along with an equally agonized striving for readjustment and escape, it will have accomplished its major objective.
At the present moment, this purpose may be a bit easier of accomplishment than at the time the work was undertaken, thanks to that "Depression" with which America has been familiar since November, 1929. We entered the War too late and came out comparatively too unscarred to be able to feel all that Europe felt. During the past two years, however, we have had our own, an economic chastening. The extent of the spiritual change brought about by the collapse of been said, may be taken as an example of the effect of the War upon Wall Street is a question; but there would seem to be no doubt that there has been a perceptible deepening of outlook and rectification of attitude on the part of the young artist and other more sensitive elements of our national life, all of which should mean a quicker comprehension and keener sympathy for young Europe's problems.
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It is, then, rather with the after-War than with the War generation that this Caravan is concerned. This does not mean that many of the writers represented were not, in one manner or another, in the War. A hard and fast demarcation here is out of the question. It is a matter of stress, and the stress is upon that spirit which has evolved since 1918. Even those who have been soldiers will seldom be found dealing with War themes. It is, rather, as has been hinted, a shattered after-War world that interests them, a world that is to be built up again or demolished utterly,—in any event, portrayed and reacted to.
A question may be raised as to why certain countries or groups have been included and others omitted. There are the Scandinavian countries on the one hand, the Balkan States on the other, which have not been given representation. These may appear to be important omissions. The Scandinavians, in particular, have contributed largely in recent years to our reading pleasure and our intellectual and aesthetic stimulus. And the Czechs and others have a literature which, if it would not be quite so readily assimilated by Americans, is none the less an impressive and an important one.
The answer is simply this. The object being to show the effect of the War upon the writing of the newer generation, the War countries were, naturally, the first selected. The only nation represented that was not in the conflict is Spain; and, spiritually, Spain was the nearest in it of any outsider; the War, for her, removed the
