And no frame of mind was ever so selfcontradictory and yet so realistic as
that which Dickens describes when he says, in effect, that, though Pinch
knew now that there had never been such a person as Pecksniff, in his
ideal sense, he could not bring himself to insult the very face and form
that had contained the legend. The parallel with Liberal journalism is
not perfect; because it was once honest; and Pecksniff presumably never
was. And even when I come to feel a final incompatibility of temper,
Pecksniff was not so Pecksniffian as he has since become. But the
comparison is complete in so far as I share all the reluctance of Mr.
Pinch. Some old heathen king was advised by one of the Celtic saints, I
think, to burn what he had adored and adore what he had burnt. I am quite
ready, if anyone will prove I was wrong, to adore what I have burnt; but I
do really feel an unwillingness verging upon weakness to burning what I
have adored. I think it is a weakness to be overcome in times as bad as
these, when (as Mr. Orage wrote with something like splendid common sense
the other day) there is such a lot to do and so few people who will do it.
So I will devote this article to considering one case of the astounding
baseness to which Liberal journalism has sunk.


Mental Breakdown in Fleet Street

One of the two or three streaks of light on our horizon can be perceived
in this: that the moral breakdown of these papers has been accompanied by
a mental breakdown also. The contemporary official paper, like the "Daily
News" or the "Daily Chronicle" (I mean in so far as it deals with
politics), simply cannot argue; and simply does not pretend to argue. It
considers the solution which it imagines that wealthy people want, and it
signifies the same in the usual manner; which is not by holding up its
hand, but by falling on its face. But there is no more curious quality in