I was about to boil over with wrath; but Walter Watt was on his legs, making a speech about the salt of the earth, before I had my words ready. Churchill Smith would put up with Walter when he would endure words from no one else. I used to think him mean enough to respect the Oxford fellowship, but I have since fancied that he believed that he had discovered a congenial spirit. In those days I certainly did despise Watt’s fellowship, but in later life I have come to believe that men who get rewards have generally earned them. Watt on this occasion made a speech to which in my passion I hardly attended; but I well remember how, when I was about to rise in my wrath, Mrs. St. Quinten put her hand on my arm, and calmed me. “If you,” said she, “to whom we most trust for orderly guidance, are to be the first to throw down the torch of discord, what will become of us?”
“I haven’t thrown down any torch,” said I.
“Neither take one up,” said she, pouring out my tea for me as she spoke.
“As for myself,” said Regan, “I like metaphysics—and I like them German. Is there anything so stupid and pigheaded as that insular feeling which makes us think nothing to be good that is not homegrown?”
“All the same,” said Jack, “who ever eat a good muffin out of London?”
“Mr. Hallam, Mary Jane is bringing up some more,” said our hostess. She was an openhanded woman, and the supply of these delicacies never ran low as long as the Panjandrum was a possibility.
It was, I think, on this evening that we decided finally for columns and for a dark gray wrapper—with a portrait of the Panjandrum in the centre; a fancy portrait it must necessarily be; but we knew that we could trust for that to the fertile pencil of Mrs. St. Quinten. I had come prepared with a specimen cover, as to which I had in truth consulted an artistic friend, and had taken with it no inconsiderable labour. I am sure, looking back over the long interval of years at my feelings on that occasion—I am sure, I say, that I bore well the alterations and changes which were made in that design until at last nothing remained of it. But what matters a wrapper? Surely of any printed and published work it is by the interior that you should judge it. It is not that old conjuror’s head that has given its success to Blackwood, nor yet those four agricultural boys that have made the Cornhill what it is.
We had now decided on columns, on the cover, and the colour. We had settled on the number of pages, and had thumbed four or five specimens of paper submitted to us by our worthy publisher. In that matter we had taken his advice, and chosen the cheapest; but still we liked the thumbing of the paper. It was business. Paper was paper then, and bore a high duty. I do not think that the system of illustration had commenced in those days, though a series of portraits was being published by one distinguished contemporary. We readily determined that we would attempt nothing of that kind. There then arose a question as to the insertion of a novel. Novels were not then, as now, held to be absolutely essential for the success of a magazine. There were at that time magazines with novels and magazines without them. The discreet young publisher suggested to us that we were not able to pay for such a story as would do us any credit. I myself, who was greedy for work, with bated breath offered to make an attempt. It was received with but faint thanks, and Walter Watt, rising on his legs, with eyes full of fire and arms extended, denounced novels in the general. It was not for such purpose that he was about to devote to the production of the Panjandrum any erudition that he might have acquired and all the intellect that God had given him. Let those who wanted novels go for them to the writer who dealt with fiction in the open market. As for him, he at any rate would search for truth. We reminded him of Blumine.2 “Tell your novel in three pages,” said he, “and tell it as that is told, and I will not object to it.” We were enabled, however, to decide that there should be no novel in the Panjandrum.
Then at length came the meeting at which we were to begin our real work and divide our tasks among us. Hitherto Mr. X. had usually joined us, but a hint had been given to him that on this and a few following meetings we would not trespass on his time. It was quite understood that he, as publisher, was to have nothing to do with the preparation or arrangement of the matter to be published. We were, I think, a little proud of keeping him at a distance when we came to the discussion of that actual essence of our combined intellects which was to be issued to the world under the grotesque name which we had selected. That mind and matter should be kept separated was impressed very strongly upon all of us. Now, we were “mind,” and Mr. X. was “matter.” He was matter at any rate in reference to this special work, and, therefore, when we had arrived at that vital point we told him—I had been commissioned to do so—that we did not require his attendance just at present. I am bound to say that Mr. X. behaved well to the end, but I do not think that he ever warmed to the Panjandrum after that. I fancy that he owns two or three periodicals
