The Best Short Stories of 1917 | Page 5

Mrs.
Colum's suggestions and propose that, except in an unusual instance,
the short story should be limited to five thousand words, and that the
compensation for it should not exceed three hundred dollars.
To repeat what I have said in previous volumes of this series, 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
formulas, 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 of our work, and the
psychological and imaginative reality which our 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.
During the past year I have sought to select from the stories published
in American magazines those which have rendered life imaginatively in
organic substance and artistic form. As the most adequate means to this
end, I have taken each short story by itself, and examined it impartially.
I have done my best to surrender myself to the writer's point of view,

and granting his choice of material and personal interpretation of its
value, have sought to test it by the double standard of substance and
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 obtain 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 known as the test
of substance.
But a second test is necessary if a story is to take high 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 material, 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 group 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 year-book
without comment or a 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 year-book 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 year-book index by two asterisks prefixed to the
title.
Finally, I have recorded the names of a small group of stories which
possess, I believe, an even finer distinction--the 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 our
literature. If all of these stories by American authors were republished,
they would not occupy more space than six average novels. My
selection of them does not imply the critical belief that they are great
stories. It is simply to be taken as meaning that I have found the
equivalent of six volumes worthy of republication among all the stories
published during 1917. These stories are indicated in the year-book
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 for or
against a story. To the titles of certain stories,