"I see," he said, after listening to a lengthy exposition of the proprietors' view; "they want to popularize the thing."
Jewdwine winced perceptibly. "Well, hardly," said he. "In that case they would have been obliged to change their editor. We certainly want to draw a rather larger public than we have done; and to do that we must make some concessions to modernity. There's no doubt that the paper's interests have suffered from its tradition. We have been too exclusive, too detached. We can no longer afford to be detached. We propose to abandon the tradition in favour of—well—of a somewhat broader attitude." He looked keenly at Rickman, as if he defied him to put it any other way.
"I see. We've either got to take a more genial view of our contemporaries—or scoot."
"You may put it that way if you like. It simply means that if we are to appeal to a wider public, we must take a wider view. It's surely in the interests of the public, and of literature, that we should not narrow the influence of the paper any more than we can help. Not make the best criticism inaccessible." He continued to take the lofty and the noble view. The habit was inveterate. But his last remark started him on the way of self-justification. "Of course I couldn't go on with the paper if I hadn't come to see this for myself. The fact is, you cannot run a leading review on abstract principles."
Rickman forbore to smile at the fulfilment of his prophecy. Jewdwine's "Absolute" had been obliged to "climb down."
"Not," said Jewdwine, "if that review is really to lead public opinion."
"And certainly not," said Rickman, "if public opinion is to lead the review."
"In either case," said Jewdwine nobly, "the principles remain."
"Only they're not applied?"
"They are not applied, because there is nothing to apply them to. In the present state of literature a review like The Museion has no reason for its existence."