What should be done about it specifically is a question for
editors to answer. But this may be said. If the old literary
omnibus is to continue, as it deserves, to hold the center of the
roadway, then it must be driven with some vigor of the intellect
to match the vigor of news which has carried its cheaper
contemporary fast and far. By definition it cannot embrace a cause
or a thesis, like the weeklies, and thank Heaven for that! It is
clearly unsafe to stand upon mere dignity, respectability, or
cost. That way lies decadence--such as overcame the old
Quarterlies, the Annuals, and the periodical essayists. Vigor it
must get, of a kind naturally belonging to its species, not
violent, not raucous, not premature. It must recapture its public,
and this is especially the "old American" (which does _not_
mean the Anglo-Saxon) element in our mingled nation.
These old Americans are not moribund by any means, and it is
ridiculous to suppose, as some recent importations in criticism
do, that a merely respectable magazine will represent them. A good
many of them, to be sure, regard magazines as table decorations,
and for such a clientele some one some day will publish a monthly
so ornamental that it will be unnecessary to read it in order to
share its beneficent influences.
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