《史記》不但是我國史壇上罕見的宏篇巨制，同時也是文學藝術中難得的絢爛瑰寶。全文長達五十二萬多軍，其實那些長篇裡面，往往藏著許多精美的極短篇。而在中國古典文學中成就最高的極短篇，《史記》是頗具代表性的。 本文自《史記》中，分對白、人物、敘事三類，列舉二十則極短篇，並評述其藝術成就，期望篇篇具代表性，篇篇皆有伏筆呼應，一則以展現司馬遷的寫作技巧：既要敘事，又要寫人，還要達到相當高的思想境界；一則能「小中見大」，使讀者由此一點，擴展到長遠的線與廣大的面，進而感受《史記》思想、情意的菁華。

　　　　　The History is not only the magnum opus of the historical writings in our country, but also the rare pearl of the literary arts. It has more than 520,000 words, but among its lengthy stories we find many very exquisite short ones. Among the achievement of the very short stories in the classical literature of China, those of The History are quite representative. I discuss twenty very short stories of The History and put them under the three categories of dialogue, character, and narration. Commenting on their artistic achievement, I wish to demonstrate that each of these stories is indeed representative and structurally sound. On the one hand, I want to describe Si Ma-quan's (司馬遷) technique: he must narrate and characterize at the same time when he wants to achieve quite high a level of thought; on the other hand, he must "think big from small" so that his readers could learn to start from a single point, enter into the long lines and the wide horizons of thoughts, and eventually feel the keen substance of The History.