ogical 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
Addington's "Another Cactus Blooms" prophesies colour in that hard and
prickly plant the provincial teacher at Columbia for a term of
graduate work. Humorously and sardonically the college professor is
served up in "The Better Recipe," by George Boas (_Atlantic Monthly_,
March); the doctorate degree method is satirized so bitterly, by
Sinclair Lewis, in "The Post Mortem Murder" (_Century_, May), as to
challenge wonder, though so subtly as to escape all save the
initiated.

Sophie Kerr's "Wild Earth" makes capital in like legitimate manner of
the little shop girl and her farmer husband. Wesley Dean is as far
removed from the Down Easterner of a Mary Wilkins farm as his wife,
Anita, is remote from the Sallies and Nannies of the farmhouse. Of the
soil this story bears the fragrance in a happier manner; its theme of
wild passion belongs to the characters, as it might belong, also, to
the man and woman of another setting. "Here is a romance of the farm,"
the author seems to say; not sordid realistic portrayal of earth
grubbers. So, too, Tristram Tupper's "Grit" reveals the inspiration
that flashed from the life of a junkman. So Cooper and Creagan evoke
the drama of the railroad man's world: glare of headlight, crash of
wreckage and voice of the born leader mingle in unwonted
orchestration. "Martin Gerrity Gets Even" is reprinted as their best
story of this _genre_.

The stories of Ethel Watts Mumford declare her cosmopolitan ability
and her will