The first two years he spent in newspaper work, for the most part with the _Evening Post_, but, one day in November, 1887, a man whom he had never seen came into his office and unfolded a new opportunity.

Two years before a rather miscellaneous group had launched an ambitious literary undertaking.

This was a monthly periodical, which, it was hoped, would do for the United States what such publications as the _Fortnightly_ and the _Contemporary_ were doing for England.

The magazine was to have the highest literary quality and to be sufficiently dignified to attract the finest minds in America as contributors; its purpose was to exercise a profound influence in politics, literature, science, and art.

The projectors had selected for this publication a title that was almost perfection--the _Forum_--but which, after nearly two years' experimentation, represented about the limit of their achievement.