This method of description requires certain aptitude and training; but not much, not more than many a journalist could acquire for himself with a little practice. The director of the Daily Graphic is reported to have said that “the ideal correspondent, who can sketch as well as write, is not yet born.” He takes perhaps a higher view of the artistic functions of a daily newspaper than we should be disposed to grant him; by “we” I mean, of course, “the public,” expecting news in the most graphic manner. There are, and will be, many moments when we want information, simply and solely, and care little how, or in what shape, it comes.
This kind of information, given pictorially, has no pretension to be artistic, but it is “illustration” in the true sense of the word, and its value when rightly applied is great. When the alterations at Hyde Park Corner (one of the most important of the London improvements of our day) were first debated in Parliament, a daily newspaper, as if moved by some sudden flash of intelligence, printed a ground-plan of the proposed alterations with descriptive text; and once or twice only, during Stanley’s long absence in Africa, did we have sketches or plans printed with the letters to elucidate the text, such as a sketch of the floating islands with their weird inhabitants, at Stanley’s Station on the Congo river, which appeared in a daily newspaper—instances of news presented to the reader in a better form than words. “The very thing that was wanted!” was the general exclamation, as if there were some new discovery of the powers of description.
As the war correspondent’s occupation does not appear likely to cease in our time, it would seem worth while to make sure that he is fully equipped.
The method of writing employed by correspondents on the field of battle seems unnecessarily clumsy and prolix; we hear of letters written actually under fire, on a drum-head, or in the saddle, and on opening the packet as it arrives by the post we may find, if we take the trouble to measure it, that the point of the pen or pencil, has travelled over a distance of a hundred feet! This is the actual ascertained measurement, taking into account all the ups and downs, crosses and dashes, as it arrives from abroad. No wonder the typewriter is resorted to in journalism wherever possible.
A newspaper correspondent is sent suddenly to the seat of war, or is stationed in some remote country to give the readers of a newspaper the benefit of his observations. What is he doing in 1894? In the imperfect, clumsy language which he possesses in common with every minister of state and public schoolboy, he proceeds to describe what he sees in a hundred lines, when with two or three strokes of the pen he might have expressed his meaning better pictorially. I have used these words before, but they apply with redoubled force at the present time. The fact is, that with the means now at command for reproducing any lines drawn or written, the correspondent is not thoroughly equipped if he cannot send them as suggested, by telegraph or by letter. It is all a matter of education, and the newspaper reporter of the future will not be considered complete unless he is able to express himself, to some extent, pictorially as well as verbally. Then, and not till then, will our complicated language be rescued from many obscurities, by the aid of lines other than verbal.[5]
In nearly every city, town, or place there is some feature, architectural or natural, which gives character to it, and it would add greatly to the interest of letters from abroad if they were headed with a little outline sketch, or indication of the principal objects. This is seldom done, because the art of looking at things, and the power of putting them down simply in a few lines, has not been cultivated and is not given to many.
Two things are principally necessary to attain this end—
A STUDY IN PERSPECTIVE. (HUME NISBET.)
A. Standpoint. B. Point of Sight. C. Horizontal line. D. Vanishing lines.
E. Point of distance. F. Vanishing lines of distance. G. Line of sight.
1. The education of hand and eye and a knowledge of perspective, to be imparted to every schoolboy, no matter what his profession or occupation is likely to be.