SOURCE: "The Philosophy of the Short-Story," in The New Short Story Theories, Edited by Charles E. May, Ohio University Press, 1885, pp. 73-80.

In the following essay, Matthews spells out the difference between the novel and the short story and defines the short story as a specific genre.

The difference between a Novel and a Novelet is one of length only: a Novelet is a brief Novel. But the difference between a Novel and a Short-story is a difference of kind. A true Short-story is something other and something more than a mere story which is short. A true Short-story differs from the Novel chiefly in its essential unity of impression. In a far more exact and precise use of the word, a Short-story has unity as a Novel cannot have it.¹ Often, it may be noted by the way, the Short-story fulfils the three false unities of the...