ht, I took it, as the historical leader
of the future will certainly take it, as containing some allusion to the
little daughter who so monopolised the affections of the Major at the
end of "Vanity Fair." The Americans carry to an even wilder extreme this
darkness by excess of light. You may find a column in an American paper
headed "Poet Brown Off Orange-flowers," or "Senator Robinson Shoehorns
Hats Now," and it may be quite a long time before the full meaning
breaks upon you: it has not broken upon me yet.

And something of this intellectual vengeance pursues also those who
adopt the modern method of reporting speeches. They also become
mystical, simply by trying to be vulgar. They also are condemned to be
always trying to write like George R. Sims, and succeeding, in spite of
themselves, in writing like Maeterlinck. That combination of words
which I have quoted from an alleged speech of Mr. Bernard Shaw's was
written down by the reporter with the idea that he was being
particularly plain and democratic. But, as a matter of fact, if there is
any connection between the two sentences, it must be something as dark
as the deepest roots of Browning, or something as invisible as the most
airy filaments of Meredith. To be simple and to be democratic are two
very honourable and austere achievements; and it is not given to all the
snobs and self-seekers to achieve them. High above even Maeterlinck or
Meredith stand those, like Homer and Milton, whom no one can
misunderstand. And Homer and Milton are not only better poets than
Browning (great as he was), but they would also have been very much
better journalists than the young men on the _Daily Mail_.

As it is, however, this misrepresentation of speeches is only a part of
a vast journalistic misrepresentation of all life as it is. Journalism
is popular, but it is popular mainly as fiction. Life is one world, and
life seen in the newspapers another; the public enjoys both, but it is
more or less conscious of the difference. People do not believe, for
instance, that the debates in the House of Commons are as dramatic as
they appear in the daily papers. If they did they would go, not to the
daily paper, but to the House of Commons. The galleries would be crowded
every night as they were in the French Revolution; for instead of seeing
a printed story for a penny they would be seeing an acted drama for
nothing. But the, people know in their hearts that journalism is a
conventional