indeed a European who never
became thoroughly Americanised. It was humour of a pungent and
sarcastic quality, usually directed to the detection of tricks or the
exposure of shams, but it was eminently mirth-provoking and never
malicious. Frequently it was ironical, and the irony sometimes so fine
as to be mistaken for seriousness.

The _Nation_ was from its very first numbers so full of force,
keenness, and knowledge, and so unusually well written, that it made
its way rapidly among the educated classes of the Eastern States. It
soon became a power, but a power of a new kind. Mr. Godkin wanted
most of the talents or interests of the ordinary journalist. He
gave no thought to the organisation of the paper as a business
undertaking. He scarcely heeded circulation, either when his
livelihood depended upon the _Nation_ of which he was the chief
owner, or when he was associated with others in the ownership of
the _Evening Post_. He refused to allow any news he disapproved,
including all scandal and all society gossip, to appear. He was
prepared at any moment to incur unpopularity from his subscribers, or
even to offend one half of his advertisers. He took no pains to get
news before other journals, and cared nothing for those "beats" and
"scoops" in which the soul of the normal newspaper man finds a
legitimate source of pride. He was not there, he would have said,
to please either advertisers or subscribers, but to tell the American
people the truths they needed to hear, and if those truths were
distasteful, so much the more needful was it to proclaim them. He
was absolutely independent not only of all personal but of all party
ties. A public man was never either praised or suffered to escape
censure because he was a private acquaintance. He once told me that
the being obliged to censure those with whom he stood in personal
relations was the least agreeable feature of his profession.
Whether an act was done by the Republicans or by the Democrats
made no difference to his judgment, or to the severity with which his
judgment was expressed. His distrust of Mr. James G. Blaine had led
him to support Mr. Cleveland at the election of 1884, and he
continued to give a general approval to the latter statesman during
both his presidential terms. But when Mr. Cleveland's Venezuelan
message with its menaces to England appeared in December 1895, Mr.
Godkin vehemently denounced it, as indeed he had frequently before
blamed particular ac