John Collier has an extremely pretty wit, usually bland, unexpected, and deceptive, which is the best kind. In America it would be described as "poker-faced" or "dead-pan"; in John Collier's original country—England—it might be spoken of as "having you on," or "pulling your leg." It is very much of the school of Saki, as indeed his stories in their entirety are. Complete lineal descendants, although completely original and themselves. But every now and then the wit is more malicious than Saki's, choosing a lesser object, and then it is good or bad depending on that object. If it hits a robin, there is a sense of ammunition wasted.

There is a wonderful story about Saki—he was killed in the last war, you remember—coming back on leave from the Western Front, and putting on beautiful civilian clothes, and lounging about his London club, where an ancient fire-eater, a friend of his father's, found him.

"But my dear boy!" he said. "My dear boy! . . . Not in uniform at this time in the world's history? Not in some sort of service? . . . Incredible!"

"I tried it" said Saki, "but didn't like it. Such noise—such confusion—so many people one doesn't know."

But, to the contrary, John Collier has an infallible instinct for horror. The best contemporary one there is—far out in the lead. So much so, that I think frequently, and abruptly, he must frighten himself. Not on lonely roads or in haunted houses. Nothing as commonplace as that. But the far worse feeling of horror that creeps over you like a sudden paralyzing chill with a lot of people around; at cocktail parties, or something like that, when for a moment you are objective, and look into someone's eyes, or metaphorically speaking, into your own. That's dry-as-dust, desert horror. John Collier takes his horror more seriously than his wit, and that's why, it seems to me, his murder stories are practically perfect, while his fantasies, mostly diabolic, usually break down right at the end like a delicate bamboo rod with too big a fish on it.

Or rather, a fish that has been skilfully played up to the last minute, and then has been allowed to wriggle off because the fisherman was bored. Otherwise, well-made rods neither break nor lose their fish.

In these tales, whenever there is enough horror, the horror keeps the wit in order, and so the combination cannot be improved upon.

But in the twelve or so fantasies included, with a couple of exceptions, there is something inherently wrong, and I wonder if it is this.

Fantasy, and fairy-tales, and folk-tales, have a classic and rigid form, and an equally classic content, as do similar pieces in music and poetry. And these are inherent, and cannot be tampered with, or experimented with, or modernized, or improved upon, for two excellent basic reasons.

First, the malign powers involved, the anti-protagonists, are too powerful and uninhibited. If they win, there's no contest. Only if your leading character is a very great villain indeed should the Devil, or the lesser demon, or the Jinn, or the bad fairy, or whatever Power and Principality it is, get the better of him. Otherwise it isn't fair, and when the devils, or jinns, and so on, disappear with their victims, there is left the echo of an unpleasant snigger, both on the part of the author and the demon.

I may be wrong, but fantasy has always appeared to me as one of the few literary expressions in which virtue, even if it is shabby, must win. Fantasy, like the fairy-tale or the folk-tale, is essentially moral. Even The Arabian Nights is essentially moral, just as American Indian folklore is essentially moral, because the weak, trapped by the all-powerful, always win; often, it is true, by a dirty trick which leaves you sorry for the jinn, or the demon, or the devil, but none the less assured in your human solidarity. You can be playful with fantasy or folk-lore, but never smart-Alec.

The story of the old lady who was taken to see Niagara Falls illustrates perfectly what I am trying to say.

For years the family had been saving money and scraping in this way or that, to get her there. When they did, she stared at the water for a long while with no expression on her face. The family felt let-down.

"Don't you like it, grandmother?" they asked. "Isn't it wonderful?"

The old lady shrugged her shoulders.

"Well—" she said, deprecatingly, "what's to hinder?"

And I think a great many of the bright and talented authors, editors, and critics of the pre-war, nineteen-twenty to -forty period, should memorize that story. Any one of the three or four forms of uninhibited expression—there aren't many—because of the very lack of inhibitions, has extra need for inhibition self-imposed. That isn't a parodox; it's the ancient truth that power of any kind demands corresponding responsibility.

Like the devil, or the jinn, or the bad-fairy, the author also is completely powerful in a fantasy. Moving in a never-never world, he can do exactly what he pleases, and therefore most exactly cannot do what he pleases. Released from any necessity of the rational, or the realistic, or the human, he must use his freedom with discrimination and, if anything, become more human. Faust had to turn against the world and undergo a long period of degeneration before the devil got him, and Dr. Jekyll did the same. You can't take any old scrubby human being and turn him over. If you do, it's like some undergraduate joke. And when John Collier remembers this, his fantasies are as perfect as his murder stories.

"The Right Side" is such a story, and so is "Thus I Refute Beelzy." The latter is a magnificent fantasy—also a horror story—in which he who should, most certainly gets his proper come-uppance. Stories like "Ah, the University!", "Possession of Angela Bradshaw," and "Night! Youth! Paris! and the Moon!", fall into a different category and, since there's nothing to trip up the wit, are marvelously funny and absurd. In short, I, for one, wish John Collier would forget his preoccupation with the Devil, who's really a dull and unpleasant fellow, and too much around at present, anyway, with a lot of his lesser demons, and concentrate on murder long or short. Long, I hope, and lots of it.

Clifton Fadiman's Foreword is admirable. It would be, coming from the most precise and brilliant critic in the country, but I don't think he gives John Collier enough credit. These stories are indeed "odd, aromatic, and spicy," but many of them are also, for their technique, at least, "beautiful," and several are "memorable." Chinese Chippendale is often both beautiful and memorable. It would be a pity if The Press of the Readers Club fell into the habit of patronizing, indulgently, the especial authors it honors by its especial selections.