Once more, to translate the O’Brien speechifying into speech—for the benefit of readers who are not movie fans—the American brand of Chaos is fresh and the European Chaos is stale.
The elemental principles underlying all forms of creation are the same, whether you are creating a short story or a buckwheat cake. The same dynamic laws must be obeyed.
You may have the very best possible formula for the creation of a buckwheat cake and the best crucible—I mean the most artistic frying pan that can be bought; but unless the contributory elements of heat, butter and eggs are physically and spiritually beyond reproach, your buckwheat cake will be a failure.
So, too, you may have the most perfect recipe for a short story—from Mr. O’Brien’s own book—and you may have the most vitally compelling Psychology—straight from the farm—but if your Chaos be of the European cold-storage brand instead of the “strictly fresh,” or, better still, “new-laid” domestic variety, your Short Story will be—like most of those in Mr. O’Brien’s collection—quite unfit for human consumption.
* * * * *
That Mr. O’Brien is a scientist of the first rank has been amply proved by his startling invention of comparative Permanence—see Roll of Honor—but, though it is interesting to know that by the use of Asterisks what was once believed to be the essential characteristic of Permanence can be modified, I doubt if half of one per cent Permanence will ever become popular.
But Mr. O’Brien has made another and more practical contribution to science.
He has computed by means of Asterisks, that thirty-eight short stories by American authors “would not occupy more space than five novels of average length.”
What a priceless boon to the budding author about to embark upon his first short story!
All he has to do is to borrow five novels of average length, cut out the pages and divide the total number into seven equal piles, each one of which will be seven and three-fifths of the total pile.