INTRODUCTION

I

Is it, as Henry Adams suggests, a fiction that society educates itself or aims at a conscious purpose? In Europe at all events, as he points out, society has not done so. European society at the present time is old. Its youth was not more conscious than that of the average man whose character is formed by the blows and punches of fate. But in America society is young and at least self-conscious. Comparative peace surrounds it: experience of similarly thinking nations is at its service. With these advantages can it consciously form a new and finer civilization within itself, with new values from the experience of the old European civilization and values, now of doubtful worth? America, intellectually, is of European descent. Her language, her law, are not alien to those of the old world. When, therefore, one asks if her society can educate itself toward a conscious purpose, one must not answer that question with the experiences of Asiatic civilizations in mind.

Since 1914, it has been very clear that a new energy has begun to stir in America. It is as if the mass of the people has begun to realize itself not as a congregation of settlers, farmers and prospectors, but as a nation capable of an ideal somewhat different in spirit from those which, as it can perceive from its newspapers, animate the nations of Europe. In other words, America has begun to realize that she is capable of at any rate desiring an independent ideal worthy of attainment.

It is not in the works of such writers as Emerson, Whitman, Henry Adams, and Edwin Arlington Robinson, nor in the works of the younger writers who seek inspiration outside the sphere of American life, that one finds this realization actively leading American public thought. It is in such, at first sight, unusual forms of philosophical expression as acts of law, social customs, and even newspaper articles. There one hears the voice of the American nation beginning to assert that the old codes which it inherited from Europe have come under its criticism. This criticism, one feels, arises from a definite and conscious comparison of an inherited ideal with one which is being gradually formulated by the whole nation.

In order to follow an ideal of this particular and, one might say, personal kind, it is necessary that the nation which seeks after it should, in the first place, attempt to know itself. One sees that, in every way, America today tries by self-expression to realize her own character. In the East, in the West, particularly in the Middle West, every individual who is not wholly absorbed in making money or in furthering the material welfare of his country attempts at some time during his life to say what he thinks of the world as he sees it. His world is not an old world of traditions. There is no traditional way of expressing his thoughts about it ready to his hand, nor is every man a great literary artist. He has had, therefore, to invent a form of expression that is not too great a tax upon his powers.

Few men or women are capable of sustaining their energies through the length of a novel or of a work of philosophy, and fewer have the gift of poetry. It would seem, therefore, that almost of necessity the American people has adopted the short story as its particular form of art: not the sketch nor the episodic tale, but a fairly long and systematically constructed piece of writing in which primarily it liberates its own feelings, and by which secondarily it tells a tale. The American short story, therefore, has an immense and peculiar interest and value. One feels in it the striving of a nation to express itself, and thereby to come to a knowledge of its own character, in order completely and consciously to follow an ideal which it hopes to set before itself.

But whether through the evolutions of human life it is possible to follow a fixed ideal, whether it is possible for a whole nation consciously to mould its future, whether even it is possible for a people to realize its own character clearly enough to be able to impose a philosophy upon it, only the future can tell. One is inclined to think that it is impossible, but that does not detract from the extraordinary interest which the phenomenon of a nation seeking self-realization arouses.

Whatever the result of America’s conscious attempt at self-education may be, the record of it, in the form at any rate of the short story, whether good or bad, will be of the greatest value to future generations.

II

To repeat what I have said in these pages in previous years, for the benefit of the reader as yet unacquainted with my standards and principles of selection, I shall point out that I have set myself the task of disengaging the essential human qualities in our contemporary fiction, which, when chronicled conscientiously by our literary artists, may fairly be called a criticism of life. I am not at all interested in formulæ, and organized criticism at its best would be nothing more than dead criticism, as all dogmatic interpretation of life is always dead. What has interested me, to the exclusion of other things, is the fresh, living current which flows through the best American work, and the psychological and imaginative reality which American writers have conferred upon it.

No substance is of importance in fiction, unless it is organic substance, that is to say, substance in which the pulse of life is beating. Inorganic fiction has been our curse in the past, and bids fair to remain so, unless we exercise much greater artistic discrimination than we display at present.

The present record covers the period from October, 1924, to September, 1925, inclusive. During this period I have sought to select from the stories published in American magazines those which have rendered life imaginatively in organic substance and artistic form. Substance is something achieved by the artist in every act of creation, rather than something already present, and accordingly a fact or group of facts in a story only attains substantial embodiment when the artist’s power of compelling imaginative persuasion transforms them into a living truth. The first test of a short story, therefore, in any qualitative analysis, is to report upon how vitally compelling the writer makes his selected facts or incidents. This test may be conveniently called the test of substance.

But a second test is necessary if the story is to take rank above other stories. The true artist will seek to shape this living substance into the most beautiful and satisfying form by skilful selection and arrangement of his materials, and by the most direct and appealing presentation of it in portrayal and characterization.

The short stories which I have examined in this study, as in previous years, have fallen naturally into four groups. The first consists of those stories which fail, in my opinion, to survive either the test of substance or the test of form. These stories are listed in the yearbook without comment or qualifying asterisk.

The second group consists of those stories which may fairly claim that they survive either the test of substance or the test of form. Each of these stories may claim to possess either distinction of technique alone, or more frequently, I am glad to say, a persuasive sense of life in them to which a reader responds with some part of his own experience. Stories included in this group are indicated in the yearbook index by a single asterisk prefixed to the title.

The third group, which is composed of stories of still greater distinction, includes such narratives as may lay convincing claim to a second reading, because each of them has survived both tests, the test of substance and the test of form. Stories included in this group are indicated in the yearbook index by two asterisks prefixed to the title.

Finally, I have recorded the names of a small group of stories which possess, I believe, the even finer distinction of uniting genuine substance and artistic form in a closely woven pattern with such sincerity that these stories may fairly claim a position in American literature. If all of these stories by American authors were republished, they would not occupy more space than six or seven novels of average length. My selection of them does not imply the critical belief that they are great stories. A year which produced one great story would be an exceptional one. It is simply to be taken as meaning that I have found the equivalent of six or seven volumes worthy of republication among all the stories published during the period under consideration. These stories are indicated in the yearbook index by three asterisks prefixed to the title, and are listed in the special “Rolls of Honor.” In compiling these lists, I have permitted no personal preference or prejudice to influence my judgment consciously. Several stories which I dislike personally are to be found on the “Rolls of Honor.” The general and particular results of my study will be found explained and carefully detailed in the supplementary part of this volume.

Edward J. O’Brien.

London. November 3, 1925.