Literary journal

“ Enjoying Life and Other Literary Remains (published November 1919) , which he himself passed for press, contains several essays too long for the Journal, and other papers on literary and scientific subjects; and A Last Diary (published 1920) , a pendant to the Journal, is important chiefly for showing how in his last months the bias of his life, to use his own words, had ‘gone across from the intellectual to the ethical’. ”

“ In its primitive form, the diary must always have existed; as soon as writing was invented, men and women must have wished to note down, in some almanac or journal, memoranda respecting their business, their engagements or their adventures. But the literary value of these would be extremely insignificant until the spirit of individualism had crept in, and human beings began to be interesting to other human beings for their own sake. ”

“ Still the review or magazine is the best compromise that can be made between the elaborate treatise and the clever leader of the journal. It is the best literary medium now within reach of the Catholic public, and can meet better than any other form of publication our present literary wants, and more effectively stimulate thought, cultivate the understanding and the taste, and enable us to take our proper place in the literature and science of the country. ”

“ English Without a Master. A Course of Lessons in the English Language. Price 2s.
[Pg 30]
Price One Shilling, Monthly,
THE NATIONAL MAGAZINE.
A Journal devoted to Literature and Art, and equally an organ of both—an Art Magazine, but not one to which Literature is merely incidental; a Literary Magazine, but not one to which Art is a mere adjunct.
Attractiveness of subject and of treatment is studied in every department. Tales by acknowledged authors occupy considerable space; reviews; essays; varieties of travel and adventure; humorous sketches ”

“ And here, it seems to me, has been the greatest mistake in the conduct of these journals. A smooth monotony has been attained, an uniformity of tone, so that from the title of a journal you can infer the tenor of all its chapters. But nature is ever various, ever new, and so should be her daughters, art and literature. We do not want merely a polite response to what we thought before, but by the freshness of thought in other minds to have new thought awakened in our own. ”

“ Why, indeed, should not there be a critical journal embodying in a species of fragrant bouquet the flowers of thought and emotion springing up in the brains and bosoms of readers responsive to the influence of a new book? ”

“ The use of his book to cultivated people might lie in its affording a kind of standard by which they might take measure of the maturity and producible quality of their own thoughts on a hundred important subjects. He will write a page or two, giving evidence of that accumulated power and attainment which, with a more strenuous temperament, might have sufficed for an effective volume. Continually, in the Journal, we pause over things that would rank for beauties among widely differing models of the best French prose. ”

“ Still, the effect remains: it is almost impossible to get a novel printed in an English journal unless it is warranted to contain nothing at all to which anybody, however narrow, could possibly object, on any grounds whatever, religious, political, social, moral, or aesthetic. ”

“ Keeping a journal cultivates habits of observation, correct and concise expression, and gives capital practice in composition, spelling, punctuation, and all the little things which go to make up a good letter-writer. So, one who keeps a journal is all the while learning to be a better penman, and a better composer, with the advantage of writing original, historical, and descriptive articles, instead of copying the printed letters and sentences of a writing-book. ”

“ The much-despised “yellow journal” of America has taught a valuable lesson in the art of emphasis, and its effect is seen not only in the make-up of newspapers but of periodicals, and will be felt in the make-up of books. ”

“ If a life is worth writing at all, no consideration of personal feeling or convention should deter the writer from setting down the facts; for on them truth, the greatest quality of art, is founded. Marie’s Journal is a work of art in the full sense of the word; it reveals a soul and a personality, it shows the extraordinary gift of its youthful author for writing, painting and music, but it also shows the disequilibrium of an imagination untutored and untrained. ”

“ When a journal makes a call upon a good author, and in the pages of
which he can gain neither honour nor renown, from which, as a matter of
taste, he would shrink, under ordinary circumstances, from contributing to,
that journal ought to be subjected to careful scrutiny. ”

“ Although the distinction between journalism and literature is likely to define itself more and more sharply—periodicals growing more literary, and newspapers less literary—it is here convenient to pause for a moment on the question of the direction in which literature is likely to develop—meaning especially imaginative literature and poetry. The past of this development, widely considered, has been, of course, since the close of the eighteenth century, from the classical, through the romantic, to the realistic school ”

“ Some of the best journals we know about have been kept by people who lived quiet lives. They wrote about the little things they saw and heard and did. It was the way in which they told these things that made their journals as interesting as storybooks.
An Artist's Journal. Artists and people who love to make pictures keep a kind of journal that they call a sketch-book. They are always on the lookout for material for pictures. They see much more than people do who are not trained to observe. ”

“ One of the most touching features of the New Journal, to a reader of to-day, is the almost too generous kindliness of its judgments, the eager enthusiasm with which it proclaims the advent of geniuses who have already fallen into oblivion. ”

“ The reader of Magazines has of late years been harried by a direct, by an enfilading, and a ricochetting fire of new adventures, some honestly and avowedly frivolous, others portentously literary, a few loftily artistic. ”

“ This literature of the heart has pages which no other can ever equal. It [the Journal] is an attractive book, and one of the best which could be offered to the human soul. It bears a double character of mystery and of intimacy which centuples its value. What pleasure the reader finds in believing himself also regarded in the light of a confidant! To have this intimate secret is to live alone with the writer; it is to have a species of love which is charmed with what is whispered into the ear, and with what it confidentially answers itself. ”

“ In exchange for one penny its five hundred thousand readers received every week a serial story about life in highest circles, a short story packed with heart-interest, articles on the removal of stains and the best method of coping with the cold mutton, anecdotes of Royalty, photographs of peeresses, hints on dress, chats about baby, brief but pointed dialogues between Blogson and Snogson, poems, Great Thoughts from the Dead and Brainy, half-hours in the editor's cosy sanctum, a slab of brown paper, and—the journal's leading feature—Advice on Matters of the Heart. ”

“ Devoting herself to literature from 1838, she contributed numerous poems, stories illustrating the sufferings of the poor, essays, biographical and historical sketches to periodicals like the ‘People's Journal,’ the ‘London Journal,’ ‘Bentley's Miscellany,’ the ‘Old Monthly Magazine,’ the ‘Illustrated London News,’ ‘Douglas Jerrold's Magazine,’ ‘Ainsworth's Magazine,’ and the annuals. ”

“ Experience, which, as we all know, teaches, will in time lead you into adopting some method by which you may evade this taking of notes. A good plan is to occupy yourself with the composition of a journal, an unofficial magazine not intended for the eyes of the profane, but confined rigidly to your own circle of acquaintances. The chief advantage of such a work is that you will continue to write while the notes are being dictated. To throw your pen down with an air of finality and begin reading some congenial work of fiction would be a gallant action, but impolitic. ”

“ Indeed, many critics feel that poetry is coming nearer than either the novel or the drama to the actual life of to-day. The magazine Poetry, ever since its foundation in October, 1912, has encouraged this new spirit in the art, and the anthology is a further effort on the part of its editors to present the new spirit to the public. ”

“ Should copies and extracts not be sufficient, we will have it printed, as one cannot too much diffuse such things. Some will weep—others will laugh—what appears superb to one set of people, will seem ridiculous to another, such is life—but your journal will surely make a great sensation. ”

“ A marvel came to pass, my first book was an enormous success. The whole world talked of it. A leading journal, delighted to have discovered someone, wrote it up; other journals followed suit to be in the movement. ”

“ When we determined to increase the amount of reading matter—to give our readers 112 pages in every number—we felt assured that the resources at our command, and the intimate acquaintanceship with the taste of our readers which years of editorial efforts on their behalf have given us, would enable us to present a Magazine of far higher literary value than any which had preceded it. ”

“ The Phrenological Journal proves that the increasing years of a periodical is no reason for its lessening its enterprise or for diminishing its abundance of interesting matter. If all magazines increased in merit as steadily as The Phrenological Journal, they would deserve in time to show equal evidences of popularity. ”

“ That reverie turns upon itself as dreams do; that impressions added together do not always produce a fair judgment; that a private journal is like a good king, and permits repetitions, outpourings, complaint.... ”

“ As last year, I have winnowed from other magazines distinctive poems for classification and notice, one each from The Outlook, The Independent, the North American Review, Poetry, A Magazine of Verse; three from the Poetry Journal and three from the Yale Review.
* * * * *
The poems published during the year in the seven representative magazines I have submitted to an impartial critical test, choosing from the total number what I consider the “distinctive” poems of the year. ”

“ Despite all the rubbish written to the contrary, manuscripts sent to the magazines of to-day are, in every case, read, and frequently more carefully read than the author imagines. Editors know that, from the standpoint of good business alone, it is unwise to return a manuscript unread. Literary talent has been found in many instances where it was least expected. ”

“ Discerning critics at once acknowledged his promise, and from its birth in 1894 until its demise in 1897 he was literary editor of the 'Yellow Book,' a quarterly literary and artistic magazine, which reckoned among its contributors authors and artists of an advanced aesthetic school. ”

“ A collection of separately authored profiles of 168 of the most important American magazines that print a significant amount of literature (including criticism) or are otherwise important in literary history. The essays, organized by periodical title, typically discuss publishing history, audience, and significant literary content, and conclude with a list of studies, indexes, reprints, and a few locations, as well as details of publishing history (including title changes, numbering and dating of volumes and issues, frequency, publishers, and editors) . ”

“ I sauntered down to the landlady's, and obtained from her the following production from the papers left by the gentleman, whose pen, ranging from grave to gay, from lively to severe, has held the mirror up to Nature, and given the form and pressure of his thoughts and feelings for the benefit of the numerous and constantly-increasing multitudes of readers of the "Oceanic Miscellany," a journal which has done and is doing so much for the gratification and improvement of the masses. ”

“ Possibly a denominational religious weekly and another journal of fashion or business. Then come the thousands who read the best magazines, and whatever else is for the moment popular in novels and poetry—the last dialect story, the fashionable poem, the questionable but talked-of novel. Let a violent attack be made on the decency of a new story and instantly, if only it is clever, its author becomes famous. ”

“ All these records have [561] their value for late readers in their honesty and minuteness. It is on such revelations that we depend for our correct conception of by-gone affairs.
A diary or a journal, then, is first of all a narrative of real events. Fiction in this form, like Defoe's "Journal of the Plague" or the diary parts of Charles Reade's "Cloister and the Hearth," is so for the sake of the verisimilitude. ”

“ It gives fiction that is varied and original and verse that is worth reading, and it is besides a guide to the best literature of the day. It is not a periodical of protest or smartness, but a magazine that stands for energy, honesty and accomplishment. ”

“ No writer's name will be used, neither my own nor any other; every paper will be published without any signature, and all will seem to express the general mind and purpose of the journal, which is the raising up of those that are down, and the general improvement of our social condition. ”

“ A journal is supposed to record events, great or small, which are happening at the moment, and to convey impressions about personages with whom the writer comes in contact, or who loom sufficiently large to justify their being mentioned. ”