The Dial
I do not believe it is possible to formulate any laws in accordance with which one can judge the merit of fiction any more than it is possible to formulate such laws for the judgment of any other æsthetic object. In deciding whether or not we accept for publication in The Dial a story submitted to us we are guided almost wholly by the intensity of the impression made upon us by that story. Of course the means by which the author attains this intensity are very varied and of course each manner of attack presupposes its own technique. However, it would be inappropriate for me in this letter to endeavour to sketch out my personal opinion of what would be the technique of any particular type of story.
But of course all stories, whatever their character, depend in part for their intensity upon the delicacy of the writer’s perception of verbal values as well as upon the delicacy of his perception of character and environment. And of course prose rhythms are quite as important as those in verse.
Perhaps I might add that my personal feeling is that dialogue is much over-done in American fiction of to-day and that the best writers depend upon it merely to relieve pure narrative.
I regard fiction as quite as pure an art as poetry or as music and therefore give no preference to one story because it delineates real life rather than Ultima Thule.
I am sorry I am not able to go into the subject more thoroughly and more satisfactorily.
Scofield Thayer.
The Dial.
152 West 13th Street,
New York City.