New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1906-03-04
CHE Neap'2lork Grib1t,te.
SUNDAY, MARCH 4. 1906.

A letter from Il subscriber set the Editor OF
"IIarpers" to Oyerhaung the magazine, IN
order 10 see if he had lately been giving more
space TO fiction than usual, and in the March
number he prints the result of his inquiry. 1t
seems that in January 1896, he published sew |
nty-nine pages of fiction; in January, 1910, |
only one and three-quarter pages more. YET
Mi Alden notes that if he had followed his
own impression he would have at once replied |
TO his subscriber with the assurance that we
. ''wcre giving considerably more fiction than
formerly and that we thought it a good thing
ito do" Analysing the matter, he soon diScOv- |
cred why the proportion of fiction in Harper s. |
seemed to have grown so much greater than |
actually turns out to be the case. In the old
number he had two serial novels and four short |
stories. In the number printed ten years later
he had only one serial but eight short stories !
Mr. Alden sees nothing to regret in his pres |
ent policy. "A without romance is not |
whole man." he justly remarks. 1t may be |
questioned however, if the reasons are, as
he says, quite obvious" for keeping aloOf |
from that atmosphere of discussion and criti- |
"cism which from the beginning has belonged
"to the review and to the best of the unius-
"trated mOnthlies." Why should that atmos
phere be unwelcome in 4 popular magazinei
The retirement of Sir f. c. Burnand from
the editorship of Punch" and the appointment
of Mr. Owen Seaman to his chair have natu-
rally served to make the famous paper once
more subject of friendly but satirical COM
ment. The ability of punch" to be really and
persistently comic is gravely debated, and we
hear again the old stories as to the difference
between an English joke and one Of American
origin. Why is it. we wonder, that even the
English themselves have been so slow to see
that the ministratons of punch" were never
meant to be simply and solely comic? The
Editor OF the London Saturday Review
{HoS sSr,rxN
"fesS to be enthusiastic over every funny thing
(which appears in Punch" Nobody ever
asked him to be anything of the sort The
fact is that while Punch has always sought
to amuse it has sought with just as much de-
votion to be clever in a purely literary sense,
and its success in this direction has largely ac-
counted for its charm and its fame. Consider
its verses alone. These not always the
drollest things in the world, but they fire.
quently reach 4 standard of excellence which
by itself is enough to hold the loyalty of the
fastidious reader. Mr.. Seaman would not be a
fitting successor to Sir Francis Burnand with
out his sense of humOr and his wit. But he
might be ten times funnier than he ever is
and still be unworthy of the post he has Sc
cured if he lacked the quality of the man of
letters. The real secret of Punch" the Sc
cret of its survival in spite of all the fun poked
at its fun, lies in the fact that those who have
made it have never lost sight of the tie bind
Ing true journalism TO literature.
Mr.. w Beach Thomas, writing in "The Lon
don Outlook" observes that open air books be-
long peculiarly 10 English literature" and al
luding TO Whites "SelbOrne." he speaks of the
revelation that it gives of 1.-The affectionate care
''given in England to the earth and air that are
"the surrounding and making of Il home" That
care explains the superiority of the English
nature book, and the point may well be COM
mended to the American publisher. When we
become interested in Il subject we are apt like
the people of the anecdote about culture in
Chicago, to make that subject hum. When we
Started to write nature books we flooded the
market with them. The market rebelled and
h some quarters it was argued that this was
simply for the reason that the market was get
ting too much of good thing All the time
the real point at issue was the quality of the
stuff produced. Many a nature book got itself
written to order by author who would just
readily have undertaken work the hip
popOtamus if hippos had happened to be at
the moment amusing to mankind. Our nature
books viii improve as the taste for nature is
developed In this country and people write
about it not to make few dollars, but be
EAusc they cannot help themselves