Or, we might have:—­“Lord Roberts, recognising that he had now to face Armageddon, and that if he lost this last battle against overwhelming odds the independence of England would be extinguished forever, addressed to his soldiers (looking at them and not falling off his horse) a speech which brought their national passions to boiling point, and might well have seemed blood-thirsty in quieter times.  It ended with the celebrated declaration that it was a fine day.”

Or we might have the much greater excitement of reading something like this:—­“The Astronomer Royal, having realised that the earth would certainly be smashed to pieces by a comet unless his requests in connection with wireless telegraphy were seriously considered, gave an address at the Royal Society which, under other circumstances, would have seemed unduly dogmatic and emotional and deficient in scientific agnosticism.  This address (which he delivered without any attempt to stand on his head) included a fierce and even ferocious declaration that it is generally easier to see the stars by night than by day.”

Now, I cannot see, on my conscience and reason, that any one of my imaginary paragraphs is more ridiculous than the real one.  Nobody can believe that Mr. Asquith regards these belated and careful compromises about Home Rule as “the biggest battle of his career.”  It is only justice to him to say that he has had bigger battles than that.  Nobody can believe that any body of men, bodily present, either thundered or thrilled at a man merely saying that he would like to know whether his proposals were accepted.  No; it would be far better for Parliament if its doors were shut again, and reporters were excluded.  In that case, the outer public did hear genuine rumours of almost gigantic eloquence; such as that which has perpetuated Pitt’s reply against the charge of youth, or Fox’s bludgeoning of the idea of war as a compromise.  It would be much better to follow the old fashion and let in no reporters at all than to follow the new fashion and select the stupidest reporters you can find.

Their Load of Lies

Now, why do people in Fleet-street talk such tosh?  People in Fleet-street are not fools.  Most of them have realised reality through work; some through starvation; some through damnation, or something damnably like it.  I think it is simply and seriously true that they are tired of their job.  As the general said in M. Rostand’s play, “la fatigue!”

I do really believe that this is one of the ways in which God (don’t get flurried, Nature if you like) is unexpectedly avenged on things infamous and unreasonable.  And this method is that men’s moral and even physical tenacity actually give out under such a load of lies.  They go on writing their leading articles and their Parliamentary reports.  They go on doing it as a convict goes on picking oakum.  But the point is not that we are bored