Short Stories of Various Types Part 38

2. Pierrefonds. A small village in northern France where a very old and famous chateau is located.

3. Vincennes. A town about five miles from Paris, noted for its chateau which is now used as a great fortress.

4. Chantilly. A town in northern France noted for its lace-making, its horse races, and two beautiful chateaux built by the Prince of Conde, one of the French n.o.bility. In the eighteenth century the most brilliant writers and artists of France used to gather at Chantilly.

133, 1. Tophet. A valley, sometimes called Gehenna, near Jerusalem, where human sacrifices were burned to the heathen G.o.d Moloch.

137, 1. Andy. Andrew Carnegie, a Scotch-American steel manufacturer and philanthropist, who established libraries in many cities of the United States.

138, 1. La Salle. A French explorer of the seventeenth century. He discovered the Ohio River and was the first to explore the greater part of the Mississippi River.

FRANCIS BRET HARTE (Page 141)

Bret Harte, as he is familiarly known, was born in Albany, New York, in 1836. At fifteen he wandered to California, the state which has so vividly colored his best known short stories. The first three years he was there, for a living, he taught school, and, as a pastime, like every one else in California at that time, he dug for gold.

He then entered the office of the _Golden Era_ as a compositor, but soon began to write articles for the paper. These attracted favorable notice and he was made a.s.sistant editor-in-chief.

His ready imagination was stirred by the teeming, adventuresome life about him and he began to put his ideas into short stories with the mellow background of the golden state of California. Poe and Hawthorne had made the short story a distinct type. Now Bret Harte, less artistic and careful in his style, followed their lead with short stories to which he added the new idea of coloring brilliantly the setting of the story with the atmosphere of a certain locality.

From 1868-1870 he edited the _Overland Monthly_ in which appeared his best known short stories, "The Luck of Roaring Camp," "The Outcasts of Poker Flat," and "Tennessee's Partner," each of which presented stirring scenes of the early gold-seeking days of California. Their charm lies in his emphasis on the manners and actions of a picturesque community.

The material of his stories is romantic, melodramatic, often almost shocking. He handled it, however, with humor, irony, or pathos. He was a realist who pictured, marvelously, the life about him as he saw it.

In 1870 Mr. Harte was made professor of recent literature in the University of California. After 1878 he held consular appointments; in Germany 1878-1880, in Scotland 1880-1885. After 1885 he lived in England until his death in 1902.

Chu Chu

145, 1. Castilian. Of pure Spanish origin.

2. Mexican plug. Slang for an inferior horse of Mexican breed.

147, 1. Vaquero. A cowherder.

2. Sombrero. A hat.

149, 1. Comstock lode. A rich vein of gold and silver discovered in Nevada in 1859. The discovery of its riches led people to rush to Nevada, and Virginia City grew up as if by magic.

2. Rosinante. The horse belonging to Don Quixote who was the romantic and absurdly chivalric hero of a satirical Spanish novel ent.i.tled _The History of the Valorous and Witty Knight Errant, Don Quixote of the Mancha_ by Miguel Cervantes.

152, 1. Arabian Nights. _The Thousand and One Nights_, commonly called _The Arabian Nights' Tales_, are ancient oriental fairy tales. One of these is the story of the enchanted horse, a wooden horse with two pegs. When one of the pegs was turned, the horse rose in the air; when the other was turned, the horse descended wherever the rider wished.

154, 1. Dulcinea. Sweetheart. Dulcinea was also the name of Don Quixote's lady.

156, 1. Hidalgo. A man of wealth and position.

157, 1. Chatelaine. The mistress of a castle.

158, 1. Pet.i.te. Small.

159, 1. Toreador. A bull-fighter.

162, 1. Hacienda. A large estate.

2. Alfalfa. A species of gra.s.s valuable as fodder for horses and cattle.

165, 1. Rodeo. Cattle market.

167, 1. Tete-a-tete. A private conversation between two people.

169, 1. Padre. Priest.

172, 1. Rencontre. A meeting.

2. Patio. Courtyard.

3. Cabriole. An open carriage.

NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE (Page 173)

Because he was one of the founders of the short story in America, and because he is considered by many critics to be superior in style to all other American writers of fiction, Nathaniel Hawthorne has been chosen as the last of the group of American authors represented in this collection. In reading the story "Feathertop," therefore, it is interesting to compare the style of the author with that of the other American writers who are represented here. The story may also be used as a good test of the composition of the short story as given in the Introduction.

Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864) was born of a stern Puritan line in Salem, Ma.s.sachusetts, the grimmest of all the Puritan communities. He was a graduate of Bowdoin College and lived much of his life at Concord and Salem.

He was a happy child, by nature, but he was influenced by stern family traditions and the loneliness of his early environment. After the death of his silent, melancholy father, his mother brought up the children in the utmost seclusion. The decaying old seaport of witch-haunted memories in which he lived, also impressed profoundly the lively imagination of the solitary boy. All these influences may be traced in the stories of Hawthorne with their strong moral tone and their delicate but often rather morbid fancies.

Hawthorne, because of his timidity and self-depreciation, did not begin his real literary career until rather late. We owe it to his sympathetic yet practical wife that he ever published his writings. She recognized the value of the stories he had written and believed in his genius. Since he loathed the duties of the custom house where he was employed as an official, Mrs. Hawthorne urged him to give up this occupation and devote himself to his true vocation, that of a writer, in spite of its uncertainties as to success and financial returns.

Hawthorne's imagination early led him into the field of romance; that is, he told tales full of strange and fanciful adventure, revealing the ideal or spiritual side of human nature. According to some of our best critics, Hawthorne is said to be our greatest romantic novelist.

Feathertop

176, 1. Louis le Grand or the Grand Monarque, was Louis XIV, king of France from 1638-1715.

185, 1. Eldorado. An imaginary country, rich in gold and jewels, which the early Spanish explorers believed to exist somewhere in the New World.

191, 1. Norman blood. A sign of aristocracy. The Norman-French conquered England in the eleventh century and became the aristocracy of England.

SIR ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE (Page 203)

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the eldest son of the artist, Charles Doyle, was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, in May, 1859. He was educated in England, Scotland, and Germany. In 1885 he received the degree of M.D.