But the short story is Heyse's favorite form of expression, and it is in the short story that his power is best revealed. With the exception of a few essays, dramas, and one-act pieces, he has written nothing but short stories for the last fifteen years, and in that time he has produced so many that they would fill several shelves in a large library. Since Heyse believes that every story should embody some specific thought, something to distinguish it absolutely from every other, it is easily comprehensible that many of his tales are morbid and unreal. But the best of them are veritable bits of life; life viewed not only from the outside as any keen observer may see it, but life as the philosopher knows it, the inner life which gives value and purpose to this "fleeting show." He spares no detail of common experience, which may give strength and vividness to his stories, but he chooses the themes themselves from the world of ideas. His stories are not primarily character studies, though the men and women produce the impression of actual life; nor are they stories with plots and thrilling events. They are histories of crises in human lives, of strange problems and situations, of subtle influences working unexpected issues. The majority are stories of love, psychological, like most modern love tales, but picturesque and human as well. Although the hero and heroine are separated, if separation must be, by some obstacle in their own natures rather than by any untoward circumstance of life, they are not dissected and analyzed till they lose all human semblance. They are as unconsciously true to themselves as living beings, and are not less difficult to comprehend. Heyse has searched human hearts to the depths; he has read the motive behind the act; he has seen the thousand thoughts and feelings which make that motive complex; but he has not made his great knowledge an excuse for writing semi-scientific treatises in the guise of fiction. His characters never lose personality; they give fascinating glimpses of their deeper selves, but they make no full confessions; they are elusive and surprising, and therefore indescribably charming and real. All classes of German society have contributed to enlarge Heyse's world of fiction, but it is of the educated middle class that he most often writes. While a certain sameness in type is noticeable in his characters, there is no marked sameness in the individuals. The men are usually cultured, thoughtful, and passionate; the women are beautiful, noble-minded and vivacious; but each man and each woman has traits which make his or her personality distinct from all others. The women are strangely captivating. Toinette, in "Children of the World," Lucile and L.'s wife in "A Divided Heart," Christel and the Governor's lady in "Rothenburg on the Tauber,"--they all claim our interest and sympathy as they do that of the people about them. In fact, Heyse always forces us to feel what he wishes to tell us.