truism fifty years ago; the machinery
for the other thing didn't exist, and something in the way of a natural
condition kept him in the simple path. But I don't find fault with the
machinery; the wider field and the larger figures are a direct boon to
us. They do, however, impose an added strain upon our sincerity."

I like to believe that the American writer is stiffening himself more
and more to meet this strain. Commercialization has never affected
any literature more than it has affected the American short story
in the past. It is affecting our writing more than ever to-day. But
here and there in quiet places, usually far from great cities, artists
are laboring quietly for a literary ideal, and the leaven of their
achievement is becoming more and more impressive every day. It is
my faith and hope that this annual volume of mine may do something
toward disengaging the honest good from the meretricious mass of
writing with which it is mingled. I find that editors are beginning
to react from the commercialized fiction that prevails to-day. They
are beginning to learn that they are killing the goose which lays the
golden eggs. The commercialized short story writer has less enthusiasm
in writing for editors nowadays. The "movies" have captured him. Why
write stories when scenarios are not only much less exhausting, but
actually more remunerative? The literary tradesman is peddling his wares
in other and wider markets, and the artistic craftsman is welcomed by
the magazines more and more in his place. As Mr. Colcord points out, we
have come at last to the parting of the ways.

I have undertaken to examine the short stories published in American
magazines during 1914 and 1915 and to report upon my findings. 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 interpretation of it in terms of life, 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. I assume that such a living truth is the artist's
essential object. The first test of a short story, t