For all this was comprehended in Poe’s conception of unity. All these points of technical skill are derived from what he showed to be the vital principle of the short story, its defining mark,--unity of impression through strict unity of form. “Totality of interest,” an idea caught from Schlegel, he laid down first as the principle of the short poem,[21] and then as the principle of the tale.[22] And what this theory of narrative should imply in practice is seen best in Poe. For Hawthorne, though he too achieves totality of interest, is not so surely a master of it precisely because he is not so sure of the technic. His symbolism is often unified, as it were, by logical summary; for Poe’s symbolism summary would be an impertinence. Poe’s harmonisation, not otherwise, perhaps, superior to Hawthorne’s, is more instructive as being more strictly the accord of every word with one constantly dominant impression. His simplification of narrative mechanism went in sheer technical skill beyond the skill of any previous writer in opening a direct course to a single revealing climax. His gradation, too, was a progressive heightening and a nice drawing to scale. All this means that he divined, realised, formulated the short story as a distinct form of art. Before him was the tale, which, though by chance it might attain self-consistency, was usually and typically incomplete, either a part or an outline sketch; from his brain was born the short story as a complete, finished, and self-sufficing whole. III. A GLANCE AT DERIVATION ANCIENT TALES, MEDIÆVAL TALES, THE MODERN FRENCH SHORT STORY [Sidenote: Milesian Tales.]