No one can thoroughly enjoy
riddle stories unless he is old enough, or young enough, or, at any
rate, wise enough to appreciate the value of the faculty of being
surprised. Those sardonic and omniscient persons who know
everything beforehand, and smile compassionately or scornfully at
the artless outcries of astonishment of those who are uninformed,
may get an ill-natured satisfaction out of the persuasion that they
are superior beings; but there is very little meat in that sort of
happiness, and the uninformed have the better lot after all.
I need hardly point out that there is a distinction and a
difference between short riddle stories and long ones--novels. The
former require far more technical art for their proper development;
the enigma cannot be posed in so many ways, but must be stated once
for all; there cannot be false scents, or but a few of them; there
can be small opportunity for character drawing, and all kinds of
ornament and comment must be reduced to their very lowest terms.
Here, indeed, as everywhere, genius will have its way; and while a
merely talented writer would deem it impossible to tell the story
of "The Gold Bug" in less than a volume, Poe could do it in a few
thousand words, and yet appear to have said everything worth
saying.
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