Etc. [pp. 99-100]

ETC.
ETC.
S I may have occasion in these pages
to advance certain opinions perhaps
scarcely worthy of being dignified as the
expression of plural wisdom, I shall always
use the first person, singular. Generally I
think the average reader is not deceived by
the editorial plural. We do not, I observe,
accept objectionable doctrine any the quicker
for it. On the contrary, we are very apt to
say: "That's Smith-everybody knows he's
incited by jealousy," or "Jones got his
price for that article." Perhaps Jones did;
perhaps we get our price for opposing Jones'
views; but that is neither here nor there. I
simply meant to say that in this department
of the OVERLAND there is nothing oracular
-nothing but the expression of an individuality, generally inexact, rarely positive, and
certainly never authoritative.
Yet it falls to my lot at the very outset, to
answer, on behalf of the publishers, a few
questions that have arisen in the progress
of this venture. Why, for instance, is this
magazine called "The Overland Monthly?"
It would perhaps be easier to say why it was
not called by some of the thousand other
titles suggested. I might explain how "Pacific Monthly" is hackneyed, mild in suggestion, and at best but a feeble echo of the
Boston "Atlantic;" how the "West," "Wide
West" and" Western" are already threadbare and suggest to Eastern readers only
Chicago and the Lakes; how " Occidental"
and "Chrysopolis" are but cheap pedantry,
and "Sunset," "Sundown," "Hesper," etc.,
cheaper sentiment; how "California,"honest and direct enough-is yet too local
to attract any but a small number of readers.
I might prove that there was safety, at least,
in the negative goodness of our present
homely Anglo-Saxon title. But is there
nothing more? Turn your eyes to this map
made but a few years ago. Do you see this
vast interior basin of the Continent, on
which the boundaries of States and Territories are less distinct than the names of
wandering Indian tribes; do you see this
broad zone reaching from Virginia City to
St. Louis, as yet only dotted by telegraph
stations, whose names are familiar, but of
whose locality we are profoundly ignorant?
Here creeps the railroad, each day drawing
the West and East closer together. Do
you think, O owner of Oakland and San
Francisco lots, that the vast current soon to
pour along this narrow channel will be
always kept within the bounds you have
made for it? Will not this mighty Nilus
overflow its banks and fertilize the surrounding desert? Can you ticket every passenger
through to San Francisco-to Oakland-to
Sacramento-even to Virginia City? Shall
not the route be represented as well as the
termini? And where our people travel, that
is the highway of our thought. Will the
trains be freighted only with merchandize,
and shall we exchange nothing but goods?
Will not our civilization gain by the subtle
inflowing current of Eastern refinement,
and shall we not, by the same channel,
throw into Eastern exclusiveness something
of our own breadth and liberality? And if
so, what could be more appropriate for the
title of a literary magazine than to call it
after this broad highway?
The bear who adorns the cover may be
"an ill-favored " beast whom "women cannot abide," but he is honest withal. Take
him if you please as the symbol of local
primitive barbarism. He is crossing the
track of the Pacific Railroad, and has paused a moment to look at the coming engine
of civilization and progress-which moves
like a good many other engines of civilization and progress with a prodigious shrieking and puffing-and apparently recognizes
his rival and his doom. And yet, leaving
the symbol out, there is much about your
grizzly that is pleasant. The truth should
however be tested at a moment when no
desire for self-preservation prejudices the
observer. In his placid moments he has a
stupid, good-natured, grey tranquility, like
that of the hills in midsummer. I am satisfied that his unpleasant habit of scalping
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