time and care, which he cannot afford. So he must snatch up ready-made
disguises--unhook them, rather. He must know all the cant-phrases, the
cant-references. There are very, very many of them, and belike it is
hard to keep them all at one's finger-tips. But, at least, there is no
difficulty in collecting them. Plod through the `leaders' and `notes'
in half-a-dozen of the daily papers, and you will bag whole coveys of
them.

Most of the morning papers still devote much space to the old-
fashioned kind of `leader,' in which the pretence is of weightiness,
rather than of fervour, sprightliness, or erudition. The effect of
weightiness is obtained simply by a stupendous disproportion of
language to sense. The longest and most emphatic words are used for
the simplest and most trivial statements, and they are always so
elaborately qualified as to leave the reader with a vague impression
that a very difficult matter, which he himself cannot make head or
tail of, has been dealt with in a very judicial and exemplary manner.

A leader-writer would not, for instance, say--

Lord Rosebery has made a paradox.

He would say:--

Lord Rosebery

whether intentionally or otherwise, we leave our readers to decide,
or, with seeming conviction,
or, doubtless giving rein to the playful humour which is
characteristic of him,