Century Magazine

“ Many poems of merit have also been printed in The Century.
448 In 1887, Scribner’s Magazine was established by Charles Scribner’s Sons, and has since taken rank as among the first of American monthlies. It devotes proportionately more space to literature than is given by its competitor, The Century Magazine, and pays less attention to so-called popular subjects. Like The Century, it contains illustrations, which are characterised by a high artistic standard. ”

“ A series of important papers, the like of which has never before been attempted, and which possess the peculiar quality of interesting every person in the land.—THE BEACON, BOSTON, MASS.
What a vast work for good in these several ways is the great magazine-publishing house of The Century Co. doing; what an uplift is it giving to good taste, good morals, good politics, and good manners, as well as to the dissemination of useful knowledge, to the culture of "the masses," to the comfort and peace and pleasure of home, to the welfare of society in general! ”

“ Address D. D. COTTRELL, North Cohocton, N.Y.
[Note that The D. D. COTTRELL company NO LONGER EXISTS!!!]
The two great periodicals published by The Century Co.
Union Square, New York
The Century Magazine
There is always one by which the rest are measured. In the magazine world, that one has always been and is to-day THE CENTURY. Ask writers where their best productions are first offered; ask editors which magazine they would rather conduct; ask public men where articles carry most influence; ask artists where they would prefer to be represented ”

“ They employ excellent talent when special topics are treated, and rise to occasions of war or other excitement through graphically written and highly illustrated articles. Indeed, one of their most impressive features is the high degree to which they have carried the art of illustration. Toward the close of the century, periodical literature has been greatly expanded and popularized by the introduction of the cheap magazine. ”

“ Even The Century, although frightened, will let advertising contracts as heretofore. The Philistine, and supposedly other magazines, base their hopes of a longer existence not on their equal worth—for lo! it is but timorously we draw breath after reading this prospectus—but knowing that the new magazine will be keyed to so exquisite a pitch of literary supremacy that only a few from the world erudite may revel in such a rarified atmosphere. The birth of the periodical—from the prospectus—fittingly closes this momentous era. ”

“ They laid the foundation of a work which has outlived all its rivals and contemporaries; but they have left few to inherit and emulate their disinterested devotion to the cause of letters.... England, that detestable country where everyone has been starving for the last century, where everyone has been crushed by the load of taxes, and everyone has been flying from home to avoid the oppressions of the Ministry, prints several thousand copies of a magazine, and the whole edition is sold and paid for in twenty-four hours. ”

“ The closing years of the nineties had been years of preparation and development—years of broadening minds and new ideas, until quite suddenly, it seemed, the century turned the corner, and yesterday became old-fashioned in a day, and all eyes were fixed on the glorious sunrise of the twentieth century—the wonderful century. ”

“ They see in it an entity of time with which the counting of years has little to do. Their somewhat mystical view is set forth in the following, which we quote from a communication that appeared in the "New York Times": "The centurial figures are the symbol, and the only symbol, of the centuries. Once every hundred years there is a change in the symbol, and this great secular event is of startling prominence. What more natural than to bring the century into harmony with its only visible mark? ”

“ Walsh's book, The Thirteenth Greatest of Centuries, will startle many readers, but we respectfully commend to the open-minded his presentation of that great epoch. A century that witnessed such extraordinary achievements in architecture, in arts and crafts, in education, and in literature and law, as did the Thirteenth, is not to be lightly dismissed or unfavorably compared with periods nearer our own. ”

“ Its centenary draws nigh; and how fruitful in good to mankind has been that century which is now drawing to a close! It is unnecessary to repeat the hackneyed phrases which tell of the progress of the world during the last hundred years. Every newspaper speaks of it. Everybody with open eyes observes it. ”

“ Five centuries effect a great change on manners. A man may nowadays, and without the slightest suspicion of the fact, brush clothes with half the English peerage on a sunny afternoon in Pall Mall. Then it was quite different. The fourteenth century loved magnificence and show. Great lords kept princely state in the country; and when they came abroad, what a retinue, what waving of plumes, and shaking of banners, and glittering of rich dresses! Religion was picturesque, with dignitaries, and cathedrals, and fuming incense, and the Host carried through the streets. ”

“ THE SIXTIES, 1855–1870 CHAPTER I: THE NEW APPRECIATION AND THE NEW COLLECTOR
The borderland between the hallowed past and the matter-of-fact present is rarely attractive. It appeals neither to our veneration nor our curiosity. Its heroes are too recent to be deified, its secrets are all told. If you estimate a generation as occupying one-third of a century, you will find that to most people thirty-three years ago, more or less, is the least fascinating of all possible periods. ”

“ Let us talk of our college days, of our travels, of war, of soldiers, and of Italy!
XII.
We old classmates will many of us doubtless live to see the twentieth century. Strange thought! I know, of course, that the transition from nineteen hundred to nineteen hundred and one will seem as natural as that from ninety-nine to a hundred, or from this year to next. And yet it seems to me that to see the first dawn of the new century will be like reaching the summit of some high mountain, and looking out over new countries and new horizons. ”

“ And from our observations we predict that the Nineteenth Century will close with a halo of journalistic sunshine about his head, and the Twentieth Century open with succeeding new events indicative of his triumphant success. ”

“ The suggestion that the nineteenth century cannot yet be judged as to its final effect in many directions has already been made, and of nothing is this more true than of its Art. Of one phase of this period, however, we may speak with confidence. No other century of which we know the history has seen so many changes—such progress, or such energy of purpose so largely rewarded as in the century we are considering. ”

“ The new century has come upon us with a rush of energy that no century has shown before. Let us stand aside for a moment that we may see what kind of a century it is to be, what is the work it has to do, and what manner of men it will demand to do it.
In most regards one century is like another. Just as men are men, so times are times. In the Twentieth Century there will be the same joys, the same sorrows, the same marrying and giving in marriage, the same round of work and play, of wisdom and duty, of folly and distress which other centuries have seen. ”

“ There is nothing so to be coveted in a country as the perpetuity of honorable names, and the “centennial” showed that we are rich in those that have been honorably borne, but it also showed that the century has gathered no privilege that can count upon permanence. ”

“ If we could affix to each century as characteristic a presentment as those portraits do of the steel-clad hero of Towton, or the be-wigged, be-buckled courtier of George the Second, our object would be gained. We should see a whole history in a glance at a century’s face. If it were peculiarly marked by nature or accident, so much the more easy would it be to recognise the likeness. If the century was a warlike, quarrelsome century, and had scars across its brow ”

“ Measuring epochs, or eras, by spaces of a hundred years each, that which embraces the nineteenth century stands out in sublime and encouraging contrast with any that has preceded it. As the legatee of all prior centuries, it has enlarged and ennobled its bequest to an extent unparalleled in history; while it has at the same time, through a genius and energy peculiar to itself, created an original endowment for its own enjoyment and for the future richer by far than any heretofore recorded. ”

“ And while the Englishman is generally ready to draw unfavourable inferences from the undeniably unpleasant features of the majority of American daily papers, he seldom stops to draw analogous inferences from a comparison of the American and English monthly magazines. Great Britain produces no magazines to compare with Harper's, The Century, or Scribner's. ”

“ Whatever the division in men's minds as to the relation between the close of the century and a race's history, and the precise moment at which the old century ends and the new begins, one thing in 1800 was radiantly clear to all men—the glory and the wonder, the endless peace and felicity not less endless, which the opening century and the new age dimly portended or securely promised to humanity. ”

“ The Publishers of the New Monthly Magazine intend to remedy this evil, and to place every thing of the Periodical Literature of the day, which has permanent value and commanding interest, in the hands of all who have the slightest desire to become acquainted with it. ”

“ Every century has had its epoch-making characters,—men and women who dominated and directed the thoughts, purposes, activities, and achievements of their times. The nineteenth century is distinguished above all others by the number and quality of those who came to stand for the inception, advance, and culmination of the world’s great movements and who highly exemplified in their careers the enterprise and genius of their day. ”

“ It is surely worth while, therefore, to make an attempt to individualize the centuries, not by affixing to them any arbitrary marks of one’s own, but by taking notice of the distinguishing quality they possess, and grouping round that, as a centre, the incidents which either produce this characteristic or are produced by it. What should we call the present century, for instance? We should at once name it the Century of Invention. ”

“ We find in it a harmony of power, a universality of endowment, a glow, an aspiring ambition and confidence such as we never find in later centuries, at least so generally and so permanently diffused. ...
The Thirteenth Century was an era of no special character. It was in nothing one-sided and in nothing discordant. It had great thinkers, great rulers, great teachers, great poets, {xii} great artists, great moralists, and great workmen. It could not be called the material age, the devotional age, the political age, or the poetic age in any special degree. ”

“ In 1890 appeared a play called “Paris fin de siècle,” by Blum and Toché, in which occur these words: “C’est un mot nouveau qui dit très bien ce qu’il veut dire. Le siècle n’a plus que dix ans à vivre et, vois-tu, il veut les passer gaiement.” The saying, however, has lost its sense, and is becoming obsolete now that a new century has begun. ”

“ Indeed, whenever we try to do serious work at the present time, we confessedly go back from four to seven centuries for the models that we must follow. With Renaissance art and Gothic architecture and the literature before the end of the sixteenth century cut out of our purview, we would have nothing to look to for models. This phase of history needs to be recalled by all those who would approach with equanimity the consideration of The Thirteenth as the Greatest of Centuries. ”

“ Our age has no impress of its own. We have impressed the seal of our time neither on our houses nor our gardens, nor on anything that is ours. On the street may be seen men who have their beards trimmed as in the time of Henry III, others who are clean-shaven, others who have their hair arranged as in the time of Raphael, others as in the time of Christ. So the homes of the rich are cabinets of curiosities: the antique, the gothic, the style of the Renaissance, that of Louis XIII, all pell-mell. ”

“ Nor must it be thought the high opinion of the century is derived from the fact that only a very few examples of its illumination and bookmaking are now extant, and that these being the chosen specimens give the illumination of the century a higher place than it might otherwise have. ”

“ But the eighteenth century, notwithstanding its nearness in time, and the immense mass of information that we have about it, appears strangely remote, separated from us as it is by the great gulf of the French Revolution. The century of which men still vigorous have known many living representatives impresses us as markedly different in temper and point of view from our own. ”

“ Why hast thou wearied and grown tired,
Between a morning and a night,
Of all thy soul desired?
Fond one, who cannot understand
Even these shadows on the floor,
Yet must be dreaming of dark loves
And joys beyond my door! ”

“ The nineteenth century—in the life of the wage-earning multitudes—was a century of disturbance. The twentieth promises to be a century of consolidation. What completed product will emerge from its city aggregation, the children of the crowd? ”

“ What is the genesis of the American axiom that the fine arts are unmanly? What is the precise machinery of the process called falling in love? Why do people believe newspapers?... Let there be light!
171 XIII. THE AMERICAN MAGAZINE It is astonishing, considering the enormous influence of the popular magazine upon American literature, such as it is, that there is but one book in type upon magazine history in the republic. ”

“ Indeed, while it is established that in 1850 the critics of the day fixed their thoughts with pleasure on the early years of the century, though they found nothing but abuse for the journalism of their own time, it is curious to note that many of those who hurl the shafts of ridicule and contempt at the present period have only words of praise for 1850. ”