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George Moore in a violently
anti-Kipling mood who invented the distinction between the short story and
the anecdote. The short story was Maupassant; the anecdote was damnable.
It was a quite infernal comment in its way, because it permitted no
defence. Fools caught it up and used it freely. Nothing is so destructive
in a field of artistic effort as a stock term of abuse. Anyone could say
of any short story, "A mere anecdote," just as anyone can say
"Incoherent!" of any novel or of any sonata that isn't studiously
monotonous. The recession of enthusiasm for this compact, amusing form is
closely associated in my mind with that discouraging imputation. One felt
hopelessly open to a paralysing and unanswerable charge, and one's ease
and happiness in the garden of one's fancies was more and more marred by
the dread of it. It crept into one's mind, a distress as vague and
inexpugnable as a sea fog on a spring morning, and presently one shivered
and wanted to go indoors...It is the absurd fate of the imaginative writer
that he should be thus sensitive to atmospheric conditions.


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