 anything to be said for the
establishment of a literary academy in England?«
    Mr Quarmby beamed benevolently upon her, and Mr Hinks, his scraggy neck at
full length, awaited her reply with a look of the most respectful attention.
    »I really think we have quite enough literary quarrelling as it is,« the
girl replied, casting down her eyes and smiling.
    Mr Quarmby uttered a hollow chuckle, Mr Hinks laughed thinly and exclaimed,
»Very good indeed! Very good!« Yule affected to applaud with impartial smile.
    »It wouldn't harmonise with the Anglo-Saxon spirit,« remarked Mr Hinks, with
an air of diffident profundity.
    Yule held forth on the subject for a few minutes in laboured phrases.
Presently the conversation turned to periodicals, and the three men were
unanimous in an opinion that no existing monthly or quarterly could be
considered as representing the best literary opinion.
    »We want,« remarked Mr Quarmby, »we want a monthly review which shall deal
exclusively with literature. The Fortnightly, the Contemporary - they are very
well in their way, but then they are mere miscellanies. You will find one solid
literary article amid a confused mass of politics and economics and general
clap-trap.«
    »Articles on the currency and railway statistics and views of evolution,«
said Mr Hinks, with a look as if something were grating between his teeth.
    »The quarterlies?« put in Yule. »Well, the original idea of the quarterlies
was that there are not enough important books published to occupy solid
reviewers more than four times a year. That may be true, but then a literary
monthly would include much more than professed reviews. Hinks's essays on the
historical drama would have come out in it very well; or your Spanish Poets,
Quarmby.«
    »I threw out the idea to Jedwood the other day,« said Mr Quarmby, »and he
seemed to nibble at it.«
    »Yes, yes,« came from Yule; »but Jedwood has so many irons in the fire. I
doubt if he has the necessary capital at command just now. No doubt he's the
man, if some capitalist would join him.«
    »No enormous capital needed,« opined Mr Quarmby. »The thing would pay its
way almost from the first. It would take a place between the literary weeklies
and the quarterlies. The former are too academic, the latter too massive, for
multitudes of people who yet have strong literary tastes. Foreign publications
should be liberally dealt with. But, as Hinks says, no meddling
