The American short-story is "simple, economical, and brilliantly
effective," H.L. Mencken admits.[6] "Yet the same hollowness that
marks the American novel," he continues, "also marks the short story."
And of "many current makers of magazine short stories," he
asseverates, "such stuff has no imaginable relation to life as men
live it in the world." He further comments, "the native author of any
genuine force and originality is almost invariably found to be under
strong foreign influences, either English or Continental."

With due regard for the justice of this slant--that of a student of
Shaw, Ibsen, and Nietzsche--we believe that the best stories written
in America to-day reflect life, even life that is sordid and dreary
or only commonplace. In the New York _Evening Post_[7] the present
writer observed:

"A backward glance over the short stories of the preceding twelve
months discovers two facts. There are many of them, approximately
between fifteen hundred and two thousand; there are, comparatively,
few of merit."

[Footnote 6: The National Letters, in _Prejudices_, second series,
Knopf, N.Y., 1920.]

[Footnote 7: April 24, 1920.]

"You have looked from the rear platform of the limited, across the
widening distance, at a town passed a moment ago. A flourishing city,
according to the prospectus; a commonplace aggregation of
architecture, you say; respectable middle-class homes; time-serving