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“Much cry for little wool,” some will exclaim. It may be so. Whenever did a first number of a new magazine fulfil all its editor’s dreams or even intentions? “Well, we must make the best of it, I suppose. ‘Tis nater, after all, and what pleases God,” as Mrs. Durbeyfield says in “Tess of the Durbervilles.”
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Have you read that charming roman à quatre, the Croix de Berny? If so, you will recollect the following words of Edgar de Meilhan (alias Théophile Gautier), which I (“I” standing for editor, and associates, and pagans in general) now quote for the delectation of all readers, adversely minded or generously inclined, or dubious as to our real intent—with blithe hopes that they may be the happier therefor: “Frankly, I am in earnest this time. Order me a dove-coloured vest, apple-green trousers, a pouch, a crook; in short, the entire outfit of a Lignon Shepherd. I shall have a lamb washed to complete the pastoral.”
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This is “the lamb.”
The Editor.
The Review was well subscribed for, and many letters came to the Editor and his secretary (myself) that were a source of interest and amusement. Mr. Richard Whiteing—who knew the secret of the Editorship wrote: “I want to subscribe to The Pagan Review if you will let me know to whom to send my abonnement for the half year. I think, you know, you will have to put some more clothes on before the end of the year. You are certainly the liveliest and most independent little devil of a review I ever saw in a first number.”
The Editor, however, swiftly realised that there could be no continuance of the Review. Not only could he not repeat such a tour de force, and he realised that for several numbers he would have to provide the larger portion of the material—but the one number had served its purpose, as far as he was concerned for by means of it he had exhausted a transition phase that had passed to give way to the expression of his more permanent self.
To Thomas A. Janvier the Editor wrote: