Various

“ Thought and wit and fancy always fly up in this fashion; and this is the honor and distinction of the Fly Leaf and its staff, whether we win or lose.
We candidly do not appeal to the gross and clumsy wits of the many-headed, although we conserve the tradition of the democracy of fine spirit in literature. Nature’s aristocracy of intellect is all that makes humanity tolerable. We appeal to the Remnant, without which democracy would be the unmitigated dominion of the Beast ”

“ Harlot, which is fast growing to be the principal characteristic of modern civilization. It is getting to be a nightmare to all who cherish any intellectual and moral ideal aims in life, and instead of increasing the witchery of woman it makes her a loathsome vacuous symbol of the corrupt millions who are groaning and praying for a Utopia of unrestrained bestial content. I hope they may never throw off the yokes that keep them tame—and out of my neighborhood. This degradation of the stage and literature is enough to create a race of Epicurean misogynists. ”

“ Indeed, it has occurred to me, though I personally take nothing stronger than tea, that a revival of loose living in the literary world would be a God-send to discriminating readers, as we might then cherish the hope that some of our popular novelists would perish ignominously, like poor Kit Marlowe, before they could put in their cheap, slop literature on the strength of their first bit of genuine work. ”

“ It is noticeable that of nearly all our contemporary writers it is true that their best work was done first in obscurity. With success came easy writing and slop literature for the bag-men of the syndicates. This is the most severe criticism that can be made on them, for a writer who respects himself should strive to continue developing until forty. It is a pity some of our writers [17] cannot meet a bad end early in life, for in that case they would leave a fame unspoiled and unsmirched with endless scamp work done for the speculators in literary reputations. ”

“ It is disappointing, however, to find a man who shows his appreciation of the good old school of essayists by attempting to work out a career as one of this scanty apostolic succession, so completely vitiated in his critical and humorous perception by bad company that he can only find a cheap, cant term, borrowed from the gutter or the class-room, for the honest work of men, who, in this age of clatter and notoriety, are striving against odds to bring in the ideals of the old robust English literature. ”

“ The dull and unintelligent deserve to be lost. An acute philosopher (but why dissimulate to delude the dull, since the philosophic quip is my own?) has divided the human race into thinkers and readers—and mere bipeds. Why remain [32] simply a humble biped when you can read the Fly Leaf and hope for Heaven?
It should be distinctly understood by all readers who visit the book stores with the idea of getting the most for their money, that the Fly Leaf cannot be put upon the scale and weighed against the picture periodicals. ”

“ The revival of the old and honorable pamphlet form, which [29] is and always has been the vehicle of free thought, free fancy and the honest literature of Democracy since the popularization of the printing press should appeal to a bookman.
Mr. Martin is, however, a much better Tory than he is a humorist; and to those who are not aware of it, it is well to point out that one of the significant developments in American literature is the Tory spirit of a certain clique of comfortables, who regard literature not as the sacred tables of the human mind, but as a mere game for people of taste. ”

“ But just think of the beneficial and deterrent effect of such an institution on the horde of scribbling men and women who bury all the good literature of our time under their huge mountain of silly novels! ”

“ He says: “The Fly Leaf is a periodical of the New—not to say the ‘Fresh.’”
I should have thought a man who has enough love of real literature to turn to the good old eighteenth century form of the gossipy essay, as Mr. Martin has done in one or two books, would have had enough sense of humor to appreciate a sincere and honest attempt to rehabilitate free thought, robust opinion and high endeavor in present day literature. ”

“ I answered, “you can’t expect literature to prosper in a year of financial panics, depreciated dollars and war scares. We must be content to just grub along.” “But I should like to hear Melba and Calve—and I’ve not been to a single Symphony this winter. Then, too, we’ve only seen one play, and that was stupid. And we couldn’t even afford to go up in the gods to see Irving or Beerbohm Tree. It’s a shame the way the speculators run the prices up for everything good!” ”

“ The British make the best literary butchers—it comes natural to them to hack and chop and stab. The renaissance of blood and thunder in fiction is the wonder of our age. We cure any tendency to thinking by letting blood, just as the old surgeons did all forms of virulent disease a generation or so ago.”
“Oh, but surely, there is just a big enough public for good wit and good humor to make our venture a success—and then with a million readers we can hear Melba in the orchestra chairs.” ”

“ But he may live to grow mellow and learn to love stout heretics. Every independent writer since Job has appeared “fresh” to smug complacency, and an essayist should never countenance smuggery, if he would hold any status with book men.
It always appears ridiculous to a clique that other men should fight for and demand a hearing. But we must honestly aver our egotistical opinion that there is fully as much brains in Grub Street, frowned upon as it is by the respectable tin gods of contemporary criticism and literature, as there is in other and more respectable coteries of literature. ”

“ And then we grew in life together, the weak strengthening the weak. I used to dream of our growing old together, dying together, and our loves living on after us together, after having drawn us nearer and making us dearer to God and each other. ”

“ A woman who marries into Grub Street never appreciates the situation quite so vividly as the man who is to all intents and purposes born into it. To begin with, she is naturally somewhat prejudiced in her husband’s favor. I was foreordained by Providence for a career in Grub Street, and I could not marry out of it. A long acquaintance with its chances has made me less sanguine than my helpmate, and a million rather staggered me. I know that only good dead authors get a million readers, and then only in stolen editions. ”

“ The English do not take any trouble to dissemble their contempt of everything American, and a good stirring spirit of retaliation in every department, including literature and criticism in this country, would increase John Bull’s friendliness and tolerance as much as Cleveland’s message on the Monroe doctrine did in one astonishing fortnight. ”

“ TO READERS.
Some of the things our industrious writers of today are doing, rather incline us to regret that the craft has become so exemplary and respectable. It may be that morality is served by the reformation of Grub Street, but industry in literature is rather a fearful thing when unaccompanied by other qualities of mind; and a good many contemporary writers are more industrious than anything else. ”

“ Number two of Walter Blackburn Harte’s dainty monthly “The Fly Leaf,” is out, and filled with the spirit of youth and beauty in literature, and zealous with culture, taste and faith toward higher ideals, it is going about doing good.
Mr. Harte is strong, brilliant and brave as an essayist of the movement, and is making friends everywhere. The poetry and prose is all of high merit.—The Boston Globe.
The thing I like about Mr. Harte is his splendid spirit of Americanism, his optimistic belief in native literature and native writers ”

“ My father remembers the great Edmund Kean, and I remember what he says of him; and then there is theatrical literature in abundance.” “Oh, no; there’s no fun in seeing a play if you’ve got to go home and write about it. You know that. But there is no reason why we shouldn’t go to the opera and sit in the best seats, if you only put all your energy and lots of good things into what you call your organ of civilization. ”

“ His was a man’s love. Oh, yes, I know a man’s love rises to that height at times where only a woman’s love constantly abides. His was a man’s love, and soon he loved her. Ah, I envied her, almost bitterly. ”

“ It appears to be almost as much needed for people who lack the spending faculty and imagination.
A lifetime of narrow and thrifty living has almost entirely unfitted us for a life of luxury, and chilled and benumbed our imaginations. ”

“ Max Nordau claims that the writers of today are degenerates. As far as our literature is concerned, the majority of our popular writers have no such valid claim to serious consideration. It is conceivable that degenerates may produce priceless and imperishable literature. Our writers are mostly merely sober and respectable tinkers, and they imperil the intellectual development of the race by coddling themselves so well that they threaten to live as long as Queen Victoria. ”

“ The Tories are saner, broader and more tolerant of human failings that are in the nature of things incurable. Perhaps it is because they themselves do not pretend to be wholly incorruptible on the moral side that they have perception enough to recognize the fact, that folly and wickedness are the sole compensations of the lower orders for the hardships of existence. The Lord save the poor from the dispensation of the reformers and moralists! ”

“ Such is the taste [22] of the serious minded women readers of our time, that this unendurably tiresome portrayer of merely snob life and snob philosophy is hailed as one of the geniuses of our age.
I hope I am a good Democrat here at home, but in following English politics in the newspapers I observe one intellectual characteristic of a Tory government which touches my admiration and enthusiasm, and inclines me to prefer the Tories to the Liberals. ”

“ We get a good deal of literature about the Woman with a Past. A woman has not got a past until she begins the folly of repentance.
There is something radically wrong with a misanthrope who is not merry and cheerful, for this is a state of mental and moral independence and self-complacency. ”

“ Bookish folk constitute a division in the human species, a class by themselves, and as a Booklover as well as a quillfeather, I firmly believe that only those who are possessed of some intellectual and catholic interests of this sort will be found human and worthy enough to be admitted to Heaven. The Almighty will surely not destroy his own peace by allowing the fools to outnumber and outvote Him. ”

“ This is the one direction in which you women have a fine sweep of imagination—but it is not so easy to make money as it is to spend it in imagination. People don’t care for simply good stuff in periodical literature, nowadays. ”

“ It is time these Prohibition lunatics learned that free men will never relinquish their divine and human rights to go to the devil in their own way. And besides, liquor is not by any means the worst evil in this world. ”

“ The true ideal of a democracy is a natural aristocracy of intellect, recruited in every generation from all classes—the survival of the [31] fittest. But just now almost everything in our social, intellectual, political, and even religious activity, caters to the mass of lowest intelligences and their gross prejudices. ”

“ It is something to convert one’s enemies, but the disillusion of life comes when one attempts to convert one’s friends.
The definition of an immoral story in the eyes of a certain caste of critics and the smugs is one that has a moral.
A man who values his peace of mind marries a plain woman. ”

“ Women are the exceptions to every rule. That is what rules are made for—so that women can be exceptions to them.
Wickedness in women is expiated by the joy it affords the saints.
We all profess to think well of humanity because we want to be well thought of. ”

“ Oh, and we’d have silver rings for them!”
“Better get married again and see if we couldn’t get a stock of silver this time. Generous folk always load the rich down with plenty of silver. At poor people’s weddings one sees nothing but cake baskets.” ”

“ The Liberals, like the large army of “Reformers” we have with us in this country, are rather apt to appeal to the mawkish sentimentality of the unbalanced and short-sighted masses, and they encourage schemes for the reformation of human nature by Act of Parliament. ”

“ We hope so, as we have a tenderness for every man who cares for and writes essays. Mr. Martin’s attitude surprised us somewhat, as he really can write an amusing essay and we expect much toleration from an essayist. ”

“ This is one of the most notorious modern instances of a writer of fine abilities who has fallen into the slough of mere money making. Black ceased to write anything that really seizes one’s interest almost as long ago as ten years. ”

“ I do not know how it may be with other Epicureans, but I find the complete dominance of daily journalism, the stage, and a certain class of magazines with a million readers apiece, by the Fractionally-attired Female of the variety stage or of society, is becoming distinctly nauseating. ”