Applet ons Journal. 257 



Mr. Spencer had advised him not to undertake the 

 work of editing a periodical : 



For your own comfort, health, and happiness, I would 

 advise you not. You will be committed to a slavery full 

 of weariness and vexation. It is a great blessing to be 

 one's own master a blessing not to be given up unless some 

 peremptory duty or need demands it. You can do quite 

 good enough in the way of public work without thus bind- 

 ing yourself. 



But if he must undertake such work, said Mr. 

 Spencer, let it be upon a monthly magazine rather 

 than a weekly paper : 



In deciding on a weekly periodical rather than a 

 monthly, you are, I think, entering upon the much more 

 serious undertaking of the two. To have perpetually 

 hanging over you responsibilities that must be fulfilled by 

 a given date, is bad enough when the date recurs at inter- 

 vals of a month ; and when it recurs weekly, the conse- 

 quent sense of slavery must be very oppressive, and the 

 wear and tear very serious. Unless the mercantile reasons 

 in favour of a weekly periodical are overwhelming, I think 

 a monthly will be very much preferable. I think this for 

 other reasons than that named. The smallness of a weekly 

 periodical necessitates short articles, whether they are 

 otherwise desirable or not ; but in a monthly periodical 

 you may have them short or long, as the subject demands. 

 Moreover, from the exercise of this ability to treat with 

 due fulness topics that can-not be well dealt with in a small 

 space, there arises the incidental advantage of having a 

 mixture of long and short articles, so obtaining an addi- 

 tional kind of variety. I should say, too, that editorship 

 can be more satisfactorily discharged with a periodical of 

 longer intervals. More time for arrangement and more 



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