IF I WERE A MAGAZINE EDITOR

George Jean Nathan

IF I were a magazine editor I would see to it that the following articles, stories, poems and pictures, and others of their kind were carefully excluded from my magazine:

1. "Shakespeare's Birthplace As It Is Today" (illustrated with photographs, especially one of the house in which Shakespeare was born, or one of Ann Hathaway's cottage).

2. Articles entitled "The Gentle Art of" something or other.

3. "Mrs. Fiske: An Appreciation."

4. Any "Villanelle," "Rondeau," or "Ballade."

5. Stories laid on shipboard in which the hero and heroine lean over the rail under the stars, not saying a word, as they watch the coast of Africa, now a mere thin black line on the horizon, fade from their sight.

6. Small squares in the center of the blank page this side of the frontispiece showing some trees on a hill with the name of the month printed underneath in old English letters.

7. Stories, the heroes of which are named Travers or Bannister, or young Winthrop.

8. "Tarragon: A Typical French Provincial Town" (with pen and ink drawings by Joseph Pennell, or Walter Hale or Ernest Peixotto).

9. "Our Forests: What Is To Become Of Them?"

10. "Crime and the Five-Cent Cigar," by Hugo Miinsterberg, Professor of Psychology at Harvard University. (Preceded by a note by the editor of the magazine.)

11. "The Drama Of To-day," by Professor Brander Matthews.

12. Drawings (at the beginning of spring) in which the Earth is made to look like a baseball.

13. Cartoons based on the David-Goliath idea.

14. Stories in which the heroine's name "seemed to fit her exactly."

15. "Helen Keller: A Lesson In Patience and Observation."

16. All "hitherto unpublished" photographs of Maude Adams.

17. Any collections of epigrams under the title "Observations of a Cynic."

18. Detective stories in which the murdered man is discovered the next morning by the maid in the library—his head beside the fender of the open fireplace.

19. "My Life With the Eskimos." (With photographs copyrighted by Brown Brothers.)

20. "Christmas In Many Lands." (With the usual frontispiece in colors.)

21. "The Conquest Of Mt. McKinley."

22. Any photograph of the German Kaiser watching the military maneuvers, especially if on horseback and armed with field glasses.

23. "A Plea For a Repertory Theatre" (by Percy Mackaye or John Corbin).

24. Stories in which the heroine cries out: "I hate you! I hate you!" (twice) instead of "I hate you!" (once).

25. Stories of the stage in which the heroine, after countless disappointments and a heart-rending struggle, suddenly becomes a successful "star" on Broadway.

26. "The Tariff Muddle" (by Senator Albert J. Beveridge of Indiana, or any other senator from any other state).

27. Stories of a man who temporarily assumes the name of a friend to save him from disgrace and is subsequently accused of the friend's murder.

28. The Letters of Hester Piozzi to Byron, or Keats, or Shelley, or Leigh Hunt.

29. "The Russian Ballet" (with any photograph or mention of Pavlowa or Leon Bakst).

30. Flashlight photographs of any jungle beasts, lions in particular.

31. Reminiscences of Abraham Lincoln, particularly those in which the illustrations have been borrowed from the Century Magazine.

and

32 to 500. "Panama: Past and Present" (with a frontispiece portrait of Col. Goethals).