But I must now suggest a volume of short stories. Which volume? The short story as a literary form, in theory and conscious art, anyway, was invented by Edgar Allen Poe. He set a model for all time, and few, if any, of those who have followed him have equaled him in his own peculiar field. For there are many varieties of short stories that have been developed since Poe staked out the short-story claim. And as for short-story writers, they are as thick as fleas. As part of the object of this course is to scrape a small acquaintance with American literature, as well as to have a good time reading, I am going to suggest that you take your choice of Poe’s _Tales_, Hawthorne’s _Twice told tales_, a volume of Bret Harte’s short stories, Sarah Orne Jewett’s _Deephaven_, or Mary E. Wilkins Freeman’s _A humble romance_. A still better scheme would be to read one or two of the best from each of these authors, as well as others among our story writers. Suppose we take “The fall of the house of Usher” by Poe; “The ambitious guest” by Hawthorne; “The outcasts of Poker Flat” by Harte; “A New England nun” by Mrs. Freeman; “A man without a country” by Edward Everett Hale, and “Posson Jone” by George W. Cable. They will be equal in bulk to a fair volume, and equal in thrill and fun to all winter at the movies. No two of these are the least alike. If I had named one of O. Henry’s, like “The gift of the Magi,” that would still be different. O. Henry is the shortest of short-story writers. From the slow discursive sketch of Irving to the crisp brief incident, with the unexpected turn at the end, as invented by “O. Henry” (William Sydney Porter was his human name), runs the short story, and represents the most highly developed, most artistic of literary prose forms. These that I have named and many more can be had in the single volume REPRESENTATIVE AMERICAN SHORT STORIES _Edited by Alexander Jessup_ May I put in here a strong word for the essay and suggest that one of our dozen books be a volume of EMERSON’S ESSAYS Here are ten good reasons for my selection: (1) Their sheer beauty of style; (2) their high moral quality; (3) their eloquent majesty of thought; (4) their pithy rememberable sayings; (5) their richness of suggestion; (6) their stimulus to higher thought and purer feelings; (7) their doctrine of individualism; (8) their appeal for simple living; (9) their universality; (10) their elemental themes. You will not find them dry or hard or lacking in direct appeal. They will challenge you. They will blow through your thinking as a pure cold current of mountain air blows through the fevered atmosphere of a sick room. The essay, among all our literary forms, with the exception of the letter, is the most direct, most personal, best adapted for information and persuasion. Nor is it, when handled by a master, less satisfying artistically than story or poetry.