Life — July 1, 1909 — page 3: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

? LIFE | The Editor and His Audience HERE are not a few ingenious persons who believe that the conduct of a great monthly magazine is a very simple affair. Given the neces. sary working capital and an editor of liberal and impeccable zsthetic tastes, and the task of assay- ing the pure ore in the uncounted tons of proffered material would scem to be one of mere energy and patience. “It is, of course, impossible to please everybody," says the supposititious editor 40 him- self, “but I embody a trained opinion, regulated by fairly well-defined principles of taste and art, and in pleasing myself I am sure to please the intelligent and cultivated audience of my readers All that they can reasonably ask—apart from those purely journalistic features inevitable in an age of action—is that the fiction shall be in- formed with truth and life, the poctry with imagination and sentiment, the essays with—but the essays are a negligible quantity,” imple, is it not?—and plausible enough ? it isn’t true. We have long suspected, from a more or less constant perusal of our leading periodicals, together with certain data supplied us by professional contributors, that the editorial faculty most vigorously exercised is the esoteric one of divination—an intuition of the public's prejudices and preferences that would be almost superhuman were it not inspired by the currents and counter-currents of opinion that reach the editor from many sources, and trans- form the simplicity of his functions into com- Very Howeve: plexities that make meteorology seem an exact science. Acting on this suspicion, we recently ven- tured to address the following questions to the editors of The Century, The Atlantic and Har- per's: 1. In general, do you accept the kind of ar- ticles, stories, poems, that gratify your own taste and engage your personal interest; or have you certain theories concerning what the public likes or dislikes, in distinction from your own pref- erences? 2. If you do entertain such theories, whence are they derived? How can the public taste be measured? What are the tests—the specific tests? 3. Do you often reject stories or articles that please your artistic sense or that otherwise ap- peal to your personal taste? 4. There is a rather general complaint on the yppart of fastidious readers no longer in their first youth that “zines are less interesting than of old the contents of the monthly maga- A former editor of The Atlantic has expressed the opinion that the magazines are dull and badly written; but the greater number of critical readers com: plain rather that the magazines are dull, though well written, because the writers have so little to The last word in quick and easy tire-changing is the NEW “Firestone” DEMOUNTABLE RIM ; Does away with road tire-repairing and vexatious delays; makes tire-changing a quick and easy operation at any time, any- where. AND; this Rim with any quick detachable tire abolishes the nuisance of fitting short-stem stay- bolts, so objectionable a feature of demountable rims for clincher tires only. ALSO; may be fitted to practically any car, new or old, without changing from present tire and rim equipment. FURTHERMORE; the Firestone Demountable Rim requires no special tools; has no narrow wedge shapes, no complicated parts, no sharp angles to rust and stick fast. It is so easy to oper- ate you cannot try it the wrong way. Thoroughly tested in great racing events and in every-day use, the Firestone Demountable Rim is now offered to the motoring public a completely broven success. Fally illustrated, described and priced in our ‘‘Demountable Rim Book,” which will be mailed free upon request, stat- ing sizes of tires and kind of rim you are now using. ADDRESS Derr. B. FIRESTONE TIRE & RUBBER COMPANY, Akron, 0. “Largest Exclasive Tire Makers in America.” Columbus Avenue: Philadelphia, St. Louis, Cor. Olive & 23rd 5 yb, S9OF Peon Avenue: Lee. A Seattle, 918 E. say, and their themes are so uninteresting. Is is it there any ground for these criticisms? If so, ————= 0 “Tbe Emveror” A $5.00 PPHIRQUIEIR for $2.00 HIS famous water color facsimile tn ten colors of a Parquer masterpiece, reproduction in full’ color of the ofiginal now exhibition at the Grand Salon, Paris. mounted ready for framing, and represents a famo incident in Napoleon's military career. Mmited and is only made to fatreduce our water color reproduc- tions of famous masterpieces. With each pleture we send a com- jescription and history of the original painting In booklet Send €2 today for this pleture, and If you are not satisfied, or if you can purchase It at retail for double the price, return 1¢ to us ‘and we will refund your money. Colonial Art Company, Marecind!o!* picts answers Perry, The Emperor san exa It ts 12x ticles sonal taste, This edition 1s he can sometimes gratify eral his judgment should be guided, me, by an objective study of the tastes of that portion of the general public which is likely to buy what he offers for sale.” In The Century office, we are assured, (For all Quick-Detach- able and Clincher Tires) ause the supply of really good matter does not keep pace with the increasing demand? . * * . . . These queries elicited some frank and explicit “T thin! “ editor of The like a picture-dealer, his personal preferences and the supposed pref- erences of his patrons nevitable,”” says Mr. Bliss Atlantic, “ that an editor, should distinguish between In the purchase of ar- his own per- it is not too eccentric, but in gen- it seems to there (Continued on page 900) comicbooks.com