I find I have left myself little space to speak of the Short-story as it exists in other literatures than those of Great Britain and the United States, The conditions which have killed the Short-story in England do not obtain elsewhere; and elsewhere there are not a few good writers of Short-stories. Tourgéneff, Björnsen, Sacher-Masoch, Freytag, Lindau, are the names which one recalls at once and without effort as masters in the art and mystery of the Short-story. Tourgéneff's Short-stories, in particular, it would be difficult to commend too warmly. But it is in France that the Short-story flourishes most abundantly. In France the conditions are not unlike those in the United States; and, although there are few French magazines, there are many Parisian newspapers of a wide hospitality to literature. The demand for the Short-story has called forth an abundant supply. Among the writers of the last generation who excelled in the _conte_--which is almost the exact French equivalent for Short-story, as _nouvelle_ may be taken to indicate the story which is merely short, the episode, the incident, the amplified anecdote--were Alfred de Musset, Théophile Gautier, and Prosper Mérimée. The best work of Mérimée has never been surpassed. As compression was with him almost a mania, as, indeed, it was with his friend Tourgéneff, he seemed born on purpose to write Short-stories. Tourgéneff carried his desire for conciseness so far that he seems always to be experimenting to see how much of his story he may leave out. One of the foremost among the living writers of _contes_ is M. Edmond About, whose exquisite humor is known to all readers of "The Man with the Broken Ear,"--a Short-story in conception, though unduly extended in execution. Few of the charming _contes_ of M. Alphonse Daudet, or of the earlier Short-stories of M. Emile Zola, have been translated into English; and the poetic tales of M. François Coppée are likewise neglected in this country. "The Abbé Constantin" of M. Ludovic Halévy has been read by many, but the Gallic satire of his more Parisian Short-stories has been neglected, perhaps wisely, in spite of their broad humor and their sharp wit. In the _contes_ of M. Guy de Maupassant there is a manly vigor, pushed at times to excess; and in the very singular collection of stories which M. Jean Richepin has called the "Morts Bizarres" we find a modern continuation of the Poe tradition, always more potent in France than elsewhere. I have given this list of French writers of Short-stories merely as evidence that the art flourishes in France as well as in the United States, and not at all with the view of recommending the fair readers of this essaylet to send at once for the works of these French writers, which are not always--indeed, one may say not often--in exact accordance with the conventionalities of Anglo-Saxon propriety. The Short-story should not be void or without form, but its form may be whatever the author please.