Kristin Parker, an archivist for Boston’s Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, recently shared this snippet of a letter Gardner received from novelist F. Marion Crawford on August 23, 1896:
The old fashioned novel is really dead, and nothing can revive it nor make anybody care for it again. What is to follow it? . . . A clever German who is here suggested to me last night that the literature of the future might turn out to be the daily exchange of ideas of men of genius—over the everlasting telephone of course—published every morning for the whole world.
We publish on the Internet rather than using an everlasting telephone, but otherwise this is a spot on description of First Things Online , wouldn’t you say?
(Via: Kottke )
Dear Reader,
Can I be direct with you?
War abroad. Socialists on the rise. AI upending human life. Endless uproar online. The modern attention economy doesn’t want readers — it wants users enslaved to the tyranny of the present.
First Things is the antidote: literary excellence, timeless truths, and a fixed point of reference in a culture that has lost its bearings.
But we can’t do it without readers like you.
Our goal: Raise $150,000 by November 1 to sustain First Things in the year ahead.
Your gift anchors readers in the permanent things.
Make your Fall Campaign gift now using the button below.
If you have any questions or would like more information, please contact Giovanni Del Piero, Director of the Editor’s Circle, at gdelpiero@firstthings.com or 212-627-1985.
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