sp of the idea
to express also, that it is the Thing at everybody's elbow, and in
everybody's footsteps. At the window, by the fire, in the street, in the
house, from infancy to old age, everyone's inseparable companion. . . . Now
do you make anything out of this? which I let off as if I were a bladder
full of it, and you had punctured me. I have not breathed the idea to
any one; but I have a lively hope that it _is_ an idea, and that out of
it the whole scheme may be hammered."

Excellent the idea doubtless, and so described in his letter that hardly
anything more characteristic survives him. But I could not make anything
out of it that had a quite feasible look. The ordinary ground of
miscellaneous reading, selection, and compilation out of which it was to
spring, seemed to me no proper soil for the imaginative produce it was
meant to bear. As his fancies grew and gathered round it, they had given
it too much of the range and scope of his own exhaustless land of
invention and marvel; and the very means proposed for letting in the
help of others would only more heavily have weighted himself. Not to
trouble the reader now with objections given him in detail, my judgment
was clear against his plan; less for any doubt of the effect if its
parts could be brought to combine, than for my belief that it was not in
that view practicable; and though he did not immediately accept my
reasons, he acquiesced in them ultimately. "I do not lay much stress on
your grave doubts about Periodical, but more anon." The more anon
resolved itself into conversations out of which the shape given to the
project was that which it finally took.

It was to be a weekly miscellany of general literature; and its stated
objects were to be, to contribute to the entertainment and instruction
of all classes of readers, and to help in the discussion of the more
important social questions of the time. It was to comprise short stories
by others as well as himself; matters of passing interest in the
liveliest form that could be given to them; subjects suggested by books
that might most be attracting attention; and poetry in every number if
possible, but in any case something of romantic fancy. This was to be a
cardinal point. There was to be no mere utilitarian spirit; with all
familiar things, but especially those repellent on the surface,
something was to be connected that should be fanciful or kindly; and the
hardest workers were to be taught that their