Part 72 (1/2)

9. _Some Ladies and Jurgen_, by _James Branch Cabell_ (Smart Set), is a wilful apologue of poets and their wives which will delight the thoughtful while disappointing the serious. It is really a prose poem without any moral whatever, unless perhaps the moral Miss Guiney once pointed out when she said that tall talk always reminded her of the Himalayas. I commend the fable to all would-be poets.

10. _The Gallowsmith_, by _Irvin S. Cobb_ (All-Story Weekly). This story, which marks a great departure from Mr. Cobb's usual vein, is one of the most grim stories an American magazine has ever published, but it is a masterly portrait of a professional hangman which the reader cannot easily forget. With vivid completeness of detail, and characterization which is admirably suggestive, Mr. Cobb manages the situation in such a way that its conclusion is inevitable, yet unexpected.

11. _The Open Window_, by _Charles Caldwell Dobie_ (Harper's Magazine), is a sequel to ”Laughter,” which I published last year as one of the best short stories of 1917. Unlike most sequels, it is perhaps better than its predecessor, and the mastery of his art which Mr. Dobie shows only serves to confirm my prediction of two years ago, that in Mr. Dobie America would find before long one of its four or five best short-story writers. An adventurous publisher, anxious to issue the best that is being written in American fiction, cannot afford to neglect Mr. Dobie.

12. _The Emerald of Tamerlane_, by _H. G. Dwight and John Taylor_ (Century Magazine). Every discriminating reader knows H. G. Dwight's book of short stories ent.i.tled ”Stamboul Nights,” and admires its quality of romantic mystery and poetic description. ”The Emerald of Tamerlane” admirably sustains Mr. Dwight's reputation for vivid realization of Persian life.

13. _Blind Vision_, by _Mary Mitch.e.l.l Freedley_ (Century Magazine). This story, by S. Weir Mitch.e.l.l's granddaughter, marks not only Mrs.

Freedley's first appearance in print, but the arrival of a remarkable new talent. It is a study of an American aviator and a spiritual problem that he had to decide, and is set down with exceptional artistic economy.

14. _The Irish of It_, by _Cornelia Throop Geer_ (Atlantic Monthly).

This little study, which is hardly more than a dialogue, is inimitable in its deft humorous characterization. It is good news to be able to report that Miss Geer is planning a volume of stories about these Irish boys and girls whose poetry of thought and action is so coaxing.

15. _Imagination_, by _Gordon Hall Gerould_ (Scribner's Magazine).

Captain Gerould has taken his subject quietly and handled it with a thoughtful sense of its possibilities. This study of a successful writer of best sellers, with his egregious solemnity and lack of imagination, is delightfully rendered. The subtlety of the author's psychology will not blind the reader to its essential truth.

16. _Marchpane_, by _Katharine Fullerton Gerould_ (Harper's Magazine).

Mrs. Gerould has only published one short story this year, but fortunately it ranks among her best. It is written with all her usual close observation of abnormal psychological situations. The art of few stories is concealed so successfully, and the story is one of which Henry James would have been proud.

17. _In Maulmain Fever-Ward_, by _George Gilbert_. This story, which appeared in a Chicago magazine, is the first of an unusual series of stories dealing with East Indian life. It is full of a wild poetry of speech and action, set against a background of almost oppressive natural beauty. I think that the story would have gained by a little more reticence, but the groundwork is firm and the detail admirably rendered.

18. ”_Beloved Husband_” (Harper's Magazine) and 19. ”_Poor Ed_” (The Liberator), by _Susan Glaspell_. Susan Glaspell has already won a high reputation in three equally difficult fields, those of the novel, the drama, and the short story. Considering her as a short-story writer only, we may say that these two stories reflect the best that she has done, with the possible exception of the story ent.i.tled ”A Jury of Her Peers,” which I reprinted in ”The Best Short Stories of 1917.” Both are studies in suppressed ambition, set forth with a gentle humor which does not fail by virtue of overstress. Susan Glaspell is at her best in ”Poor Ed,” a study in the triumph of failure.

20. _Sinjinn Surviving_, by _Armistead C. Gordon_ (Harper's Magazine).

This story is one more addition to Mr. Gordon's studies of Virginia negro plantation life. It introduces us once more to Ommirandy and Uncle Jonas, and is a quiet idyl of the life that survived in Virginia after the fall of the Confederacy.

21. _Even So_, by _Charles Boardman Hawes_ (The Bellman). The art of Mr.

Hawes has developed so quietly during the past few years that it has not attracted the attention it richly deserves. This study of life and death many years ago in the Southern Seas recaptures much of the magic of the old sailing-s.h.i.+p days when the _Helen of Troy_ and other American clippers came bravely into port. The story has a fine legendary quality.

22. _Decay_, by _Ben Hecht_ (Little Review). When Mr. Hecht published ”Life” in the Little Review some few years ago I predicted that the future would reveal the fulfilment of his remarkable promise, although I was not quite sure whether Mr. Hecht would find himself most fully in the short story or in the novel. During these years his output has been small but distinguished, and the present study of Chicago life shows a marked advance in technique. Nevertheless I now think that the novel is Mr. Hecht's natural vehicle, and that when his first novel appears it will create a profound literary impression.

23. _Their War_, by _Hetty Hemenway_ (Atlantic Monthly). When Miss Hemenway published ”Four Days” in the Atlantic Monthly last year, it created more discussion than any other war story of the year. Her new story, which is in as quiet a key, represents an advance in her art, and the two stories taken together represent one of the few important contributions America has made to the imaginative literature of the war.

The war has taught us that youth is old enough, under the stress of events, to speak for itself, and there is a brave frankness about Mrs.

Richard's exposition of this truth which brings it home to all.

24. _At the Back of G.o.d Speed_, by _Rupert Hughes_ (Hearst's Magazine).

Three years ago Mr. Hughes published in the Metropolitan Magazine two stories which were as fine in their way as the best of Irvin Cobb's humorous stories. In ”Michaeleen! Michaelawn!” and ”Sent for Out” Mr.

Hughes depicted with his wonted kindliness and pathos the first generation of successful Irish immigrants. ”At the Back of G.o.d Speed”

now completes the series, which form as a whole the most faithful portrait yet drawn of the Americanized Irishman.

25. _The Father's Hand_, by _George Humphrey_ (The Bookman). Although Mr. Humphrey was born in England he has now definitely adopted us and I suppose we may claim him as an American writer. This brief and touching study of one minor incident in the Great War shows a fine sense of human values, whose artistic effect is enhanced by deliberate understatement.

26. _Her's_ _NOT_ _to Reason Why_, by _Fannie Hurst_ (Cosmopolitan).

This story was published in 1917, when it unaccountably failed to attract my attention, and as an act of prosaic justice I now chronicle it, because I believe it to be the best story Miss Hurst has yet published. The temptation to oversentimentalize the theme must have been almost irresistible, but the author has not failed in reticence and this study of a certain aspect of New York life will not be soon forgotten.

27. _The Little Family_ (Harper's Magazine) and 28. _The Visit of the Master_ (Harper's Magazine), by _Arthur Johnson_. These stories have nothing in common except the fact that they reinforce Mr. Johnson's claim this year to rank with Mrs. Gerould, Wilbur Daniel Steele, H. G.

Dwight, and Charles Caldwell Dobie as one of the most finished artists in America to-day. ”The Visit of the Master” is an altogether delightful social comedy, not without a moral. ”The Little Family,” on the other hand, is a poignant study of the effect of war on the gentle imaginations of two lonely men. Its quality makes us think of the relation between Stevenson and his old nurse, and stylistically it is admirable. I suggest with all diffidence, and from a point of view of frank personal preference that it is very possibly the best short story of the year.