Evening star., 1932-06-24
THIS AND THAT
BY CHARLES E. TRACEWELL.

ure of this customer and send him
packing.
Understanding the patron by many
years, the newsstand owner forgot
everything except the cap and the small
| stature of the man.
What do you want?" he asked.
Tip Top?
He referred to the popular nickel
/ weekly bearing the adventures of
Frank Merriwell and his brother Dick.
The Government worker, who hap
pened to be brief of speech, bobbed his
chin in dismay.
Atlantic Monthly" he blurted out.
dismaying the shopkeeper in turn.
| For many years in this republic a
| copy of the Atlantic on a sitting room
! table, as the living room was called,
I gave an entirely well-defined atmos-
phere of intellectually to that house.
| Mostly those who read it with real
| interest we're better trained in scholastic
requirements and had more firm re-
spect for educational standards, as such.
/ than the thousands of scoffers who
looked upon the magazine as too
high brow for them"
1t was a dull magazine in the large
only to those readers who refused to go
the whole way in reading and writing
that is. who were unwilling to begin,
go through an article and come out at
the finish exactly as writer must
write.
The tendency of the last 100 years. in
all types of writing, has been to throw
the thunder at the beginning, rather
than the end.
To many, however, this smacks Of the
cart before the horse. In the preSenta-
ton of news and certain other matter
it has it's place. Certainly most re-
ports of Government officials would be
better reading If the recommendations
were put at the beginning, rather than
at the end, of those annual docu-
ments.
In the small, however, the Atlantic
has struck many a faithful friend as
aightly dull, not because of manner
Of writing but mostly on account OF
the limitations which the so-called ''in-
tellectual has placed upon his own
interests.
This esteemed old journal came tC
have a perfectly standardized manner
OF approach to any subject, and, worst
of all it tended to limit its very in
terests to a point where the smaller
affairs of life were non existent.
Life was approached in such we'll
bred manner that it tended to run away
from its observers The rough, hearty
! subject matter of a De Foe, or a LIE
Sage or Boccacio did not exist IN
these classical pages.
Social service might be discussed, In
any of its interesting aspects, but by
no means would one come across
plain statement that the teeth OF thou
sands of school children were decayed
"Decayed" was not nice word, anc
it didn't get in the old Atlantic often
/ X
Good literature defeats its own pur-
pose when it becomes too squeamish
Then it tends to turn literary" in
the lesser applications Of that perfectly
sound word.
Those of US who, loving the printed
word, yet found the supreme literary
tone Of the Atlantic at times trif1e
boresome, still managed to recognize tc
the fun the high goal which the maga-
zine set for itself. and the scholarly
standards to which it adhered, and
still adhereS.
which has made the Atlantic Monthly
seemly thing to have on the living
room table, read or unread.
There seems to be no diminutior
whatever in these good qualities. In the
latest issue, despite its changed cover
After ALL beauty is more than skin deep
especially in a magazine. else most oi
us could read all we wanted of them
by standing at any counter and gazing
our fill at the dazzling array of Holly
wood teeth.