Its literary quality was still high; the momentum that its great contributors had given it was still keeping the publication alive; entrance into its columns still represented the ultimate ambition of the aspiring American writer; but it needed a new spirit to insure its future.

What it required was the kind of editing that had suddenly made the _Forum_ one of the greatest of English-written reviews.

This is the reason why the canny Yankee proprietors had reached over to New York and grasped Page as quickly as the capitalists of the _Forum_ let him slip between their fingers.
Page's sense of humour discovered a certain ironic aspect in his position as the dictator of this famous New England magazine.

The fact that his manner was impatiently energetic and somewhat startling to the placid atmosphere of Park Street was not the thing that really signified its break with its past.

But here was a Southerner firmly entrenched in a headquarters that had long been sacred to the New England abolitionists.