If they did they would go, not to the
daily paper, but to the House of Commons. The galleries would be crowded
every night as they were in the French Revolution; for instead of seeing
a printed story for a penny they would be seeing an acted drama for
nothing. But the, people know in their hearts that journalism is a
conventional art like any other, that it selects, heightens, and
falsifies. Only its Nemesis is the same as that of other arts: if it
loses all care for truth it loses all form likewise. The modern who
paints too cleverly produces a picture of a cow which might be the
earthquake at San Francisco. And the journalist who reports a speech too
cleverly makes it mean nothing at all.
THE WORSHIP OF THE WEALTHY
There has crept, I notice, into our literature and journalism a new way
of flattering the wealthy and the great. In more straightforward times
flattery itself was more straight-forward; falsehood itself was more
true. A poor man wishing to please a rich man simply said that he was
the wisest, bravest, tallest, strongest, most benevolent and most
beautiful of mankind; and as even the rich man probably knew that he
wasn't that, the thing did the less harm.
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