402 Mr. Leonard Huxley [June 3 r 



genius free to play in its proper sphere. To both he became, so to 

 say, a friend by inheritance. Mrs. Ward was by comparison a recent 

 friend of his father-in-law, who had begun his long friendship with 

 her with the publication of " Robert Elsmere " but a few years before 

 Reginald Smith joined the firm. The first link with Lady Ritchie 

 dated from the period before the founding of the "Cornhill." 



The fine series of essays he provided ranged from " The Etching- 

 ham Letters " and " Pages from a Private Diary " to a " Londoner's 

 Logbook " and Lady Ritchie's " Blackstick Papers." It was his 

 discernment which brought out the essayist quality in his old school- 

 fellow and fag, Mr. A. C. Benson. 



Again, he " discovered " Dr. W. H. Fitchett, bringing into being 

 those " Fights for the Flag " and " Deeds that Won the Empire " 

 which have so long stirred the blood of our youth, and, incidentally,, 

 crystallised the nascent patriotism of young Australia. 



In order to cast the " Cornhill " net the wider in search of topics 

 and writers, Regiuald Smith used to invite two or three experienced 

 friends to the literary council of their " Oval Table," as it was called ; 

 and here, amid much good talk, as might be expected, for example, 

 from Sir E. T. Cook and Sir Sidney Low, Canon Beeching and A. C. 

 Benson, were hatched the plans of various series, from Science to 

 Household Budgets, and, later, of the literary competition, under the 

 ominous name of "At the Sign of the Plough," with which the 

 " Cornhill " titillated its ambitious readers and sometimes distracted 

 its examiners and editor in final adjudication. 



In Reginald Smith's time also fell two " Cornhill " celebrations, 

 the Jubilee of the magazine and the Thackeray Centenary, the one in 

 1910, the other in 1911. The personal touch in their commemo- 

 ration linked the " Cornhill " with its earliest beginnings through the 

 living words and gracious presence of Lady Ritchie and of Mrs. 

 George Smith herself. 



Looking back over sixty-two years of " Cornhill " history, the 

 question may be asked, as E. T. Cook asked it in his article in our 

 Jubilee number, whether there is any common touch in the 750 

 numbers of "Cornhill" which makes a unity of essence amid the 

 diversity of matter. Among the bewildering diversities of its mis- 

 cellaneous material that almost defy a synthesis, he confesses that on 

 a general retrospect he seems to have a clear impression of a certain 

 unity. 



" The note [he says] of the ' Cornhill ' is the literary note, in the 

 widest sense of the term ; its soul is the spirit of that humane culture, 

 as Matthew Arnold describes it in the pages, reprinted from the 

 'Cornhill,' of ' Culture and Anarchy.' . . . The form in which this 

 spirit has most particularly expressed itself in the pages of the 

 ' Cornhill ' is the essay— not necessarily the essay on literary subjects, 

 but the essay which, whatever its subject, treats it in the temper of 

 humane letters." 



