45. _Extra Men_, by _Harrison Rhodes_ (Harper’s Magazine). This story is an instance of atmosphere perfectly realized in brief compass. But it is more than that. It is a new legend for American literature fairly comparable to Irving’s “Rip Van Winkle” and Hawthorne’s “The Gray Champion,” in its portraiture of Washington and all the armies of the American dead sailing for France with the American troopships in the morning. 46. _Daffodils_, by _Anne Douglas Sedgwick_ (Atlantic Monthly). Of the series of stories based on the symbolism of flowers which Mrs. de Sélincourt has contributed during the past few years to American magazines, “Daffodils” is probably the best. Full of the spirit of young England and the many thousand youths mown in Flanders like a field of daffodils in glad surrender, this story reflects the spiritual analogies of the flower in the human heart. It is the same spirit of eternal English youth which is reflected in Rupert Brooke’s last sonnets. 47. _Release_, by _Elsie Singmaster_ (Pictorial Review). One more memory of Lincoln, uniting the tradition of the Civil War with the tradition of the present war, is evoked by Elsie Singmaster in this story. There is very little action in “Release” of a physical kind, but the spiritual values are dynamic, and the story is told with a processional dignity attained in other stories only by this author. 48. _The Return_, by _Gordon Arthur Smith_ (Scribner’s Magazine). From the romantic fortunes of Ferdinand Taillandy, Mr. Smith has turned to a poignant study of French war life. With great reticence and gentleness he has idealized the return of a soldier home to his greatest desire, and so added one more to the notable chronicles of supernatural life which the war has evoked from American artists. 49. _Solitaire_, by _Fleta Campbell Springer_ (Harper’s Magazine). I regard this as one of the two best short stories of the year, though in saying so I wish to put forward no more than a personal judgment. The character whom Mrs. Springer has created is unlike any other in American fiction, and yet, in his modesty, efficiency, and sensitiveness, a most natural American individual. There are many different passions for perfection among men, most of them secret, and of these I think that the passion of Corey is not the least noble.