Page:Essays in miniature.djvu/181

 Rh their magazines. This is the strangest act of vandalism that an unholy zest for novelty ever prompted in the human bosom. Why a magazine cover is selected in the first place, remains, in most cases, an unfathomed mystery. It is seldom a thing of beauty, but, once associated with the agreeable visitor that every month brings some new tidings to our door, it acquires for us all the subtle charm of familiarity. Nothing can well be more stiff and ungraceful than the design of Blackwood; that wilted, conventional border, and that wreath of prickly Scotch thistles, defending rather than decorating the vignette of the founder,

The whole cover seems to say, "Stand off, rash mortal! There is nothing here for you!" Yet to lose it would be to lose an old, surly, faithful and long-tried friend. I sometimes feel that Blackwood is not as readable as it was when I was a girl—it is the privilege of increasing years to think all magazines were better when we were young—but for that very