aying style. He didn't mean that; he only said it. Much, if not
most, of "The Thread of of Gold" is merely absurd. Some of it is
pretentious, some of it inept. All of it is utterly banal. All of it has
the astounding calm assurance of mediocrity. It is a solemn thought that
tens of thousands of well-dressed mortals alive and idle to-day consider
themselves to have been uplifted by the perusal of this work. It is also a
solemn thought that God in His infinite mercy and wisdom is still allowing
Mr. Benson to persevere in his so holy task, thus responding to Mr.
Benson's hopes.

THE LITERARY PERIODICAL

[_8 Sep. 10_]

I have just had news of a purely literary paper which is shortly to be
started. I do not mean a paper devoted to literary criticisms chiefly, but
chiefly to creative work. This will be something of a novelty in England.
Its founders are two men who possess, happily, a practical acquaintance
with publishing. The aim of the paper will be to print, and to sell,
imaginative writing of the highest character. Its purpose is artistic, and
neither political nor moral. Dangers and difficulties lie before an
enterprise of this kind. The first and the principal difficulty will be
the difficulty of obtaining the high-class stuff in sufficient quantities
to fill the paper. The rate of pay will not and cannot be high, and
authors capable of producing really high-class stuff--I mean stuff
high-class in execution as well as in intention--are strangely keen on
getting the best possible remuneration for it. Idle to argue that genuine
artists ought to be indifferent to money! They are not. And what is still
more curious, they will seldom produce their best work unless they really
do want money. This is a fact which will stand against all the sentimental
denyings of dilettanti. And, of course, genuine artists are quite right
in getting every cent they can. The richest of them don't get enough. But
even if the rates of pay of the new organ were high, the difficulty would
still be rather acute, because the whole mass of really high-class stuff
produced is relatively very small. High-class stuff is like radium. And
the number of men who can produce it is strictly limited. There are dozens
and scores of men who can write stuff which has all the mannerisms and
external characteristics of high-class stuff, but which is not high-class.
Extinct exotic periodicals, such as the _Yellow Book_, the _Savoy_, the
_Dial_, the _Anglo-