VIII. OF THE TRUE JOURNALIST AND HIS CREED.
I am very fond of journalists. I look upon them, young and old, fat and lean, masculine and feminine, as the salt of the earth wherewith to savour the marrow of the country. And I like to put them through their paces. I am always devoured by an insatiable curiosity to fathom the depths of their learning—depths which I feel are almost infinite; yet despite this infinity I am always fain to plunge. Whenever I see a son of the ink-pot I collar him, and demand of him information—information on all things little and big, because he knows all things. I believe he even knows why Shakespeare left his second-best bed to his wife, only he won't tell. As for languages, he is everybody's own Ollendorf. He knows French, he knows Russian, he knows Italian, he knows Spanish, he knows Hindustani, he knows Chinese, he knows—oh divine Apollo! what does he not know! Let anybody write a book and try to introduce into its pages one word of Cherokee, one wild unpronounceable word, and the omniscient journalist is down upon him instantly with the bland assertion that it is a wrong word, wrongly spelt, wrongly used. For the journalist knows Cherokee; he spoke it when a gurgling infant in his mother's arms, together with all the living and dead dialects of all nations. So that when I get a journalist to dine with me, is it to be wondered at that I am consumed by a desire to know? The thirst of wisdom enters into me, and having plied my man with eatables and wine, I hang on his lips entranced. For can he not tell me everything that ever was, or ever shall be?—and shall I not also aspire to oracles?
Once upon a time, to my unspeakable joy, I caught a fledgling journalist; a fluttering creature, all eagle-wings and chuckles, and I carried him home in a cab to dinner. He was a wild fowl, with plumage unkempt, and beak, i.e., a Wellingtonian nose, that spoke volumes of knowledge already. I discovered him hopping about a club, and seeing he was hungry, I managed to coax him along to my "den." When I had him there safe, I could have shouted with pure ecstasy! He became gentle; he smoothed his ruffled feathers; he dipped his beak into my burgundy wine and pronounced in a god-like way that "behold, it was very good." Then, when his inner man was satisfied, he spoke; and information, information, came rolling out with every brief and slangy sentence. Of kings and queens, of princes and commoners, of he and she and we and they, of fire, police, law, council, parliament, and my lady's chamber, of all that whirls in the giddy circle of our time, my fledgling had taken notes—yea, even on the very wheels of government, he had placed his ink-stained finger.
"O wondrous young man!" I muttered as I heard; "O marvel of the age! Why do not the kings of the earth gather together to hear thy wisdom? Why do not the councils of Europe wait to learn the arts of government from thee? Wert thou at the right hand of Deity, I wonder, when worlds were created and comets begotten?" ... Here, filled with ideas, I poured more wine out for the moistening of the Wellingtonian beak, and demanded feverishly—"Tell me, friend, of things that are unknown to most men—tell me of the dark mysteries of time, which must be clear as daylight to a brain like yours!—instruct me in faith and morals—show me the paths of virtue—explain to me your theories of the future, of creed—"
I stopped, choked by my own emotion; I felt I was on the point of comprehending the incomprehensible—of grasping great facts made clear through the astute perception of this literary Gamaliel. And he arose in response to my adjuration; he expanded his manly chest, and stood in an attitude of "attention"; his nose was redder than when he first sat down to dine, and the vacuous chuckle of his laugh was music to my soul.
"Creed!" said he. "Drop that! I'm not a church-goer. I've got one form of faith though." And he chuckled once again.
"And that is?" I questioned eagerly.
"This!"
And with proud unction he recited the following simple formula:—
I believe in the Times.
And in the Morning Post, Maker of news fashionable and unfashionable.
And in one Truth, the property of one Labby, the only-begotten son of honesty in Journalism,
Who for us men and our salvation, socially, legally, and politically,
Came down from Diplomacy into Bolt Court, Fleet Street,
And was there self-incarnated Destroyer of Shams. Labby of Labby, Truth of Truth, Very Rad of Very Rad, Born not made, Being one with himself and answerable to nobody for his opinions.
Member for Northampton, he suffered there, secured votes and was left unburied,
And he sitteth in the House, save when he ariseth and speaketh,
And he will continue with triumph to judge all those that judge, both the living and the dead,
Whose "legal pillory" shall have no end.
And I believe in one Pall Mall Gazette, Pure Giver of frequently mistaken information, which proceedeth from pens feminine,
And which with the soporific St. James's, together, exerteth the lungs of the newsboys.
I acknowledge one holy and absolute Court Circular.
I confess one "Saturday" for the flaying of new authors,
And I look for the death of the Nineteenth Century
And the life of a less dull magazine to come Amen.
With this, my journalistic fledgling gave way to Homeric laughter, and helped himself anew to wine. And since that day, since that witching hour, I have watched his wild career. I track him in the magazines; I recognise the ebullitions of his wit in "society" paragraphs; I discover his withering, blistering sarcasm in his reviews of the books he never reads; in fact, I find him everywhere. As the air permeates space, he permeates literature. He is the all-sure, the all-wise, the all-conquering one. With such a faith as his, so firmly held, so nobly uttered, he is born to authority. I only wish some one would make him Prime Minister. Everything that is wrong would be righted, and with a Journalist (and such a journalist!) at the head of affairs, all questions of government would be as easy to settle as child's play. He himself—the Journalist—implies as much, and with all the fibres of my soul I believe him!
IX.
OF WRITERS IN GROOVES.