He rescued them from their weaknesses and errors, while he left in them the evidence of the pleasure with which a clever young man, or a sensitive girl, or a refined woman had done them.

Inevitably from his manipulation, however, the art of the number acquired homogeneity, and there was nothing casual in its appearance.

The result, March eagerly owned, was better than the literary result, and he foresaw that the number would be sold and praised chiefly for its pictures.

Yet he was not ashamed of the literature, and he indulged his admiration of it the more freely because he had not only not written it, but in a way had not edited it.

To be sure, he had chosen all the material, but he had not voluntarily put it all together for that number; it had largely put itself together, as every number of every magazine does, and as it seems more and more to do, in the experience of every editor.