venture in the interests of the illiterate. The further degradation of
the public taste was not then the avowed object of popular magazines.
Indeed--strange as it sounds nowadays--it was rather the education than
the degradation of the public taste at which the editor aimed, and in
that aim he found the support of intelligent proprietors.

Today, however, all this is changed. Wealth has become democratic, and
it is only here and there, in its traditional possessors, that it
retains its traditional aristocracy of taste. As the commonest man can
be a multi-millionaire, so the commonest man can own a magazine, and
have it edited in the commonest fashion for the common good.

As a result, the editor's occupation, in the true sense, will soon be
gone. There is, need one say, no lack today of men with real editorial
individuality--but editorial individuality is the last thing the
capitalist proprietors want. It is just that they are determined to
stamp out. Therefore, your real editor must either swallow his pride and
submit to ignorant dictation, or make way for the little band of
automatic sorters of manuscript, which, as nine tailors make a man,
nowadays constitute a sort of composite editor under the direction of
the proprietor.

With the elimination of editorial individuality necessarily follows
elimination of individuality in the magazine. More and more, every day,
magazines are conforming to the same monotonous type; so that, except
for name and cover, it is impossible to tell one magazine from another.
Happily one or two--_rari nantes in gurgito vasto_--survive amid the
democratic welter; and all who have at heart not only the interests of
literature, but the true interests of the public taste, will pray that
they will have the courage to maintain their distinction, unseduced by
the moneyed voice of the mob--a distinction to which, after all, they
have owed, and will continue to owe, their success. The names of these
magazines will readily occur to the reader, and, as they occur, he
cannot but reflect that it was just editorial individuality and a high
standard of policy that made them what they are, and what, it is
ardently to be hoped, they will still continue to be. Plutus and Demos
are the worst possible editors for a magazine; and in the end, even, it
is the best magazine that always makes the most money.

XII

THE SPIRIT OF THE OPEN

I often think, as I sit here in my green office in the woodland--