The Elder's People, by Harriet Prescott Spofford (Houghton, Mifflin Company). Mrs. Spofford has collected in this volume the best among the short stories which she has written since 1904, and the collection shows no diminution in her powers of accurate and tender observation of New England folk. These fourteen prose idyls have a mellow humanism which portrays the last autumn fires of a dying tradition. They rank with the best work of Miss Jewett and Mrs. Spofford herself in the same kind, and are a permanent addition to the small store of New England literature. I wish to call special attention to "An Old Fiddler," "A Village Dressmaker," and "A Life in a Night."
The Valley of Vision, by Henry van Dyke (Charles Scribner's Sons). This volume of notes for stories rather than stories themselves calls for no particular comment save for two admirable fugitive studies entitled "A Remembered Dream" and "The Broken Soldier and the Maid of France." These seem to me creditable additions to the small store of American legends which the war produced, but the other stories and sketches are rather bloodless. They are signs of the spiritual anæmia which is so characteristic of much of American life.
The Ninth Man, by Mary Heaton Vorse (Harper & Brothers). When this story was published in Harper's Magazine six years ago, it attracted wide attention as a vividly composed presentment of human passions in a mediæval scene. The allegory was not stressed unduly, and was perhaps taken into less account then than it will be now. But events have since clarified the story in a manner which proves Miss Vorse to have been curiously prophetic. In substance it is very different from what we have come to associate with her work, but I think that its modern social significance will now be obvious to any reader. Philosophy aside, I commend it as an admirably woven story.
Anchors Aweigh, by Harriet Welles (Charles Scribner's Sons). I think the chief value of this volume is as a quiet record of experience without any remarkable qualities of plot and style, but it is full of promise for the future, and in "Orders" Mrs. Welles has written a memorable story. The introduction by the Secretary of the Navy rather overstates the case, but I think no one will deny the genuine feeling and truth with which Mrs. Welles has presented her point of view.
Ma Pettengill, by Harry Leon Wilson (Doubleday, Page & Company). I must confess that temperamentally I am not inclined to rank these humorous stories of American life as highly as many critics. I grant their sincerity of portraiture, but they show only too plainly the signs of Mr. Wilson's compromise with his large audience in The Saturday Evening Post. They are written, however, with the author's eye on the object, and Ma Pettengill herself is vividly realized.
Hungry Hearts, by Anzia Yezierska (Houghton Mifflin Company). When I reprinted "Fat of the Land" last year I stated that it seemed to me perhaps the finest imaginative contribution to the short story made by an American artist last year. My opinion is confirmed by Miss Yezierska's first collection of stories, and particularly by "Hunger," "The Miracle," and "My Own People." I know of no other American writer who is driven by such inevitable compulsion to express her ideal of what America might be, and it serves to underscore the truth that the chief idealistic contribution to American life comes no longer from the anæmic Anglo-Saxon puritan, but from the younger elements of our mixed racial culture. Such a flaming passion of mingled indignation and love for America embodies a message which other races must heed, and proves that there is a spiritual America being born out of suffering and oppression which is destined to rule before very long.
II. English and Irish Authors
Windmills: A Book of Fables, by Gilbert Cannan (B. W. Huebsch, Inc.). This is the first American edition of a book published in London in 1915. Conceived as a new "Candide," it is a bitter satire on war and international politics. While it ostensibly consists of four short stories, they have a unity of action which is sketched rather than fully set forth. In fact, the volume is really a notebook for a larger work. Set beside the satire of Voltaire, Mr. Cannan's master, it is seen to fail because of its lack of kindly irony. In fact, it is a little overdone.
The Eve of Pascua, by "Richard Dehan" (George H. Doran Company). Two years ago I had occasion to call attention to the quite unstressed romanticism of Mrs. Graves' "Under the Hermes." The present volume is of much less significance, and I only mention it because of the title story, which is an adequately rendered picture of contemporary Spanish life, much less overdrawn than the other stories.
Poems and Prose, of Ernest Dowson (Boni and Liveright). Five of the nine short stories by Ernest Dowson are included in this admirable reprint, but it omits the better stories which appeared in The Savoy, and in a later edition I suggest that the poems be printed in a volume by themselves with Mr. Symons' memoir, and all the stories in another volume which should include among others "The Dying of Francis Donne" and "Countess Marie of The Angels."