public opinion minus his opinion. Every man makes his
contribution negative under the erroneous impression that
the next man's contribution is positive. Every man surrenders
his fancy to a general tone which is itself a surrender.
And over all the heartless and fatuous unity spreads this new
and wearisome and platitudinous press, incapable of invention,
incapable of audacity, capable only of a servility all the more
contemptible because it is not even a servility to the strong.
But all who begin with force and conquest will end in this.

The chief characteristic of the "New journalism" is simply that it
is bad journalism. It is beyond all comparison the most shapeless,
careless, and colourless work done in our day.

I read yesterday a sentence which should be written in letters of gold
and adamant; it is the very motto of the new philosophy of Empire.
I found it (as the reader has already eagerly guessed) in Pearson's
Magazine, while I was communing (soul to soul) with Mr. C. Arthur Pearson,
whose first and suppressed name I am afraid is Chilperic.
It occurred in an article on the American Presidential Election.
This is the sentence, and every one should read it carefully,
and roll it on the tongue, till all the honey be tasted.

"A little sound common sense often goes further with an audience
of American working-men than much high-flown argument. A speaker who,
as he brought forward his points, hammered nails into a board,
won hundreds of votes for his side at the last Presidential Election."

I do not wish to soil this perfect thing with comment;
the words of Mercury are harsh after the songs of Apollo.