One remembers the Yankee peddlers who in the old days penetrated the
frontier with the more material products of New England, pans,
almanacs, and soap. But an observer must also note a change in the
character of _The Atlantic_ itself, how it has gradually changed from
a literary and political review, to a literary and social magazine,
with every element of the familiar American type except illustrations
and a profusion of fiction; how in the attempt to become more
interesting without becoming journalistic it has extended its
operations to cover a wider and wider arc of human appeal. It has both
lost and gained in the transformation, but it has undoubtedly proved
itself adaptable and therefore alive. This is not an argument that the
reviews should become magazines and that the old-line magazine
should give up specializing in pictures and in fiction. Of course
not. It is simply more proof that vigor, adaptability, and a keen
sense of existing circumstances are the tonics they also need. The
weekly lacks balance, the review, professional skill in the
handling of serious subjects, the family magazine, a willingness
to follow the best public taste wherever it leads.
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