_The sixty-three short stories published in the American magazines
during 1917 which I shall discuss in this article are chosen from a
larger group of about one hundred and twenty-five stories, whose
literary excellence justified me in including them in my annual "Roll of
Honor." The stories, which are included in this Roll of Honor have been
chosen from the stories published in about sixty-five American
periodicals during 1917. In selecting them, I have sought to accept the
author's point of view and manner of treatment, and to measure simply
the degree of success he had in doing what he set out to achieve. But I
must confess that it has been difficult to eliminate personal admiration
completely in the further winnowing which has resulted in this selection
of sixty-three stories. Below are set forth the particular qualities
which have seemed to me to justify in each case the inclusion of a story
in this list._
1. THE EXCURSION by _Edwina Stanton Babcock_ (The Pictorial Review) is
in my belief one of the best five American short stories of the year. It
is significant because of its faithful and imaginative rendering of
American folk-life, because of its subtle characterization, and the
successful manner in which it reveals the essentially racy humor of the
American countryside with the utmost economy of means. The
characterization is achieved almost entirely through dialogue, and the
portraiture of the characters is rendered inimitably in a phrase or two.
In this story, as well as in "The Band," Miss Babcock has earned the
right to a place beside Francis Buzzell as a regional story writer,
fairly comparable to John Trevena's renderings of Dartmoor.
2. THE BROTHERS by _Thomas Beer_ (The Century Magazine) will remind the
reader in some respects of Frederick Stuart Greene's story, "The Black
Pool," published in "The Grim 13." But apart from a superficial
resemblance in the substance with which both writers deal, the two
stories are more notable in their differences than in their
resemblances. If "The Brothers" is less inevitable than "The Black
Pool," it is perhaps a more sophisticated work of art, and I am not sure
but that its conclusion and the resolution of character that it involves
is not more artistically convincing than the end of "The Black Pool." It
is certainly a memorable first story by a new writer and would of
itself be enough to make a reputation. Mr. Beer is the most original new
talent that the Century Magazine has discovered since Stacy Aumonier.
3. ONNIE by _Thomas Beer_ (The Century Magazine) has a certain stark
faithfulness which makes of somewhat obvious material an extremely vivid
and freshly felt rendering of life. There is a certain quality of
observation in the story which we are accustomed to think of as a Gallic
rather than an American trait. I think that Mr. Beer has slightly
broadened his canvas where greater restraint and less cautious use of
suggestion would have better answered his purpose. But "Onnie" is a
better story than "The Brothers" to my mind, and Mr. Beer, by virtue of
these two stories, is one of the two or three most interesting new
talents of the year.
4. IRONSTONE by _Phyllis Bottome_ (The Century Magazine). To those who
have enjoyed in recent years the admirable social comedy and deft
handling of English character to which Miss Bottome has accustomed us,
"Ironstone" must have come as a surprise in its revelation of a new
aspect in the author's talent, akin to the kind of tale which is found
at its best as a "middle" in the London Nation. It compresses the
emotion of a Greek drama into a space of perhaps four thousand words. I
find that the closing dialogue in this story is as certain in its march
as the closing pages of "Riders to the Sea," and the _katharsis_ is
timeless in its final solution.
5. FROM HUNGARY by "_John Breck_" (The Bookman) is perhaps not to be
classified as a short story, but the academic limitations of the short
story have never interested me greatly, and in its own field this short
fiction sketch is memorable. Its secret is the secret of atmosphere
rather than speech, but atmosphere here becomes human in its reality and
the resultant effect is not unlike that of "When Hannah Var Eight Yar
Old" by Miss Girling, which appeared in the Atlantic Monthly a few years
ago. "John Breck," or Elizabeth C. A. Smith, to reveal her authorship,
has found complete embodiment for her conception in this story for the
first time, and it is a promise for a vivid and interesting future.
6. THE FLYING TEUTON by _Alice Brown_ (Harper's Magazine) is the best
short story that has come out of this war as yet in either English or
American magazines. Accepting the old legend of the Flying Dutchman,
Miss Brown has imagined it reëmbodied in a modern setting, and out of
the ironies of this situation a most dramatic story results with a sure
and true message for the American people. It is in my opinion one of the
five best short stories of the year, and I am happy to say that it will
soon be accessible to the public once more in book form.
7. CLOSED DOORS, and 8. A CUP OF TEA by _Maxwell Struthers Burt_ (both
in Scribner's Magazine). In these two stories, and in "The Glory of the
Wild Green Earth," "John O'May," and "Le Panache," all of which appeared
in Scribner's Magazine during the past year, a place is made for the
author among American short story writers beside that of Mrs. Gerould,
Wilbur Daniel Steele, and H. G. Dwight. Two years ago I had the pleasure
of reprinting his first short story, "The Water-Hole," in "The Best
Short Stories of 1915." I thought at that time that Mr. Burt would
eventually do fine things, but I never suspected that, in the short
period of two years, he would win for himself so important a place in
contemporary American letters. Mr. Burt's technique is still a trifle
over-sophisticated, but I suppose this is a fault on virtue's side. A
collection of Mr. Burt's short stories in book form should be anxiously
awaited by the American public.
9. LONELY PLACES, and 10. THE LONG VACATION by _Francis Buzzell_ (The
Pictorial Review). The attentive reader of American fiction must have
already noted two memorable stories by Francis Buzzell published in
previous years, "Addie Erb and Her Girl Lottie" and "Ma's Pretties."
These two stories won for Mr. Buzzell an important position as an
American folk-writer, and this position is amply sustained by the two
fine stories which he has published during the past year. His
imaginative realism weaves poignant beauty out of the simplest and most
dusty elements in life, and it is my belief that it is along the lines
of his method and that of Miss Babcock that America is most likely
eventually to contribute something distinctively national to the world's
literary culture.
11. THE MISTRESS by _Fleta Campbell_ (Harper's Bazar) is a most highly
polished and sharply outlined story of the war. It makes an art out of
coldness in narration which serves to emphasize and bring out by
contrast the human warmth of the story's substance.
12. THE FOUNDLING by _Gunnar Cederschiöld_ (Collier's Weekly). Readers
who recall the fine series of stories by Alden Brooks published during
the past two years in Collier's Weekly and the Century Magazine will
find in "The Foundling" a story equally memorable as a ruthless
portrayal of the effects of war. Whether one approves or disapproves in
general of the ending is irrelevant in this case. This story must take
its place as one of the best dozen stories of the war.
13. BOYS WILL BE BOYS, 14. THE FAMILY TREE, and 15. QUALITY FOLKS by
_Irvin S. Cobb_ (all in the Saturday Evening Post). It is seven years
since Irvin Cobb published his first short story, "The Escape of Mr.
Trimm," in the Saturday Evening Post. During that short period he has
passed from the position of an excellent journalist to that of
America's most representative humorist, in the truer meaning of that
word. Upon him the mantle of Mark Twain has descended, and with that
mantle he has inherited the artistic virtues and the utter inability to
criticize his own work that was so characteristic of Mr. Clemens. But
the very gusto of his creative work has been shaping his style during
the past two years to a point where he may now fairly claim to have
mastered his material, and to have found the most effective human
persuasiveness in its presentation. Our grandchildren will read these
three stories, and thank God that there was a man named Cobb once born
in Paducah, Kentucky.
16. LAUGHTER (Harper's Magazine), and 17. OUR DOG (Pictorial Review) by
_Charles Caldwell Dobie_. The rapid rise of Mr. Dobie in less than two
years from the date when his first short story was published challenges
comparison with the similar career of Maxwell Struthers Burt. As Mr.
Burt's art has its analogies with that of Mrs. Gerould, so Mr. Dobie's
art has its analogies with that of Wilbur Daniel Steele. I am not
certain that Mr. Dobie's talent is not essentially that of a
novel-writer, but certainly at least four of the short stories which he
has published during the past year are notable artistic achievements in
widely different moods. If tragedy prevails, it is purified by a fine
spiritual idealism, which takes symbols and makes of them something more
human than a mere allegory. If an American publisher were courageous
enough to start publishing a series of volumes of short stories by
contemporary American writers, he could not do better than to begin with
a selection of Mr. Dobie's tales.
18. A LITTLE NIPPER OF HIDE-AN'-SEEK HARBOR by _Norman Duncan_
(Pictorial Review). This story has a melancholy interest, because it was
the last story sold by its author before his sudden death last year. But
it would have been remembered for its own sake as the last and not the
least important of the long series of Newfoundland sagas which Mr.
Duncan has given us. It shows that Norman Duncan kept his artistic vigor
to the last, and those who know Newfoundland can testify that such
stories as these will always remain its most permanent literary record.
19. THE EMPEROR OF ELAM by _H. G. Dwight_ (The Century Magazine). Those
who have read Mr. Dwight's volume of short stories entitled "Stamboul
Nights" do not need to be told that Mr. Dwight is the one American short
story writer whom we may confidently set beside Joseph Conrad as a
master in a similar literary field. American editors have been diffident
about publishing his stories for reasons which cast more discredit on
the American editor than on Mr. Dwight, and accordingly it is a genuine
pleasure to encounter "The Emperor of Elam," and to chronicle the
hardihood of the editor of the Century Magazine. The story is a modern
odyssey of adventure, set as usual in the Turkish background with which
Mr. Dwight is most familiar. In it atmosphere is realized completely for
its own sake, and as a motive power urging the lives of his characters
to their inevitable end.
20. THE GAY OLD DOG by _Edna Ferber_ (Metropolitan Magazine) is in my
opinion the big story which "The Eldest" was not. It is my belief that
Edna Ferber is a novelist first and a short story writer afterwards, but
in "The Gay Old Dog" she has accepted a theme which can best be handled
in the short story form and has made the most of it artistically, much
as Fannie Hurst has done in all of her better stories. Miss Ferber has
not sentimentalized her substance as she does most often, but has let it
remain at its true valuation.
21. BREAD-CRUMBS by _Waldo Frank_ (Seven Arts Magazine). I cannot help
feeling that this is an extremely well written and honestly conceived
story whose substance is essentially false, but the author has
apparently persuaded himself of its truth and presents it almost
convincingly to the reader. Be this as it may, Mr. Frank has not failed
to make his two characters real for us, and the poignancy of their final
revelation is certainly genuine. Mr. Frank, however, should save such
material as this for longer fiction, as his method is essentially that
of a novelist.
22. PEARLS BEFORE SWINE by _Cornelia Throop Geer_ (Atlantic Monthly).
With a quiet and somewhat reticent art, the author of this story has
succeeded in deftly conveying to her readers a delicate pastoral scene
of innocence reflecting the dreams of two little Irish children. It was
a difficult feat to attempt, as few can safely reproduce the atmosphere
of an alien race successfully, and, even to Irish-Americans, Ireland
cannot be sufficiently realized for creative embodiment. I am told that
a volume of Irish stories is promised from the pen of Miss Geer, and it
should take its place with the better folk stories of modern Irish life.
Miss Geer's method is the result of identification with, rather than
condescension toward, her subject.
23. EAST OF EDEN (Harper's Magazine), 24. THE HAND OF JIM FANE (Harper's
Magazine), 25. THE KNIGHT'S MOVE (Atlantic Monthly), 26. THE WAX DOLL
(Scribner's Magazine), and 27. WHAT THEY SEEM (Harper's Magazine) by
_Katharine Fullerton Gerould_. In these five short stories Mrs. Gerould
amply sustains her claim to rank as one of the three most distinguished
contemporary writers of the American short story. Preoccupied as she is
with the subtle rendering of abnormal psychological situations, her work
is in the great traditional line whose last completely adequate exponent
was Henry James. One and all, these stories have the fascination of
strange spiritual adventure, and the persuasiveness of her exposition
conceals inimitably the closely woven craftsmanship of her work. Of
these five stories, "The Knight's Move" and "East of Eden" surely
represent a development in her art which it will be almost impossible
for her to surpass.
28. DARE'S GIFT by _Ellen Glasgow_ (Harper's Magazine). I prefer to beg
the question whether this is a short story or a very short novel. It
certainly has the unity of a well-defined spiritual incident, and if one
recalls its substance, it is only to view it as a completely rounded
whole. As such it is surely as fine a study of the influence of place as
Mrs. Wharton's "Kerfol" or Mrs. Pangborn's "Bixby's Bridge." The
brooding atmosphere of a house mindful of its past and reacting upon
successive inmates morally, or perhaps immorally, has seldom been more
faithfully rendered.
29. THE HEARING EAR (Harper's Magazine), and 30. A JURY OF HER PEERS
(Every Week) by _Susan Glaspell_. It is always interesting to study the
achievement of a novelist who has won distinction deservedly in that
field, when that novelist attempts the very different technique of the
short story. It is particularly interesting in the case of Susan
Glaspell, because with these two stories she convinces the reader that
her future really lies in the short story rather than in the novel. Few
American writers have such a natural dramatic story sense, and to this
Susan Glaspell has added an increasing reticence in the portrayal of her
characters. In these two stories you will not find the slightest
sentimentalization of her subject matter, nor is it keyed so tightly as
some of her previous work. "A Jury of Her Peers" is one of the better
folk stories of the year, sharing that distinction with "The Excursion"
by Miss Babcock and the two stories by Francis Buzzell, of which I have
spoken above.
31. HIS FATHER'S FLAG by _Armistead C. Gordon_ (Scribner's Magazine).
The many readers who have revelled in Mr. Gordon's admirable portraits
of Virginia negro plantation life will be surprised and gratified at Mr.
Gordon's venture in this story into a new field. This story has all the
infectious emotional feeling of memory recalling glorious things, and I
can only compare it for its spiritual fidelity toward a cause to the
stories by Elsie Singmaster which she has gathered into her volume about
Gettysburg, and particularly to that fine story, "The Survivors."
32. THE BUNKER MOUSE, and 33. "MOLLY MCGUIRE, FOURTEEN" by _Frederick
Stuart Greene_ (The Century Magazine). Captain Greene's story "The Cat
of the Cane-Brake" attracted so much attention at the time of its
publication in the Metropolitan Magazine a year ago that it is
interesting to find him achieving high distinction in other imaginative
fields. Captain Greene's natural gift of narrative is the result of a
strong impulse toward creative expression, which molds its form a little
self-consciously, but convincingly, for the most part. I think that he
is at his best in these two stories rather than in "The Cat of the
Cane-Brake" and "The Black Pool," because they are based upon a more
direct apprehension and experience of life. "Molly McGuire, Fourteen"
adds one more tradition to those of the Virginia Military Institute.
34. RAINBOW PETE by _Richard Matthews Hallet_ (The Pictorial Review)
reveals the author in his most incorrigibly romantic mood. Mr. Hallet
casts glamour over his creations, partly through his detached and
pictorial perception of life, and partly through the magic of his words.
He has been compared to Conrad, and in a lesser way he has much in
common with the author of "Lord Jim," but his artistic method is
essentially different and quite as individual.
35. FRAZEE by _Lee Foster Hartman_ (Harper's Magazine). Mr. Hartman has
been a good friend to other story writers for so long that we had begun
to forget how fine an artist he can be himself. In "Frazee" he has taken
a subject which would have fascinated Mrs. Gerould and handled it with
reserve and power. It is pitched in a quieter key than is usual in such
a story, and the result is that character merges with atmosphere almost
imperceptibly. I regard the story as almost a model of construction for
students of short story writing.
36. FOUR DAYS by _Hetty Hemenway_ (Atlantic Monthly). This remarkable
story of the spiritual effect of the war upon two young people was so
widely commented upon, not only after its appearance in the Atlantic
Monthly, but later when it was republished in book form, that I shall
only commend it to the reader here as an artistically woven study in war
psychology.
37. GET READY THE WREATHS by _Fannie Hurst_ (Cosmopolitan Magazine). The
artistic qualities in Miss Hurst's work which have commended themselves
to such disinterested critics as Mr. Howells are revealed once more in
this story, in which Miss Hurst accepts the shoddiness of background
which characterizes her literary types, and reveals the fine human
current that runs beneath it all. I am not sure that Miss Hurst has not
diluted her substance a little too much during the past year, and in any
case that danger is implicit in her method. But in "Get Ready the
Wreaths" the emotional validity of her substance is absolutely
unimpeachable and her handling of the situation it presents is adequate
and fine.
38. JOURNEY'S END by _Percy Adams Hutchison_ (Harper's Magazine). An
attentive reader of the American short stories during the past few years
may have observed with interest at rare intervals the work of Mr.
Hutchison. In it there was always a promise of an achievement not unlike
that of Perceval Gibbon, but a certain looseness of texture prevented
Mr. Hutchison from being completely persuasive. In "Journey's End,"
however, it must be confessed that he has written a memorable sea story
that is certainly equal at least to the better stories in Mr. Kipling's
latest volume.
39. THE STRANGE-LOOKING MAN by _Fanny Kemble Johnson_ (The Pagan). I
suppose that this story is to be regarded as a sketch rather than a
short story, but in any case it is a vividly rendered picture of war's
effects portrayed with subtle irony and quiet art. I associate it with
"Chautonville" by Will Levington Comfort, and "The Flying Teuton" by
Alice Brown, as one of the three stories with the most authentic
spiritual message in American fiction that the war has produced.
40. THE SEA-TURN by _E. Clement James_ (The Seven Arts). In this study
of the spiritual reactions of a starved environment upon an imaginative
mind, Mrs. Jones has added a convincing character portrait to American
letters which ranks with the better short stories of J. D. Beresford in
a similar _genre_. The story is in the same tradition as that of the
younger English realists, but it is an essential contribution to our
nationalism, and as such helps to point the way toward the future in
which a true national literature must find its only and inevitable
realization.
41. THE CALLER IN THE NIGHT by _Burton Kline_ (The Stratford Journal). I
believe that Mr. Kline has completely realized in this story a fine
imaginative situation and has presented a folk story with a significant
legendary quality. It is in the tradition of Hawthorne, but the
substance with which Mr. Kline deals is the substance of his own people,
and consequently that in which his creative impulse has found the freest
scope. It may be compared to its own advantage with "The Lost Phoebe" by
Theodore Dreiser, which was equally memorable among the folk-stories of
1916, and the comparison suggests that in both cases the author's
training as a novelist has not been to his disadvantage as a short-story
teller.
42. WHEN DID YOU WRITE YOUR MOTHER LAST? by _Addison Lewis_ (Reedy's
Mirror). This is the only story I have read in three years in which it
seemed to me that I found the authentic voice of "O. Henry" speaking.
Mr. Lewis has been publishing a series of these "Tales While You Wait"
in Reedy's Mirror during the past few months, and I should much prefer
them to those of Jack Lait for the complete success with which he has
achieved his aims. Imitation of "O. Henry" has been the curse of
American story-telling for the past ten years, because "O. Henry" is
practically inimitable. Mr. Lewis is not an imitator, but he may well
prove before very long to be "O. Henry's" successor. In the words of
Padna Dan and Micus Pat, "Here's the chance for some one to make a
discovery."
43. WIDOW LA RUE by _Edgar Lee Masters_ (Reedy's Mirror). This is the
best short story in verse that the year has produced, and as literature
it realizes in my belief even greater imaginative fulfilment than "Spoon
River Anthology." I should have most certainly wished to include it in
"The Best Short Stories of 1917" had it been in prose, and it adds one
more unforgettable legend to our folk imagination.
44. THE UNDERSTUDY by _Johnson Morton_ (Harper's Magazine) is an ironic
character study developed with much finesse in the tradition of Henry
James. Its defect is a certain conventional atmosphere which demands an
artificial attitude on the part of the reader. Its admirable distinction
is its faithful rendering of a personality not unlike the "Tante" of
Anne Douglas Sedgwick, if a novel portrait and a short story portrait
may fittingly be compared. If the portraiture is unpleasant, it is at
any rate rendered with incisive kindliness.
45. THE HEART OF LIFE by _Meredith Nicholson_ (Scribner's Magazine). Mr.
Nicholson has treated an old theme freshly in "The Heart of Life" and
discovered in it new values of contrasting character. Among his short
stories it stands out as notably as "A Hoosier Chronicle" among his
novels. It is in such work as this that Mr. Nicholson justifies his
calling, and it is by them that he has most hope of remembrance in
American literature.
46. MURDER? by _Seumas O'Brien_ (The Illustrated Sunday Magazine). With
something of Hardy's stark rendering of atmosphere, Mr. O'Brien has
portrayed a grim situation unforgettably. Woven out of the simplest
elements, and with an entire lack of literary sophistication, his story
is fairly comparable to the work of Daniel Corkery, whose volume, "A
Munster Twilight," has interested me more than any other volume of short
stories published in America this year. The story is of particular
interest because Mr. O'Brien's reputation as an artist has been based
solely upon his work as a satirist and Irish fabulist.
47. THE INTERVAL by _Vincent O'Sullivan_ (Boston Evening Transcript). It
is odd to reflect that a literary artist of Mr. O'Sullivan's distinction
is not represented in American magazines during 1917 at all, and that it
has been left to a daily newspaper to publish his work. In "The
Interval," Mr. O'Sullivan has sought to suggest the spiritual effect of
the war upon a certain type of mind. He has rendered with faithful
subtleness the newly aroused longing for religious belief or some form
of concrete spiritual expression that bereavement brings. This state has
a pathos of its own that the author adequately realizes in his story,
and his irony in portraying it is Gallic in its quality.
48. BIXBY'S BRIDGE by _Georgia Wood Pangborn_ (Harper's Magazine). Mrs.
Pangborn is well known for her artistic stories of the supernatural, and
this will rank among the very best of them. She shares with Algernon
Blackwood that gift for making spiritual illusion real which is so rare
in contemporary work. What is specially distinctive is her gift of
selection, by which she brings out the most illusive psychological
contrasts.
49. "A CERTAIN RICH MAN--," by _Lawrence Perry_ (Scribner's Magazine). I
find in this story an emotional quality keyed up as tightly, but as
surely, as in the best short stories by Mary Synon. Remote as its
substance may seem, superficially, it touches the very heart of the
experience that the war has brought to us all, and reveals the naked
stuff out of which our war psychology has emerged.
50. THE PORTRAIT by _Emery Pottle_ (The Touchstone). This study in
Italian backgrounds is by another disciple of Henry James, who portrays
with deft sure touches the nostalgia of an American girl unhappily
married to an Italian nobleman. It just fails of complete persuasiveness
because it is a trifle overstrung, but nevertheless it is memorable for
its artistic sincerity.
51. THE PATH OF GLORY by _Mary Brecht Pulver_ (Saturday Evening Post).
This story of how distinction came to a poor family in the mountains
through the death of their son in the French army is simply told with a
quiet, unassuming earnestness that makes it very real. It marks a new
phase of Mrs. Pulver's talent, and one which promises her a richer
fulfilment in the future than her other stories have suggested. Time and
time again I have been impressed this year by the folk quality that is
manifest in our younger writers, and what is most encouraging is that,
when they write of the poor and the lowly, there is less of that
condescension toward their subject than has been characteristic of
American folk-writing in the past.
52. MISS FOTHERGILL by _Norval Richardson_ (Scribner's Magazine). The
tradition in English fiction, which is most signally marked by "Pride
and Prejudice," "Cranford," and "Barchester Towers," and which was so
pleasantly continued by the late Dr. S. Weir Mitchell and by Margaret
Deland, is admirably embodied in the work of this writer, whose work
should be better known. The quiet blending of humor and pathos in "Miss
Fothergill" is unusual.
53. THE SCAR THAT TRIPLED by _William Gunn Shepherd_ (Metropolitan
Magazine) is none the less truly a remarkable short story because it
happens to be based on fact. "The Deserter" was the last fine short
story written by the late Richard Harding Davis, and "The Scar That
Tripled" is the engrossing narrative of the adventure which suggested
that story. Personally, I regard it as superior to "The Deserter."
54. A COUNTRY CHRISTMAS by _Grant Showerman_ (Century Magazine).
Professor Showerman's country chronicles are now well known to American
readers, and this is quite the best of them. These sketches rank with
those of Hamlin Garland as a permanent and delightful record of a
pioneer life that has passed away for ever. Their deliberate homeliness
and consistent reflection of a small boy's attitude toward life have no
equal to my knowledge.
55. THE CHRISTMAS ANGEL (The Pictorial Review), and 56. THE FLAG OF
ELIPHALET (Boston Evening Transcript) by _Elsie Singmaster_ add two more
portraits to the pleasant gallery of Elsie Singmaster's vivid creations.
Although her vein is a narrow one, no one is more competent than she in
its expression, and few surpass her in the faithful rendering of homely
but none the less real spiritual circumstance.
57. THE END OF THE ROAD by _Gordon Arthur Smith_ (Scribner's Magazine)
is a sequel to "Feet of Gold" and chronicles the further love adventures
of Ferdinand Taillandy, and their tragic conclusion. In these two
stories Mr. Smith has proven his literary kinship with Leonard Merrick,
and these stories surely rank with the chronicles of Tricotrin and
Pitou.
58. CHING, CHING, CHINAMAN (Pictorial Review), 59. KED'S HAND (Harper's
Magazine), 60. WHITE HANDS (Pictorial Review), and 61. THE WOMAN AT
SEVEN BROTHERS (Harper's Magazine) by _Wilbur Daniel Steele_. With these
four stories, together with "A Devil of a Fellow," "Free," and "A Point
of Honor," Mr. Steele assumes his rightful place with Katharine
Fullerton Gerould and H. G. Dwight as a leader in American fiction.
"Ching, Ching, Chinaman," "White Hands," and "The Woman at Seven
Brothers" are, in my belief, the three best short stories that were
published in 1917, by an American author, and I may safely predict their
literary permanence. Mr. Steele's extraordinary gift for presenting
action and spiritual conflict pictorially is unrivalled, and his sense
of human mystery has a rich tragic humor akin to that of Thomas Hardy,
though his philosophy of life is infinitely more hopeful.
62. NONE SO BLIND by _Mary Synon_ (Harper's Magazine) is a study in
tragic circumstance, the more powerful because it is so reticently
handled. It is Miss Synon's first profound study in feminine psychology,
and reveals an unusual sense of emotional values. Few backgrounds have
been more subtly rendered in their influence upon character, and the
action of the story is inevitable despite its character of surprise.
63. THE SCAR by _Elisabeth Stead Taber_ (The Seven Arts). The brutal
realism of this story may repel the reader, but its power and convincing
quality cannot be gainsaid. So many writers have followed John Fox's
example in writing about the mountaineers of the Alleghanies, that it is
gratifying to chronicle so exceptional a story as this. It is as
inevitable in its ugliness as "The Cat of the Cane-Brake" by Frederick
Stuart Greene, and psychologically it is far more convincing.