To an interviewer who expected to get a good article on the difference between the English Parliament and our Congress (this was at a time when many Congressmen were tobacco-chewers) he said:
“In Parliament the men sit with their hats on and cough; in Congress they sit with their hats off and spit.”
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JOURNALISTS AND AUTHORS
Not All Journalists are Critics, nor are All Critics Fault-finders.—The Most Savage Newspapers not the Most Influential.—The Critic’s Duty.—Horace Greeley.—Mark Twain’s First Earnings.—A Great Publisher “Approached” by Green Goods Men.—Henry Watterson.—Opie Reid.—Quimby of the Free Press.—Laurence Hutton, Edwin Booth and I in Danger Together.
When you say “journalist” to a man of my profession—or of any other that devotes its time and wits to the task of amusing and entertaining people, it is taken for granted that you mean “critic,” and that “critic” in turn means faultfinder. This is extremely unfair to journalists in general and to critics in particular, for not all journalists are critics, nor all critics faultfinders. Run over the names of all the critics you’ve heard of here or in London or Paris—critics, dramatic, musical and literary, and you will discover, to your surprise, that those who are best known and have most influence, are those who are quickest to praise and slowest to find fault.
“Trying it on the dog” is the name for this sort of thing—
As a proof of it, and how it strikes the men and women most concerned, both in pocket and pride, is the following:—almost every new play, concert and entertainment of any kind tries to give its first real performance in New York. It may endeavor to get some money out of the later rehearsals by giving a few performances out of town:—“Trying it on the dog” is the name for this sort of thing, but New York is trusted to set the pace, and this is what follows;—on the day on which New York newspapers containing a report of the performance reaches any city or town where the same attraction has been booked conditionally, or where managers or entertainment committees have heard enough in advance about it to want to hear more, there is a run on news-stands for certain New York papers. I won’t indicate them closer than to say that they are not those sheets which support the brilliant chaps who skilfully ride hobbies of their own, or who are most skilled at vivisecting and eviscerating a playwright and splitting each particular hair of an actor, singer or entertainer. The papers for which there is general demand are those which tell whether the performance was good of its kind, specify the kind and tell how the audience regarded it. At the end of the third act of a new play in New York a noted critic was buttonholed in the lobby by a club-man who had a friend in the cast and asked for his opinion.
“It’s a success—a great success,” was the reply.