chosen, like Napoleon, whom he seemed to emulate, one of the two consuls of Paraguay. He soon pushed the other consul out of the way and became the absolute monarch of this little state. He had himself declared "Supreme Perpetual Dictator" and assumed the title "El Supremo.'

His strange power has thus been graphically described:

"As he grew older, he became more solitary and ferocious. . . . His severities against the educated classes increased. He suffered from frequent attacks of hypochondria. He ordered wholesale executions, and when he died seven hundred political prisoners filled the jails. His moroseness increased year by year. He feared assassination and occupied several houses, letting no one know where he was going to sleep from one night to another and when walking the streets kept his guards at a distance before and behind. Woe to the enemy or suspect that attracted his attention! Such was the terror inspired by the dreadful old man that the news that he was out would clear the streets. A white Paraguayan dared not utter his name. During his lifetime he was 'El Supremo,' and after he was dead for generations he was referred to simply as 'El Defunto.' For years when men spoke of him they looked behind them and crossed themselves as if dreading that the mighty old man could send devils to spy upon them-at least this is the story of Francia's enemies, who have made it their business to hand his name down to execration."

He was succeeded by a still more terrible tyrant, Francisco Lopez, who embroiled his country in war with Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay. Probably no such bloody and relentless war has been recorded in modern history as this. It lasted for six years, from 1864-1870, and no less than 225,000 Paraguayan men and 100,000 adult women died in battle or of hardships and hunger. At the close of the war less than 25,000 men survived, and the women outnumbered the men five to one. For years all cultivation of the ground was brought almost to a standstill. There was no one to till the fields or care for the cattle, and though Paraguay is recovering and is enjoying a comparatively decent government to-day, it may still be considered the sorrowful sister of South America, mourning for the devoted men and women and children who were sacrificed to the lust of a bloody and unscrupulous tyrant.

BRAZIL.

It is pleasant to turn from such scenes of carnage and destruction to "Brazil, the Boundless," a country larger than the United States of America outside of Alaska, and a country with resources as varied and wealth as great, though still undeveloped,

as our own great republic. Here, on the lowlands or the high table-lands, grows everything that the temperate or tropical zones can furnish. Here are found vast waterways, great prairies and splendid cities; diamonds and precious stones, minerals and tropical products, and all things that make a country prosperous and powerful.

The development of Brazil has been far more happy and peaceful, on the whole, than that of the Spanish-speaking republics. She has never been cursed by the gold-seekers as they have, and for more than one hundred years has enjoyed a comparatively quiet and peaceful development.

Though nominally an empire, under the rule of Dom Pedro I and good Dom Pedro II, her citizens enjoyed great liberty of travel, of business and of conscience as well, and when the time came that Brazil thought she might as well set up a republic of her own, and no longer enjoy the distinction of being the only monarchy in America, the transition was effected without the shedding of a drop of blood. The good Emperor did not seek to rally a single regiment of soldiers to defend his throne, but quietly went on board the ship provided for him and sailed for Portugal, carrying in his heart a deep and abiding love for Brazil and, in spite of his dethronement, the respect and affection of the Brazilians.

Brazil is still largely an undeveloped nation, a country of illimitable resources and vast possibilities. Considering her territory, her undeveloped wealth or her opportunities to expand in the future, we may well call her "Brazil, the Boundless." In her coffee plantations alone, which practically supply the world, Brazil has a source of almost incalculable wealth.

Of all capitals that I have ever visited, Rio de Janeiro impressed me as the most beautiful for situation and with the largest possibilities for future growth. The architecture of the new Rio is superb. Within the last six years the great city has waked up, has banished "Yellow Jack," has greatly increased her wealth and population, has built miles of new streets through the very heart of the old city and has become "the City Beautiful" of the two Americas.

VENEZUELA.

But one more republic remains to be considered in this hasty purview of the eleven independent nationalities of South America.

This is the "Bad Boy" of the continent, the republic of Venezuela. Here, too, are great resources, abundant undeveloped wealth of all kinds, but an unprogressive, rebellious people, led by stiff-necked rulers. Though Castro's government has come to an end, and he is succeeded by a milder despot, yet the whole idea of government and of the dignity of a republic must be taught to this people before it can be worthy of a place in the family of nations.

Relying for immunity from chastisement upon its insignificance and inaccessibility, Venezuela has presumed upon the patience of the civilized powers more than any other country in the world. That it has escaped a whipping so long is accounted for by the same reason that the teacher often neglects to see what the "bad boy" is doing, lest the correction give him too much trouble and too largely distract the attention of the rest of the school.

I have tried to make plain in this brief account of the individuality of the South-American republics what I have learned from actually visiting most of them-that they cannot be understood unless they are studied sympathetically and each one as an integral factor among the nations of the world. You cannot reason from one to another. You cannot learn what Argentina will do or be by studying Venezuela or Colombia. The story of the development of Bolivia gives no clue to the future of Paraguay. As I have already said, they are as distinctive in their national characteristics, their aspirations, their hopes and their patriotism as the countries of Europe that lie side by side and occupy a much smaller territory than South America.

While their development will doubtless have many features in common, and while some of the republics will keep step with each other near the advance-guard of civilization, others will lag far behind. The differences between them will doubtless be accentuated more in the future than in the past. Eventually one or more of these stronger republics may so dominate and overshadow the weaker ones as to absorb their commerce and thus unite them under one flag; but that day is far distant, and doubtless any one of them, even the weakest and poorest, would to-day fight to the bitter end and die in the last ditch rather than haul down its own beloved flag or yield allegiance to any other nation. FRANCIS E. CLARK.

THE MODERN SHORT STORY.

BY W. J. DAWSON.

I.

THE point at which any true appreciation of the short story begins is the clear perception that it is a distinct form of art; and the reason why the older novelists so rarely succeeded in the short story is that they did not apprehend this. If we bear in mind the three principles, that the short story must be complete in itself, that it is short because it cannot be long, and that it consists of a single incident, we can readily apply a critical test, which, while not infallible, nevertheless affords a valuable means of discrimination. Let us take the test of completeness and apply it to Dickens's exquisite story of "Boots at the Holly Tree Inn." The story as Dickens writes it straggles over a great variety of themes. We have an embittered lover, a detailed description of a mail-coach journey, of a snow-storm, of an inn, of his own ennui, of his own curious imaginings, elaborated in thousands of words, before he reaches the real story which the Boots at the Holly Tree has to tell. No fewer than thirty-seven pages consist of extraneous matter, while the story itself is told in thirteen pages. It is not until the Boots begins to speak that the story begins; up to this point we are engaged in the tedious reflections of Charles Dickens, mixed with a great amount of totally irrelevant detail. Dickens himself must have been conscious of these defects, for when he prepared the story for a public reading he ruthlessly cut away all about the mailcoach, the snow-storm, the struggling horses, and so forth, and came at once to the incident which the Boots repeats with so much humor and pathos. Why, then, did he not write the story in this form? Simply because he had not grasped the principle that a short story must be complete in itself. The moment he

brought his work to the test of oral and dramatic delivery this principle was discovered clearly enough. And it may be added that there is no better test of any story than to read it aloud. When a story is read aloud, the interest of the hearer is in exact proportion to the direct appeal of the story; and the inattention of the hearer is the sure indication of the lack of direct appeal. The hearer of a spoken story resents everything in the nature of excrescence; he finds mere description tedious; he is intent only on the living issue. Dickens discovered this when he submitted his work to an oral test; the true short-story writer will not need such a test to teach him the law of dramatic completeness.

In contrast let us take such a story as Kipling's "Matter of Fact," not because it is his best story, but because here also there is a great amount of description. But with Kipling the description is vital to the story, whereas in Dickens it is not. The story begins abruptly with a rapid sketch of three journalists on a tramp steamer making for Southampton. The dramatic note is instantly struck in the cry of the sweating steersman that something is wrong with the sea, that it is bewitched. To describe this sea, with its oily surface, its sudden inexplicable upheaval and run of gray water, is legitimate art, because it is all necessary to the fearful apparition of the wounded sea-serpent, flung up from the ice-cold depths of ocean by the explosion of a submarine volcano. And although the story ends in London, yet its unity is never violated; and, more wonderful still, although it ends in ridicule and humor, yet its impression of horror is not destroyed. In this case Kipling's powers of description do not hinder his etory; they are not felt to be excrescence; and for this reason: that they are vitally necessary to the theme. We do not need the snow-storm and the mail-coach to explain the eloping children in Dickens's story; we do need the horror of the bewitched sea to explain the state of mind in the three journalists. We can cut away three-fourths of Dickens's story, as he himself did when he made it a public reading, without essential loss, and indeed with positive gain; we cannot spare a single sentence of Kipling's without deterioration of the total effect. The one does not obey the law of essential completeness and the other does.

Let us apply the second test, that the short story is short because it cannot be long. A good example of the reverse of this principle may be found in Hardy's great tale of "The Withered