herefore, in
any qualitative analysis is to report upon how vitally compelling
the writer makes his selected facts or incidents. This test may be
known as the test of substance.

But a second test is necessary in this qualitative analysis if a
story is to take high rank above other stories. The test of substance
is the most vital test, to be sure, and if a story survives it, it
has imaginative life. The true artist, however, will seek to shape
this living substance into the most beautiful and satisfying form,
by skilful selection and arrangement of his material, and by the
most direct and appealing presentation of it in portrayal and
characterization.

The short stories which I have examined in this study have fallen
naturally into four groups. The first group consists of those stories
which fail, in my opinion, to survive either the test of substance
or the test of form. These stories are listed in the year-book without
comment or a qualifying asterisk. The second group consists of those
stories which may fairly claim to survive either the test of substance
or the test of form. Each of these stories may claim to possess either
distinction of technique alone, or more frequently, I am glad to say,
a persuasive sense of life in them to which a reader responds with
some part of his own experience. Stories included in this group are
indicated in the year-book index by a single asterisk prefixed to the
title. The third group, which is composed of stories of still greater
distinction, includes such narratives as may lay convincing claim to a
second reading, because each of them has survived both tests, the test
of substance and the test of form. Stories included in this group are
indicated in the year-book index by two asterisks prefixed to the title.

Finally, I have recorded the names of a small group of stories
which possess, I believe, an even finer distinction--the distinction
of uniting genuine substance and artistic form in a closely woven
pattern with a spiritual sincerity so earnest, and a creative belief
so strong, that each of these stories may fairly claim, in my opinion,
a position of some permanence in our literature as a criticism of life.
Stories of such quality are indicated in the year-book index by three
asterisks prefixed to the title, and are also listed in a special
"Roll of Honor." Ninety-three stories published during 1915 are
included in this list, and in compiling it I must repeat that I have
per