The Monthly Review

“ We have money in our purse, and reputation—to spare. Nothing troubles us but that our article on the drama was wanting for November—on this point we are inconsolable. No more delight in regularity—no more undisturbed complacency in the sense of arduous duty conscientiously discharged—no more confidence in meeting our Editors—no more implicit expectation of our monthly decisions on the part of the public! ”

“ 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. ”

“ Current literature is penetrated with the spirit of licentiousness, from the pretentious quarterly to the arrogant and flippant daily newspaper, and the weekly and monthly publications are mostly heathen or maudlin. They express and inculcate, on the one hand, stoical, cold, and polished pride of mere intellect, or on the other, empty and wretched sentimentality. ”

“ Our sets of monthlies, bi-monthlies, and semi-monthlies only run back a hundred or two years, therefore—to the joy of librarians, to whom, be it confessed, they bring misery untold.
But in the East, where printing has existed so long that the memory of man goes not to the contrary, it is almost impossible to say how far back was the introduction of the monthly literary magazine. ”

“ We hope our readers will not think that we have indulged in a train of thought too serious or sombre for the pages of a literary Monthly Magazine. It is directly forced upon us by our subject, if we would treat it as it deserves to be treated ”

“ And certainly those who wish to say that they have a great mind to something, and who express themselves by declaring that they have ‘a month’s mind’ to it, can have no conception of the hopeless nonsense they are making of the old term of the ‘month’s mind,’ which was really the monthly service for a dead man’s soul, whereby he was kept in mind or remembrance. ”

“ So complete is the change, that all mind, except the heaviest and least popular, is likely to flow hereafter through the Daily, Weekly, Monthly or Quarterly Miscellanies, which compete with universities, parliaments, churches, and libraries, for ascendency in the government of mankind. ”

“ Thus, at the beginning of the month, we look with equal minds at the newspaper notices of our articles; we are soothed and exhilarated when we find ourselves described as sages, and we are amused and interested when we find ourselves shown up as little better than geese. ”

“ I foresee it plainly, this evening,—even while writing my first essay for the "Atlantic Monthly,"—the time when the reader shall open the familiar cover, and glance at the table of contents, and exclaim indignantly, "Here is that tiresome person again: why will he not cease to weary us?" ”

“ In the narrow sense of the term, they are not literary reviews; the function of periodicals that discuss present day politics, sociology, theology, history, science, art and numerous other generic subjects is more inclusive and appeals to a much larger audience than the periodical of literary criticism. In the quarterlies and monthlies we look for the most authoritative reviews of the important books of the day; but for general [Pg xxxvii] literary review and gossip, a new class of monthlies, best represented by Dr. ”

“ But it will be expected, that in offering a new performance to the Public, we should mention some new and peculiar advantage which we pretend to have over our fellow-labourers. Some such advantages we flatter ourselves we possess, partly arising from our scheme of an annual rather than a monthly publication ”

“ A group of men desiring a journal to which the name The Popular Science Monthly will exactly apply, this publication has been transferred to them, while, beginning in October, a journal on the present lines of The Popular Science Monthly will be conducted under the more fitting name of The Scientific Monthly. ”

“ You must work in season and out of season. Are you sick? —rise from bed and dash off a leading article on the latest political telegram. Are you in domestic trouble? —put grief on one side while you review in appropriate style the new book of comic stories. But to compensate for this life of endless work and worry you will power—godlike power. ”

“ But the strongest reason why the Monthly has not assumed the duty of reporting American scientific work is, that is was started for distinctly another object—namely, to interest the non-scientific public, and to create a taste for scientific literature, and an appreciation of scientific knowledge in the reading community. The general ignorance of science is simply deplorable! ”

“ The society (whose only notion of dividing time, would appear to be its allotment into months) holds monthly tea-drinkings, at which the monthly report is received, a secretary elected for the month ensuing, and such of the monthly boxes as may not happen to be out on loan for the month, carefully examined. ”

“ If only as amusing pictures of the old style of criticism, which in this more polite age has rarely been seen—except a few years ago in the coarse but vigorous criticisms of the 'Saturday Review,' when that journal possessed a power in the world of letters it has since lost by the death or secession of the men who made it famous—we may be excused for giving a few specimens of the reviewer's manner. ”

“ The practice of reviewing the literature of the year at the end thereof is now decaying. Newspapers still give a masterly survey of the motor-cars of the year. I remember the time when it was part of my duty as a serious journalist to finish at Christmas a two-thousand word article, full of discrimination as fine as Irish lace, about the fiction of the year; and other terrifying specialists were engaged to deal amply with the remaining branches of literature. To-day, one man in one column and one day will polish off what five of us scarcely exhausted in seven columns and seven days. ”

“ These Reviews too are getting more and more powerful, especially the Quarterly—they are like a superstition which the more it prostrates the Crowd and the longer it continues the more powerful it becomes just in proportion to their increasing weakness. ”

“ There is no particular bias or governing spirit,—which neutralizes the interest. The articles seem thrown into the letter-box, and to come up like blanks or prizes in the lottery—all is in a confused, unconcocted state, like the materials of a rich plum-pudding before it has been well boiled. On the contrary, there may be said to be too much tampering with the management of the New Monthly, till the taste and spirit evaporate. A thing, by being overdone, stands a chance of being insipid—the fastidious may end in languor—the agreeable may cloy by repetition. ”

“ For the busy people who cannot read all the periodicals or the family with the limited pocketbook, who can afford only one or two each month, Current Literature is an inestimable blessing, selecting and reprinting, as it does, the best things of the month. ”

“ Having written an article, they send it to the first paper whose name enters their heads, without giving a single thought to the question of suitability. By such beginners the Standard, the Sun, and the Morning Advertiser are recognised merely as so many dailies, the Saturday Review, Tit-Bits, and the Bazaar merely as so many weeklies, and the Strand, Macmillan's Magazine, and the Fortnightly merely as so many monthlies; and no doubt when their stuff has been refused by the Standard, they blithely forward it to the Sun, and so on. ”

“ Until some such organization does become powerful and by practical labour make an impression on the daily paper, we shall have to depend for enlightenment on a few weekly and monthly periodicals of relatively small circulation. Most of the popular weeklies and monthlies are as bad in their way as the newspapers, but they aim chiefly at entertainment; their treatment51 of the news in special articles and editorials is a subordinate matter, and their chief sin is not dishonesty but banality. ”

“ What Spring really needs is a regular press-agent sort of write-up, something with the Punch in it, an article that will make people sit up and say to themselves, "By George, there must be something in this Spring stuff, after all." ”

“ Of all the serial publications of the day, it probably is the most serious, the most earnest, the least devoted to amusement, the least flippant, the least jocose,—and yet it has the face to show itself month after month to the world, with so absurd a misnomer! It is, as all who know the laws of modern literature are aware, a very serious thing to change the name of a periodical. ”

“ Now a daily without illustration is rare. American humor finds expression in Puck, Judge, and Life; criticism in the Nation, in many other weeklies, and in the Saturday or Sunday editions of the dailies. The Times publishes a Saturday supplement composed wholly of book reviews and literary comment. Among religious journals, which often include literary criticism, are the Observer (Presbyterian) ”

“ For periodicals—newspapers, magazines, reviews—are the Fools' Paradise of the commonplace, the mediocre, the orthodox, the respectable. As the strength of a chain must be measured by its weakest link, so the thought of a periodical must be measured by the thought of its most imbecile subscribers. ”

“ It will not answer that we issue literary productions as soon as possible after their completion. The impatient readers demand chapters by chapters, as they are spun from the brain and the heart of the author; facts, upon the instant of their discovery; and suggestions, as they flash from the contact of imagination and reflection.
The International Weekly Miscellany will be a result of efforts to satisfy a plain necessity of the times. It will combine the excellencies of all contemporary periodicals, with features that will be peculiar to itself. ”

“ I never saw any man change as he changed, month by month. The old brisk ways and pleasant look quite disappeared, and in their stead came a slouching sort of manner, and a lazy discontented expression. ”

“ Nothing whatever will do me the least 'good' in the way of shaking the one strong possession of change impending over us that every day makes stronger; but if I could work on with some approach to steadiness, through the summer, the anxious toil of a new book would have its neck well broken before beginning to publish, next October or November. ”

“ Shall we not organize life on such basis?
REVIEWING “THE LITTLE REVIEW” Virginia York in “The Richmond Evening Journal”:
As we said a couple of months ago, The Little Review, published in windy Chicago, is claimed by its editors and readers to be the very, very last word in prose and poetry. Also, it is the organ, the mouth organ, perhaps, of that unsustained tune known as “vers libre.” In a criticism of some of the Review’s lurid, foolish contents we poked a good deal of fun at the publication in general and one piece of loose, or free, verse in particular. ”

“ For six months of the year a daily newspaper is a bolter, and will scarce yield obedience to the restraining hand of the editorial Chifney—for six other months it is a slug, and requires the soft incentives of whip and spur to keep it in its place. That task of weaving of the daily leaders out of one’s own bowels—as one may say—is a hard one indeed. ”

“ The mob of well-dressed readers who consult the Quarterly Review, know that there is no offence in it. They put faith in it because they are aware that it is ‘false and hollow, but will please the ear’; that it will tell them nothing but what they would wish to believe. ”

“ The period of a single month makes wild changes in the prospects of the system, and involves us not only in new calculations but in a newer phase of things. At any rate it can do no harm, in the present period of excitement, to preach a little moderation, even though our voice should be as inaudible as the chirp of a sparrow on the house-top. ”

“ Each day, week, or month, we receive an accession to the list of those speculations and practices, which, embracing every department of philosophy and art, seek to overturn hitherto accepted axioms, and erect in their stead—what? ”

“ A month, a little month of thirty days! Only a month. I know many men think the month before they receive the hand they court a century. To me it seems but an hour, a moment. I am not a child, impatient to possess a new toy. I am a man who has set his heart on obtaining a noble object, and I am so profoundly grateful for my success I can think of nothing but that some day soon you will be mine. The fact that you will be mine is everything. I could have waited for you years. But as you said, the sooner the better.--I am, my darling love, your own sweetheart,
George. ”

“ Then for their observations and predictions, they are such as will equally suit any age or country in the world. "This month a certain great person. will be threatened with death or sickness." This the newspapers will tell them; for there we find at the end of the year that no month passes without the death of some person of note; and it would be hard if it should be otherwise, when there are at least two thousand persons of note in this kingdom, many of them old, and the almanack-maker has the liberty of choosing the sickliest season of the year where he may fix his prediction. ”

“ Brilliant magazinists, versatile journalists, skilled producers of the lightest of light literature for summer-resort consumption, I grant, but few distinctive names; for one might as well expect roses to bloom in January as a true national literature to grow and bloom under the blight of universal neglect and indifference. ”