The London Journal

“ Nothing will be impossible to my zeal, to the affection and devotion of those who assist me.
I have received a very polite answer from London respecting all the articles which I desired to be sent to your address. I am assured that the several pamphlets, which I mentioned, are about to be sent off. I am told that the Morning Chronicle, the Journal du Commerce, and that of Paris, which they say is the best, have been ordered for you. As for the rest, upon this point, as upon every other, write to me your wishes. Tell me every thing that may give pleasure to the establishment. ”

“ The society of the literary world of London is conducted after this wise:—There are certain persons, for the most part authors, editors, or artists, but with the addition of a few who can only pride themselves upon being the patrons of literature and art—who hold periodical assemblies of the notables. ”

“ In 1846 he edited the ‘Mirror of Literature,’ and in 1861 the ‘London Herald.’ As correspondent to various newspapers, his miscellaneous contributions to the press were numerous, but of no special note; and he was also a frequent contributor of papers to ‘Chambers's Journal’ and other magazines. He died in London on 15 March 1889. ”

“ In the second place we ought to gain the attention of the newspapers. What the Psychical Society can do, surely the Folk-Lore Society can. What steps to take with regard to the London press I leave to the consideration of Londoners; but there are thousands of middle-class country people who can be reached through the country press better than through any other medium, and what I want particularly to urge on our country members is the importance of drawing attention to the subject in the columns of their several local newspapers. ”

“ you shall be in the "Muses' Welcome"!' My lord and Dr Johnson disputed a little, whether the savage or the London shopkeeper had the best existence; his lordship, as usual, preferring the savage. ”

“ My reason for so thinking is contained in the following interesting item, culled from a well-known daily newspaper:—
"There is in London one man at least who works hard every day and has to lay prone to do it. ”

“ As a news story, it is an event to test the news-gathering ability of the greatest newspaper. The dramatic repetition, on a modern stage, of feudal forms and priestly rites, may never again be repeated. The Herald’s best writers are already in London. ”

“ What little I have done has been done entirely by my own efforts, unassisted by friends at court, or favour of any kind. It has been a regret that owing to my having never lived in London I have not mixed more with scientific or literary people, and that I only know them through their books. ”

“ Now it was that I at last decided upon the vocation of letters; not scholarship, not the dilettantism of belles-lettres, but sheer constructive journalism and possibly fiction. London, however, is chiefly populated by grey-haired men who for twenty years have been about to become journalists and authors. ”

“ It is the kind of a book that will have a great fascination for boys and young men and while it entertains them it will also present valuable information in regard to those who have left their impress upon the history of the country.—The New London Day. ”

“ He was busy contributing to the periodicals which sprang up within a few years of the peace, such as the ‘London Review,’ the ‘London Magazine,’ and ‘Colburn's New Monthly,’ and naturally enough when the ‘Retrospective Review’ was started he became one of its chief supporters. ”

“ When an example was set, the whole fraternity, fired with emulation, thrust each new one beyond his neighbour. Such were the impediments to walking so recently as 1766! The reader may imagine how a Londoner must have felt during a high wind and shower; a thousand signs swinging on rusty hinges above him, threatening ruin to his person at every step, and a thousand spouts pouring cascades at his luckless head. ”

“ Under the influence of penny fares, Londoners are rapidly forgetting how to walk."—The Times.
Ah! it's all very fine, my good Sir, whosomever you are as writes such,
But of decent poor folk and their needs it is plain as you do not know much. ”

“ They had taken too much for granted that their life together required, as people in London said, a special "form"—which was very well so long as the form was kept only for the outside world and was made no more of among themselves than the pretty mould of an iced pudding, or something of that sort, into which, to help yourself, you didn't hesitate to break with the spoon. ”

“ It concerns all who are interested in the maintenance of civic splendour, and especially those who are authorized to regulate it. Such papers, and indeed any thing regarding the customs of London, will always be acceptable to the readers of this work, who have not until now been indulged with information by those who have the power to give it. The Every-Day Book is a collection of ancient and present usages and manners, wherein such contributions are properly respected, and by the Editor they are always thankfully received. ”

“ For the last fifteen years there cannot be any doubt or question that the leading articles in the four principal daily London morning papers exhibit an amount of talent, energy, information, readiness, and compression, which are not found in such perfect and wonderful combination in the French press. ”

“ Here will be one of the great meeting places of mankind. Here—I speak of Utopian London—will be the traditional centre of one of the great races in the commonality of the World State—and here will be its social and intellectual exchange. There will be a mighty University here, with thousands of professors and tens of thousands of advanced students, and here great journals of thought and speculation, mature and splendid books of philosophy and science, and a glorious fabric of literature will be woven and shaped, and with a teeming leisureliness, put forth. ”

“ This is a remarkable and interesting story of Modern Life in London Society. It is a powerful work, written with striking vividness. The plot is fascinating, the incidents exciting, and the dialogue epigrammatic and brilliant. “Shams” is written by one of the most popular novelists of the day. Sixth Edition. Crown 8vo, art cloth, gilt, 3s. 6d.
Public Opinion.—“This novel is a daring attack. The author, whoever he may be, is a clever writer, and the pictures of the seamy side of idle London life are described by him with vivid power.” ”

“ They reminded me of the story I am about to relate—a story of which, I think, no one except myself has guessed the truth, and which, in most of its details, I only knew from a paper, carefully closed, heavily sealed, and addressed to me, which I found amongst my friend's documents. It was in his hand-writing throughout, but I shall tell it in my own words, and in my own way.
Nobody who was about in London Society some thirty years ago, could fail to know or know about the beautiful Lady CALLENDER. She was of a good county family. She was clever and accomplished. ”

“ I now address you on behalf of two other friends of mine, who are about to start a new weekly publication, something in the shape of the Literary Gazette, to be entitled The London Review. The editors are Mr D. L. Richardson, the author of a volume of poems chiefly written in India, and a Mr St John, a young gentleman of very superior talents, whose name has not yet been (so far as I know) before the public, though he has been a contributor to several of the first-rate periodicals. I have no other interest in the work myself than that of a friend and contributor. ”

“ The English theory may be in itself almost as simple, but different and much more complex forces have ruled the application of it; so much does the goodness of talk depend on what there may be to talk about. There are more things in London, I think, than anywhere in the world; hence the charm of the dramatic struggle reflected in my book, the struggle somehow to fit propriety into a smooth general case which is really all the while bristling and crumbling into fierce particular ones. ”

“ The men have no style; the women, who are fidgety and talk too much, have it only in their coiffure, where they have it superabundantly. But I console myself with the greater bonhomie. Have you ever arrived at an English country-house in the dusk of a winter's day? Have you ever made a call in London, when you knew nobody but the hostess? People here are more expressive, more demonstrative; and it is a pleasure, when one comes back (if one happens, like me, to be no one in particular) , to feel one's social value rise. They attend to you more ”

“ By a young journalist, or an old one, there is always an adventure to be found in London, as in any great city of the world where the passions of men and women, the conflict of life, the heroism and crimes of human nature, its dreams, its madness, and its faith, are but thinly masked behind the commonplace aspect of modern streets, and beneath the drab cloak of dullness of modern civilization.
It was my hobby in those early Fleet Street days to explore the underworld of London and to get behind the scenes of its monstrous puppet show. ”

“ The stout gentleman is stuffing the magazine into his overcoat pocket and looking on curiously. A tangled mass of women, with drawn, white faces and open mouths, is shrieking like a chorus of lost souls ”

“ WANTED—-A SOCIETY FOR THE PROTECTION OF "CELEBRITIES."
When some years ago EDMUNDUS ED. MUNDI first introduced to London the gentle art of Interviewing, the idea was in a general way a novelty in this country. It "caught on," and achieved success. Some public men affected, privately, not to like the extra publicity given to their words and actions ”

“ There is a calmness and fairness and depth in conversation here which one seldom meets with in London, where people are too much taken up by the present to dwell upon the past, or look forward to the future--and where consequently passion and prejudice are mixed up with most that one hears. ”

“ The work of a gentleman who knows every nook and corner of the empire city by personal observation, and who, by his large acquaintance with English authors and English literary history, is enabled to point out all the localities consecrated by genius and heroism; it is full of interesting and attractive matter to all readers. As a guide to London, it will be found a genial as well as a knowing companion to the tourist. We have been especially pleased with those portions which describe the shops of the booksellers and the residences of the authors. ”

“ Sanitary and social science had indeed worked their wonders here. East London had become to all those who dwelt amid its fairy labyrinths a veritable earthly Paradise. And as he cast his shapely but workmanlike frame with an elegant ease on to one of the hundred comfortable lounges that at intervals fringed its green swards throughout their entire length and breadth, no one in the full flush of this glorious summer evening appreciated the fact more keenly than did Jeremiah Halfinch. ”

“ They have a hot-house appearance, and are rarely octogenarians. p. 4The conscientious editor of a daily newspaper can never be free from anxiety. He has enough to do to keep all to their post; he must see that the leader-writers are all up to the mark—that the reporters do their duty—that the literary critic, and the theatrical critic, and the musical critic, and the city correspondent, and the special reporter, and the host of nameless contributors, do not disappoint or deceive the public, and that every day the daily sheet shall have something in it to excite, or inform, or improve. ”

“ You embark on speculations on my advice only, and I’m in a position to judge, as well as any other expert in the City of London, what things are genuine and what things are not worth a wise man’s attention. ”

“ I prefer to appeal to you, the people of London. It's a disgrace—a public disgrace—that you people should allow such a man as myself to walk the streets without food! (A voice. "Why don't yer work?") Work? Am I not working? Am I not in my proper place here to-night?
The Crowd (with hearty unanimity) . No!
The Orator (with exultation) . Then support me in the name of all you hold dear! I have my work to accomplish, and I shall accomplish it by the aid of the People's pence, by the aid of the People's sixpences,—aye, and by the aid of the People's shillings! ”

“ It was that period of the year when, to those who look on the surface of society, London wears its most radiant smile; when shops are gayest, and trade most brisk; when down the thoroughfares roll and glitter the countless streams of indolent and voluptuous life; when the upper class spend, and the middle class make; when the ball-room is the Market of Beauty, and the club-house the School for Scandal; when the hells yawn for their prey, and opera-singers and fiddlers—creatures hatched from gold, as the dung-flies from the dung—swarm, and buzz, and fatten, round the hide of the gentle Public. ”

“ When we come to consider the weekly and monthly periodicals of the metropolis the number and variety of them is staggering. It is possible to deal with them only in groups and mention expressly a few, which must be taken to be not necessarily the most important ones but those which are perhaps the best representatives of their class. In dealing with illustrated journalism we have not yet altogether done with the dailies, as London has three daily illustrated papers, the Daily Graphic, a penny paper and two halfpenny186 papers the Daily Mirror and Daily Sketch. ”

“ It is another great imperfection in our London-cries, that there is no just time nor measure observed in them. Our news should indeed be published in a very quick time, because it is a commodity that will not keep cold. ”

“ We have founded a similar society here within the year,—some of us thought that the publications of the London society deserved at least to be treated as if worthy of experimental disproof,—and although work advances very slowly owing to the small amount of disposable time on the part of the members, who are all very busy men, we have already stumbled on some rather inexplicable facts out of which something may come. ”