And he must decide between
one of two views. Either he means that there can be no such thing as a
corrupt Government. Or he means that it is one of the characteristic
qualities of a corrupt Government to denounce its own corruption. I laugh;
and I leave him his choice.
THE FATIGUE OF FLEET STREET
Why is the modern party political journalism so bad? It is worse even
than it intends to be. It praises its preposterous party leaders through
thick and thin; but it somehow succeeds in making them look greater fools
than they are. This clumsiness clings even to the photographs of public
men, as they are snapshotted at public meetings. A sensitive politician
(if there is such a thing) would, I should think, want to murder the man
who snapshots him at those moments. For our general impression of a man's
gesture or play of feature is made up of a series of vanishing instants,
at any one of which he may look worse than our general impression records.
Mr. Augustine Birrell may have made quite a sensible and amusing speech,
in the course of which his audience would hardly have noticed that he
resettled his necktie. Snapshot him, and he appears as convulsively
clutching his throat in the agonies of strangulation, and with his head
twisted on one side as if he had been hanged. Sir Edward Carson might
make a perfectly good speech, which no one thought wearisome, but might
himself be just tired enough to shift from one leg to the other.
Pages:
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83