1. _A Simple Act of Piety_, by _Achmed Abdullah_ (The All-Story Weekly). To those who enjoyed last year Thomas Burke’s “Limehouse Nights,” the series of Pell Street stories which Captain Abdullah is publishing in the Century Magazine, Collier’s Weekly, and the All-Story Weekly will be welcome. To a vivid sense of color and an economy of dramatic situation, “A Simple Act of Piety,” which is the best of these stories, adds a fine appreciation of the Oriental point of view. The characterization is almost subjective it is so real, and the story is a fine crystallization of the poetry inherent in New York Chinatown life. 2. _The Man of Ideas_, by _Sherwood Anderson_ (Little Review), points the way to a new American realism. Those who have read Mr. Anderson’s other Winesburg stories in the Seven Arts and the Little Review will remember that he has set himself the task of portraying the spiritual values of a small Ohio community without sentimentality. These stories suggest the Spoon River Anthology, and indeed the tradition inaugurated by Edgar Lee Masters, Sherwood Anderson, and other realists of the new Chicago School seems likely to carry on the vision of Walt Whitman to new goals of achievement. 3. _Cruelties_ (Harper’s Magazine) and 4. “_Goddess Size_” (Harper’s Magazine), by _Edwina Stanton Babcock_. When Miss Babcock published “The Excursion” last year in the Pictorial Review, I expressed my belief that it was one of the best five American short stories of the year. I regard these two stories as marking a significant advance in Miss Babcock’s art. Her characterization of these Nantucket folks has a subtle humor and poetry linked to a faithful realism. Miss Babcock continues to prove herself a leader in short-story regionalism. “Cruelties” is very quietly done and no point is over-stressed. In fact I find a greater reticence in these stories than in Miss Babcock’s earlier work, and this is all to the good. 5. _The Bell-Tower of P’An-Ku_, by “_John Brangwyn_” (Century Magazine). This story by an American novelist, whose name is not to be revealed, comes with a definite message to Americans from China. It is an allegory quietly setting forth the essence of the imaginative attitude toward life. Like a shifting tapestry, pictures weave to and fro, and the way is opened to us to see the vision that the unknown Chinese master saw. 6. _Buster_, by _Katharine Holland Brown_ (Scribner’s Magazine). Here in clear swift portraiture Miss Brown has caught the spirit of America, youthful and eager, living dangerously and happily, and prepared to face danger, and, if necessary, seek it. “Buster” is a study of the typical young American who finds himself at last as an aviator in France. No story could better interpret our spirit to the English and French imagination.