The final distinction between literature and journalism is to be sought in their diverging and irreconcilable objects. The desire of the former is for permanence, and the aim of the latter is the immediate impression. When literature triumphs it is for all time--more or less. When journalism most completely achieves its purpose its success is temporary, to be retained only by iteration and reiteration, since it has for its target the events of the fleeting moment. If we admit this distinction between journalism and literature, we have no difficulty in discovering journalism in many places other than the daily and weekly papers; very properly it fills the most of the space in the monthly magazines, and even in the quarterly reviews; and it abounds in our book-stores, since only a small proportion of the volumes which pour from the press every year possess the combined substance and style, the solidity of matter and the delightfulness of manner which lift mere writing up to the loftier level of literature. On the other hand, we may find literature of inexpugnable quality, not only in the magazines, but also now and again in the newspapers. Drake's 'American Flag' and Kipling's 'Recessional' appeared in daily journals, and so did the literary criticism of Sainte-Beuve and the dramatic criticism of Lessing and of Lemaître. But these were but happy accidents, and the great newspaper editor has rarely striven to make his journal a persistent vehicle for the publication of literature. He feels that this is foreign to his main purpose, and he is content when his editorial articles, and his news stories are vigorous and picturesque--clean, clear, and cogent in their English. He knows, better than any one else, that it is not by its external literary merits that newspaper-writing is to be judged. What he wants above all else is the news, all the news, and nothing but the news--accompanied, of course, by the obligatory comment this news may deserve. He needs editorial writers, reporters, and correspondents who are newspaper men, and not men of letters, except in so far as these men of letters may have accepted the special conditions of newspaper work.