onformists is their universal refinement. They dimly connect being
good with being delicate, and even dapper; with not being grotesque or
loud or violent; with not sitting down on one's hat. Now it is always a
pleasure to be loud and violent, and sometimes it is a duty. Certainly
it has nothing to do with sin; a man can be loudly and violently
virtuous--nay, he can be loudly and violently saintly, though that is
not the type of saintliness that we recognise in Dr. Horton. And as for
sitting on one's hat, if it is done for any sublime object (as, for
instance, to amuse the children), it is obviously an act of very
beautiful self-sacrifice, the destruction and surrender of the symbol of
personal dignity upon the shrine of public festivity. Now it will not do
to attack the modern editor merely for being unrefined, like the great
mass of mankind. We must be able to say that he is immoral, not that he
is undignified or ridiculous. I do not mind the Yellow Press editor
sitting on his hat. My only objection to him begins to dawn when he
attempts to sit on my hat; or, indeed (as is at present the case), when
he proceeds to sit on my head.

But in reading between the lines of Dr. Horton's invective one
continually feels that he is not only angry with the popular Press for
being unscrupulous: he is partly angry with the popular Press for being
popular. He is not only irritated with Limericks for causing a mean
money-scramble; he is also partly irritated with Limericks for being
Limericks. The enormous size of the levity gets on his nerves, like the
glare and blare of Bank Holiday. Now this is a motive which, however
human and natural, must be strictly kept out of the way. It takes all
sorts to make a world; and it is not in the least necessary that
everybody should have that love of subtle and unobtrusive perfections in
the matter of manners or literature which does often go with the type of
the ethical idealist. It is not in the least desirable that everybody
should be earnest. It is highly desirable that everybody should be
honest, but that is a thing that can go quite easily with a coarse and
cheerful character. But the ineffectualness of most protests against the
abuse of the Press has been very largely due to the instinct of
democracy (and the instinct of democracy is like the instinct of one
woman, wild but quite right) that the people who were trying to purify
the Press were also trying to refine it; and to this the democra