Daudet, Alphonse. _Aged Folk_, in _Modern Short Stories_, edited by Margaret Ashmun. The Macmillan Company. Gay, Robert M. _Stray Notes of a Somewhat Dogged Tendency. The Atlantic Monthly_, June 1925. Hearn, Lafcadio. _Chita._ Harper & Brothers. Irving, Washington. _Christmas Sketches; Bracebridge Hall._ CHAPTER XII _Stories_ Stories are sometimes called _Artistic Narrative_ in contrast to the other and various kinds illustrated in the preceding chapters, all of which are known as _Informational Narrative_. The reason for this distinction in terms is readily seen by one who has examined the form and the subject matter of the story. Reminiscent, biographical, expository narrative, the sketch, the account of travel present alike incidents, situations, circumstances, persons, objects, landscapes, reflections--all in an orderly and a pleasing manner, to be sure, but without giving any especial heightening or stress to what might well have been an exceptional situation with significant causes and most interesting consequences. This singling out a situation, this simplifying of a mass of unrelated material to a few weighty details all bearing upon one another, this presentation of causes with their inevitable results, this selection of a few outstanding characters whose lives and fortunes have been for a short time in conflict over a great matter or in collision over a small one--these are within the province of the story-teller; and because such work demands a sense of form in the arrangement of material to the best advantage, a sympathetic understanding of character, and a perception of what certain surroundings and circumstances may mean to persons in a given situation, the story-teller is called upon to exhibit a kind of art which is not demanded of the writer of informational narrative. Mr. Bliss Perry in _A Study of Prose Fiction_ defines a story-teller as one who “shows how certain persons do certain things under certain circumstances.” In this definition there are clearly suggested three possible and entirely distinct sources of interest in a story: the author may be concerned most of all in the behavior of his characters, in the series of actions and events which make up the plot; or, instead, he may wish above everything else to depict some one character who seems to him outstanding and unusual enough to command the attention of any reader; or, again, he may be one who sees behavior or character entirely in the light of environment, to whom setting is a great, even an overwhelming force in a person’s life.