220 THE JONATHAN PAPERS 



lamentable habit of reading them in isolated 

 &quot;texts,&quot; instead of as magnificent wholes; 

 yet, even so, I feel sure that this constant in 

 tercourse with the Book did for our pre 

 decessors in far larger measure what some 

 of these other books of which I have been 

 speaking do for us it furnished that contact 

 with greatness which we all crave. 



It may be accident, though I hardly think 

 so, that to find such books we must turn to 

 the past. Doubtless others will arise in the 

 future possibly some are even now being 

 brought to birth, though this I find hard to 

 believe. For ours is the age of the short-story 

 a wonderful product, perhaps the finest 

 flower of fiction, and one which has not yet 

 achieved all its victories or realized all its 

 possibilities. All the fiction of the future will 

 show the influence of this highly specialized 

 form. In sheer craftsmanship, novel-writing 

 has progressed far; in technique, in dexterous 

 manipulation of their material, the novices of 

 to-day are ahead of the masters of yesterday. 

 This often happens in an art, and it is espe 

 cially true just now in the art of fiction. Yes, 

 there are great things preparing for us in the 



