第68章
Besides, as the Parson says, it is conceited.The most accomplished scholar will be the butt of all the guides in the woods, because he cannot follow a trail that would puzzle a sable (saple the trappers call it).
THE PARSON.It's enough to read the summer letters that people write to the newspapers from the country and the woods.Isolated from the activity of the world, they come to think that the little adventures of their stupid days and nights are important.Talk about that being real life! Compare the letters such people write with the other contents of the newspaper, and you will see which life is real.
That's one reason I hate to have summer come, the country letters set in.
THE MISTRESS.I should like to see something the Parson does n't hate to have come.
MANDEVILLE.Except his quarter's salary; and the meeting of the American Board.
THE FIRE-TENDER.I don't see that we are getting any nearer the solution of the original question.The world is evidently interested in events simply because they are recent.
OUR NEXT DOOR.I have a theory that a newspaper might be published at little cost, merely by reprinting the numbers of years before, only altering the dates; just as the Parson preaches over his sermons.
THE FIRE-TENDER.It's evident we must have a higher order of news-gatherers.It has come to this, that the newspaper furnishes thought-material for all the world, actually prescribes from day to day the themes the world shall think on and talk about.The occupation of news-gathering becomes, therefore, the most important.
When you think of it, it is astonishing that this department should not be in the hands of the ablest men, accomplished scholars, philosophical observers, discriminating selectors of the news of the world that is worth thinking over and talking about.The editorial comments frequently are able enough, but is it worth while keeping an expensive mill going to grind chaff? I sometimes wonder, as I open my morning paper, if nothing did happen in the twenty-four hours except crimes, accidents, defalcations, deaths of unknown loafers, robberies, monstrous births,--say about the level of police-court news.
OUR NEXT DOOR.I have even noticed that murders have deteriorated;they are not so high-toned and mysterious as they used to be.
THE FIRE-TENDER.It is true that the newspapers have improved vastly within the last decade.
HERBERT.I think, for one, that they are very much above the level of the ordinary gossip of the country.
THE FIRE-TENDER.But I am tired of having the under-world still occupy so much room in the newspapers.The reporters are rather more alert for a dog-fight than a philological convention.It must be that the good deeds of the world outnumber the bad in any given day;and what a good reflex action it would have on society if they could be more fully reported than the bad! I suppose the Parson would call this the Enthusiasm of Humanity.
THE PARSON.You'll see how far you can lift yourself up by your boot-straps.
HERBERT.I wonder what influence on the quality (I say nothing of quantity) of news the coming of women into the reporter's and editor's work will have.
OUR NEXT DOOR.There are the baby-shows; they make cheerful reading.
THE MISTRESS.All of them got up by speculating men, who impose upon the vanity of weak women.
HERBERT.I think women reporters are more given to personal details and gossip than the men.When I read the Washington correspondence Iam proud of my country, to see how many Apollo Belvederes, Adonises, how much marble brow and piercing eye and hyacinthine locks, we have in the two houses of Congress.
THE YOUNG LADY.That's simply because women understand the personal weakness of men; they have a long score of personal flattery to pay off too.
MANDEVILLE.I think women will bring in elements of brightness, picturesqueness, and purity very much needed.Women have a power of investing simple ordinary things with a charm; men are bungling narrators compared with them.
THE PARSON.The mistake they make is in trying to write, and especially to "stump-speak," like men; next to an effeminate man there is nothing so disagreeable as a mannish woman.
HERBERT.I heard one once address a legislative committee.The knowing air, the familiar, jocular, smart manner, the nodding and winking innuendoes, supposed to be those of a man "up to snuff," and au fait in political wiles, were inexpressibly comical.And yet the exhibition was pathetic, for it had the suggestive vulgarity of a woman in man's clothes.The imitation is always a dreary failure.
THE MISTRESS.Such women are the rare exceptions.I am ready to defend my sex; but I won't attempt to defend both sexes in one.
THE FIRE-TENDER.I have great hope that women will bring into the newspaper an elevating influence; the common and sweet life of society is much better fitted to entertain and instruct us than the exceptional and extravagant.I confess (saving the Mistress's presence) that the evening talk over the dessert at dinner is much more entertaining and piquant than the morning paper, and often as important.
THE MISTRESS.I think the subject had better be changed.
MANDEVILLE.The person, not the subject.There is no entertainment so full of quiet pleasure as the hearing a lady of cultivation and refinement relate her day's experience in her daily rounds of calls, charitable visits, shopping, errands of relief and condolence.The evening budget is better than the finance minister's.
OUR NEXT DOOR.That's even so.My wife will pick up more news in six hours than I can get in a week, and I'm fond of news.