“For they lie beside their nectar,
and the bolts are hurled
Far below them in the valleys.”
They lie a good deal beside their nectar; but their bolts are anything but thunderbolts. Thunderbolts! The mere word would make these gasp and shudder. They are not thunderbolts, they are not rockets, they are not even squibs; they are bonbons and genuine confetti, not your confetti of the Carnival.
“*There* they smile in secret, looking over wasted lands,
Blight and famine, plague and earthquake, roaring deeps and fiery sands,
Clanging fights and flaming towns, and sinking ships and praying hands.
But they smile, they find a music centered in a doleful song
Steaming up, a lamentation and an ancient tale of wrong,
Like a tale of little meaning, tho the words are strong;
Chanted from an ill-used race of men that cleave the soil,
Sow the seed and reap the harvest with enduring toil,
Storing yearly little dues of wheat, and wine and oil.”
Naturally these lofty beings smile; for what have they to do with the cares and woes, the hopes and fears of ordinary mortals? Besides, battles and shipwrecks, disasters and convulsions, make the best of copy; and the music centred in the doleful song is a hymn of triumph, with the glorious refrain, “Our circulation is still increasing! Our world-wide circulation continues to increase!” And surely the ill-used race of men that till the soil should be appeased and amply satisfied by the showers of bonbons and sweetmeats the Daily News is always flinging down. It has more important duties to attend to than fighting the battles and righting the wrongs of an ignorant, passionate, unreasonable, wretched rabble, considerably addicted to dirt, drunkenness, and vice. For thirty hours at least in every twenty-four it is in attendance on some Royalty or another, or at the sports and entertainments of “Society, with a capital S.” It is said that the “copy” of these superlative writers, who always wear kid gloves while writing, is written with golden pens and tinted and perfumed ink, on perfumed and tinted paper. It is moreover said that the journal itself is soon to be printed on vellum, in the illuminated style, with arabesque borders. It is also rumored that the Court Journal and the Morning Post, finding themselves quite outdone by the Daily News, and their occupation gone, will shortly cease to appear.
I must not omit to mention that I have been told on authority, which I incline to consider good, that in the said gorgeous sanctum is conspicuous a table of commandments, wrought in letters of fine gold, which commandments are these:
I. Thou shalt never be in earnest about anything, and shalt abhor enthusiasm.
- Thou shalt not have a decided opinion on any subject.
III. Thou shalt never write an unqualified sentence, or risk an unmodified statement.
IV. Thy style shall be always in the tone of a sweet murmur or soft whisper; a lullaby of peace for drowsy-headed Bumbledom.
V. Thou shalt write with an air of assured superiority to everybody, and everything.