e efficacious, facts are those
which are most interesting to the natural mind of man. Those which are
coloured, picturesque, human, and rooted in morality, and those, on the
other hand, which are clear, indisputable, and a part of science, are
alone vital in importance, seizing by their interest, or useful to
communicate. So far as the writer merely narrates, he should
principally tell of these. He should tell of the kind and wholesome and
beautiful elements of our life; he should tell unsparingly of the evil
and sorrow of the present, to move us with instances; he should tell of
wise and good people in the past, to excite us by example; and of these
he should tell soberly and truthfully, not glossing faults, that we may
neither grow discouraged with ourselves nor exacting to our neighbours.
So the body of contemporary literature, ephemeral and feeble in itself,
touches in the minds of men the springs of thought and kindness, and
supports them (for those who will go at all are easily supported) on
their way to what is true and right. And if, in any degree, it does so
now, how much more might it do so if the writers chose! There is not a
life in all the records of the past but, properly studied, might lend a
hint and a help to some contemporary. There is not a juncture in
to-day's affairs but some useful word may yet be said of it. Even the
reporter has an office, and, with clear eyes and honest language, may
unveil injustices and point the way to progress. And for a last word: in
all narration there is only one way to be clever, and that is to be
exact. To be vivid is a secondary quality which must presuppose the
first; for vividly to convey a wrong impression is only to make failure
conspicuous.

But a fact may be viewed on many sides; it may be chronicled with rage,
tears, laughter, indifference, or admiration, and by each of these the
story will be transformed to something else. The newspapers that told of
the return of our representatives from Berlin, even if they had not
differed as to the facts, would have sufficiently differed by their
spirit; so that the one description would have been a second ovation,
and the other a prolonged insult. The subject makes but a trifling part
of any piece of literature, and the view of the writer is itself a fact
more important because less disputable than the others. Now this spirit
in which a subject is regarded, important in all kinds of literary work,
becomes all-important in