The Portland daily press., 1878-02-21
A Notable Number.

The current number of the atlantic
Monthly, with the imprint of the new firm,
Houghtop, Osgood & Company, is notable
number and will bear repeated mention.
Latterly readers have learned to turn at once
to the Contributors Club. In the March
instalment there is excellent entertainment,
but 1t does seem as tho-gh all the comfits
came from the same shop The contributors
differ sometimes in opinion, but seem to ex-
press themselves in the same manner. One
suspects that the plural term is fiction like
the editorial "we," and the apparent variance
of opinion strategem to conquer attention.
Everywhere the Great Twin Brethren which
Boston worships, Awt and Culchaw, ride upon
the sails and direct the winds of doctrine.
Other gods are admitted, it is true, with a
Roman hospitality; but we are constantly re-
minded that they are an inferior sort of ar
ticle, endured through fine courtesy that is
quite Quixotic in its magnanimous Difference
TO the superstitions of barbaric guests. One
Slavonic deity however is given a place
among the high gods.
The first contributor, '..Philip Quilibet"
perhaps, varies the prevailing strain with
some wise words on the Indian question,
and holds that the much-lauded English sys-
tenn of Canada is really the French system.
s'The English are reaping where the French
sowed good seed on moderately good ground,
while we are reaping where the English
sowed dragons teeth on wild soil." The
burden of the song is: Break up the tribal
relations. Another accommodates himself 10
the popular taste and says something about
Hell, defending the newspapers for treating
this and other subjects CT religious thought,
but setting limits to the discussion. He
strongly and justly condemns the practice of
the press in setting forth the misdeeds of a
scamp who was no clergyman at all under
the heading Another Clerical Swndler.
"They might as well style the wolf in sleeps
wool wolfish sheep" Have we pun
here?I The daily press he thinks, "would
go beyond its depths in giving decisions upon
effectual calling and justification by faith
Though it very properly reports the opinions
Of theologians]; but is plainly entitled to
make known its opinions on Sunday amuse-
ments, the exemption of church property
from taxes, the reading of the Bible in the
schools, the acknowledgment of God in the
federal constitution, and, in a word, wha.-
ever touches at once church and e. The
preacher who censures the press for holding
anti-clerical views upon these topics seems to
be as arrogant as the editor who rebukes the
pulpit for aiming its guns at wrongs of the
hour instead of firing blank cartridges down
the crypts of Hebrew history at the Girgash
ties and Hivites whom Joshua sufficiently
smote." These limits are too circumscribed
The Journalist on long dull day when there
is no news, when in multitude Of "ex
changes" there is no wisdom. and with many
men pressing him for 'copy," may be pa,'
doned for entertaining and even expressing
very positive ideas on the subject of He'll
Another contributor objects to the objec.
ton made by Mr.. Stedman, the poet, and Mr..
Fawcett the alleged poet, to the confound-
ing of prose with poetry, and insists that the
real distinction is between prose and verse, 8
distinction 'chefy formal and convention
al". Some one condemns ''the bounding O
Mr.. Lord and Mrs. Hicks through the honey
moon by the beagles of the press" Another
bows to the idols and wants the foxy bricl
| of our dwelling houses soitened by tender
| reds and browns or soft grays. Yet anoth
er cannot see the difference between The
"cheap libraries" and the respectable poach
ers on English literature"; upjusty maxim,
no distinction between magazine which pay
for advance sheets and one which, like
Baldacin's Monthly, takes an entire artcl,
fiom an English periodical and does not ever
give credit for it. For the rest we have o
course the great god TourgueneG If we ma,
believe the Boston priests of his cult all pas
fiction is but pale anticipation Of the Rus
sian, and all present a dull echo. He ha:
become as tiresome as ceramics, as the higf
art which finds its expression at one time IL
sincere doors" and at another in potter.
which will not even hold water. However ii
this number he is twice made the excuse TO
good words on Daudet, and so we may par