pproaching more to what may be
considered the normal form.

With the form of the short-story fairly worked out, the next development
is to be noted in the tone and subject matter. Local color became
particularly evident, humor became constantly more prominent, and then
the analysis of the working of the human mind, psychologic analysis,
held the interest of some foremost writers. Stories of these various
kinds came to the front about the third quarter of the last century.
"Mark Twain" (Samuel Langhorne Clemens), Thomas Bailey Aldrich, and
Frank R. Stockton preeminently and admirably present the humor so
peculiarly an American trait. Local color had its exponents in George W.
Cable, who presented Louisiana; "Charles Egbert Craddock" (Miss M. N.
Murfree), who wrote of Tennessee; Thomas Nelson Page, who gave us
Virginia; and Miss M. E. Wilkins (Mrs. Charles M. Freeman), who wrote of
New England, to mention only the most notable. With psychologic analysis
the name of Henry James is indissolubly linked. _The Passionate Pilgrim_
(1875) may be taken as an excellent example of his work.

By this time the American short-story had crossed to England and found
in Robert Louis Stevenson an artist who could handle it with consummate
skill. He passed it on a more finished and polished article than when
he received it, because by a long course of self-training he had become
a master in the use of words. His stories remind one of Hawthorne
because there is generally in them some underlying moral question, some
question of human action, something concerning right and wrong. But they
also have another characteristic which is more obvious to the average
reader--their frank romance. By romance is meant happenings either out
of the usual course of events, such as the climax of _Lochinvar_, or
events that cannot occur.

The latest stage in the development of the short-story is due to Rudyard
Kipling, who has made it generally more terse, has filled it with
interest in the highest degree, has found new local color, chiefly in
India, and has given it virility and power. His subject matter is, in
the main, interesting to all kinds of readers. His stories likewise
fulfill all the requirements of the definition. Being a living genius he
is constantly showing new sides of his ability, his later stories being
psychologic. His writings fall into numerous groups--soldier tales;
tales of machinery; of animals; of the supernatural; of native Indian