was especially prominent in the field of the short story or humorous prose but because of this single story's representative character. Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849) follows with The Angel of the Odd (October, 1844, Columbian Magazine), perhaps the best of his humorous stories. The System of Dr. Tarr and Prof. Fether (November, 1845, Graham's Magazine) may be rated higher, but it is not essentially a humorous story. Rather it is incisive satire, with too biting an undercurrent to pass muster in the company of the genial in literature. Poe's humorous stories as a whole have tended to belittle rather than increase his fame, many of them verging on the inane. There are some, however, which are at least excellent fooling; few more than that. Probably this is hardly the place for an extended discussion of Poe, since the present volume covers neither American literature as a whole nor the American short story in general, and Poe is not a humorist in his more notable productions. Let it be said that Poe invented or perfectedmore exactly, perfected his own invention ofthe modern short story; that is his general and supreme achievement. He also stands superlative for the quality of three varieties of short stories, those of terror, beauty and ratiocination. In the first class belong A Descent into the Maelstrom (1841), The Pit and the Pendulum (1842), The Black Cat (1843), and The Cask of Amontillado (1846). In the realm of beauty his notable productions are The Assignation (1834), Shadow: a Parable (1835), Ligeia (1838), The Fall of the House of Usher (1839), Eleonora (1841), and The Masque of the Red Death (1842). The tales of ratiocinationwhat are now generally termed detective storiesinclude The Murders in the Rue Morgue (1841) and its sequel, The Mystery of Marie Rogêt (1842-1843), The Gold-Bug (1843), The Oblong Box (1844), "Thou Art the Man" (1844), and The Purloined Letter (1844). Then, too, Poe was a master of style, one of the greatest in English prose, possibly the greatest since De Quincey, and quite the most remarkable among American authors. Poe's influence on the short story form has been tremendous. Although the effects of structure may be astounding in their power or unexpectedness, yet the means by which these effects are brought about are purely mechanical. Any student of fiction can comprehend them, almost any practitioner of fiction with a bent toward form can fairly master them. The merit of any short story production depends on many other elements as wellthe value of the structural element to the production as a whole depends first on the selection of the particular sort of structural scheme best suited to the story in hand, and secondly, on the way in which this is combined with the piece of writing to form a well-balanced whole. Style is more difficult to imitate than structure, but on the other hand the origin of structural influence is more difficult to trace than that of style. So while, in a general way, we feel that Poe's influence on structure in the short story has been great, it is difficult rather than obvious to trace particular instances. It is felt in the advance of the general level of short story art. There is nothing personal about structurethere is everything personal about style. Poe's style is both too much his own and too superlatively good to be successfully imitatedwhom have we had who, even if he were a master of structural effects, could be a second Poe? Looking at the matter in another way, Poe's style is not his own at all. There is nothing "personal" about it in the petty sense of that term. Rather we feel that, in the case of this author, universality has been attained. It was Poe's good fortune to be himself in style, as often in content, on a plane of universal appeal. But in some general characteristics of his style his work can be, not perhaps imitated, but emulated. Greater vividness, deft impressionism, brevity that strikes instantly to a telling effectall these an author may have without imitating any one's style but rather imitating excellence. Poe's "imitators" who have amounted to anything have not tried to imitate him but to vie with him. They are striving after perfectionism. Of course the sort of good style in which Poe indulged is not the kind of styleor the varieties of stylesuited for all purposes, but for the purposes to which it is adapted it may well be called supreme. Then as a poet his work is almost or quite as excellent in a somewhat more restricted range. In verse he is probably the best artist in American letters. Here his sole pursuit was beauty, both of form and thought; he is vivid and apt, intensely lyrical but without much range of thought. He has deep intuitions but no comprehensive grasp of life. His criticism is, on the whole, the least important part of his work. He had a few good and brilliant ideas which came at just the right time to make a stir in the world, and these his logical mind and telling style enabled him to present to the best advantage. As a critic he is neither broad-minded, learned, nor comprehensive. Nor is he, except in the few ideas referred to, deep. He is, however, limitedly originalperhaps intensely original within his narrow scope. But the excellences and limitations of Poe in any one part of his work were his limitations and excellences in all. As Poe's best short stories may be mentioned: Metzengerstein (Jan. 14, 1832, Philadelphia Saturday Courier), Ms. Found in a Bottle (October 19, 1833, Baltimore Sat