Drink, because all things are lapsed in a base equality and an
evil peace." So he stands offering us the cup in his hand.
And at the high altar of Christianity stands another figure, in whose
hand also is the cup of the vine. "Drink" he says "for the whole
world is as red as this wine, with the crimson of the love and wrath
of God. Drink, for the trumpets are blowing for battle and this
is the stirrup-cup. Drink, for this my blood of the new testament
that is shed for you. Drink, for I know of whence you come and why.
Drink, for I know of when you go and where."



VIII. The Mildness of the Yellow Press


There is a great deal of protest made from one quarter or another
nowadays against the influence of that new journalism which is
associated with the names of Sir Alfred Harmsworth and Mr. Pearson.
But almost everybody who attacks it attacks on the ground that it
is very sensational, very violent and vulgar and startling.
I am speaking in no affected contrariety, but in the simplicity
of a genuine personal impression, when I say that this journalism
offends as being not sensational or violent enough. The real vice
is not that it is startling, but that it is quite insupportably tame.
The whole object is to keep carefully along a certain level of the
expected and the commonplace; it may be low, but it must take care
also to be flat. Never by any chance in it is there any of that real
plebeian pungency which can be heard from the ordinary cabman in
the ordinary street. We have heard of a certain standard of decorum
which demands that things should be funny without being vulgar,