O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1919 | Page 4

as a memory,
even as his ghost remains, longer than the sagacious play-fellow of Mr.
Gilbert's little Indian; but nobody can forget the battle the latter fought
with the python.
For stories about the home the Committee have a weakness: Miss
Ferber's "April Twenty-fifth As Usual," cheerfully proclaiming the
inevitableness of spring cleaning, might be published with the sub-title,
An Epic of the Housekeeper.
They were alert for reflections of life--in America and elsewhere. The
politics of "Gum Shoes, 4-B"; the local court of law in "Tom Belcher's
Store"; the frozen west of "Turkey Red" seemed to them to meet the
demand that art must hold the mirror up to nature.

In particular, the Committee hoped to find good stories of the war. Now
that fiction containing anything of the Great Struggle is anathema to
editors, and must wait for that indefinite time of its revival, it was like
getting a last bargain to read "Facing It," "Humoresque," "Contact,"
"Autumn Crocuses," and "England to America." In these small
masterpieces is celebrated either manhood which keeps a rendezvous
with death, womanhood which endures, or the courage of men and
women which meets bodily misfortune and the anguish of personal loss.
Leon Kantor of "Humoresque" and the young Virginian of "England to
America" will bring back, to all who read, their own heroes. It is fitting
that Miss Montague's story should have received the first prize:
poignant, short in words, great in significance, it will stand a minor
climactic peak in that chain of literature produced during the actual
progress of the World War.
* * * * *
In the estimation of the Committee the year 1919 was not one of
pre-eminent short stories. Why? There are several half-satisfactory
explanations. Some of the acknowledged leaders, seasoned authors,
have not been publishing their average annual number of tales. Alice
Brown, Donn Byrne, Irvin Cobb, Edna Ferber, Katharine Gerould,
Fannie Hurst and Mary W. Freeman are represented by spare sheaves.
Again, a number of new and promising writers have not quite attained
sureness of touch; although that they are acquiring it is manifest in the
work of Ben Ames Williams, Edison Marshall, Frances Wood, Samuel
Derieux, John Russell, Beatrice Ravenel and Myra Sawhill. Too
frequently, there is "no story": a series of episodes however charmingly
strung out is not a story; a sketch, however clever or humorous, is not a
story; an essay, however wisely expounding a truth, is not a story. So
patent are these facts, they are threadbare from repetition; yet of them
succeeding aspirants seem to be as ignorant as were their
predecessors--who at length found knowledge. For obvious reasons,
names of authors who succeed in a certain literary form, but who
produce no story are omitted.
Again, some stories just miss the highest mark. A certain one, praised
by a magazine editor as the best of the year, suffers in the opinion of
the Committee, or part of the Committee, from an introduction too long
and top-heavy. It not only mars the symmetry of the whole, this

introduction, but starts the reader in the wrong direction. One thing the
brief story must not do is to begin out of tone, to promise what it does
not fulfil, or to lead out a subordinate character as though he were
chief.... Another story suffers from plethora of phrasing, and even of
mere diction. Stevenson believed few of his words too precious to be
cut; contemporary writers hold their utterances in greater esteem.... A
third story shows by its obvious happy ending that the author has
catered to magazine needs or what he conceives to be editorial policies.
Such an author requires a near "Smart Set" sparkle or a pseudo-Atlantic
Monthly sobriety; he develops facility, but at the expense, ultimately,
of conventionality, dullness and boredom.
According to the terms which omit foreign authors from possible
participation in the prize, the work of Achmed Abdullah, Britten Austin,
Elinor Mordaunt and others was in effect non-existent for the
Committee. "Reprisal," by Mr. Austin, ranks high as a specimen of real
short-story art, strong in structure, rich in suggestion. "The Honourable
Gentleman," by the mage from Afghanistan, in reflecting Oriental life
in the Occident, will take its place in literary history. Elinor Mordaunt's
modernized biblical stories--"The Strong Man," for instance--in
showing that the cycles repeat themselves and that today is as one of
five thousand years ago exemplify the universality of certain motifs,
fables, characters.
But, having made allowance for the truths just recounted, the
Committee believe that the average of stories here bound together is
high. They respond to the test of form and of life. "The Kitchen Gods"
grows from five years of service to the women of China--service by the
author, who is a doctor of medicine. "Porcelain Cups" testifies to the
interest a