mosaic, plunging into the stream of Scriptural narrative for his
tessellations and drawing gems out of The Song of Solomon, but he has
also recalled by virtue of exercising a vigorous imagination, the
glory of the royalty that was Sheba's and the grandeur of her domain
in pictures as gorgeously splendid as those from an Arabian Night. He
has elaborated the Talmud story with mighty conviction from a novel
point of view and has whetted his theme on the story of a love the
King lacked wisdom to accept. The Chairman of the Committee prefers
this story; but other members assert that it lacks novelty and
vitality, nor can they find that it adds anything new to the Song of
Songs.

These three first choice stories, then, are strong in Oriental
flavour, characters, and setting.

Again, democracy (in the etymological sense of the word, always,
rather than the political) is exemplified in the fiction of 1921, in
that the humblest life as well as the highest offers matter for
romance. More than in former years, writers seek out the romance that
lies in the lives of the average man or woman. Having learned that the
Russian story of realism, with emphasis too frequently placed upon the
naturalistic and the sordid, is not a vehicle easily adapted to
conveying the American product, the American author of sincerity and
belief in the possibility of realistic material has begun to treat it
in romantic fashion, always the approved fashion of the short story in
this country. So Harry Anable Kniffin's "The Tribute" weaves in 1,700
words a legend about the Unknown Soldier and makes emotionally vivid
the burial of Tommy Atkins. Commonplace types regarded in the past as
insufficiently drab, on the one hand, and insufficiently picturesque
on the other are reflected in this new romantic treatment. Sarah