opinion usually has strong general tendencies; but there are hundreds of cross-currents, and the editor must allow for all.  Suppose that a public agitation is begun, and that a great national movement seems to be in progress; then the editor must be able to tell instinctively how far the movement is likely to be strong and lasting.  If he errs seriously, and regards an agitation as trivial which is really momentous, then his journal receives a blow which may cripple its influence during months.  One great paper was ruined some twenty years ago by a blunder, and about one hundred thousand pounds were deliberately thrown away through obstinate folly.  The perfect editor, like the great general, seizes every clue that can guide him, and makes his final movement with alert decision.  No wonder that the work of editing wears men out early.  The great Times editor, Mr. Delane, went about much in society; he always appeared to be calm, untroubled, inscrutable, though the factions were warring fiercely and bitterness had reached its height.  He scarcely ever missed his mark; and, when he strolled into his office late in the evening, his plan was ready for the morrow’s battle.  At five the next morning his well-known figure, wrapped in the queer long coat, was to be seen coming from the square; he might have destroyed a government, or altered a war policy, or ruined a statesman—­all was one to him; and he went away ready to lay his plans for the next day’s conflict.  Delane’s power at one time was almost incalculable, and he gained it by unerringly finding out exactly what England wanted.  England might be wrong or right—­that was none of Delane’s business; he cared only to discover what his country wished for from day to day.  An amazing function is that of an editor.

Then we have the leader-writer.  The British public have decided that their newspaper shall furnish them daily with three or four little addresses on various topics of current interest; and these grave or gay sermons are composed by practised hands who must be ready to write on almost any subject under the sun at a minute’s notice.  In a certain class of old-fashioned literature the newspaper-writer is represented as a careless, dissipated Bohemian, who lived with rackety inconsequence.  That tribe of writers has long vanished from the face of the earth.  The last of the sort that I remember was a miserable old man who haunted the British Museum.  No one knew where he lived; but his work, such as it was, usually went in with punctuality, and he drank the proceeds.  He died in a stall of a low public-house, and was buried by the parish.  No one but his editor and one or two cronies knew his real name, and he appeared to be utterly friendless.  But the modern leader-writer must beware of strong liquors.  Usually he is a keen, reposeful man who has his brain cool at all hours.  The immense drinking-bouts of old times could never be indulged in now; and indeed, if a journalist once begins to take stimulants as stimulants,