which, as Professor Einstein has taught us, was rushing upon me like a
tiger on its prey, I should have been alarmed or not. I should have seen
many things exciting, many things sad, many things difficult, but above
all I should have seen what could only have been described as a
veritable snowstorm of written and printed pages.

I have sometimes, as every man will, reversed the process, looked back
and reviewed the past. On such occasions I have been half inclined to
make the reflection, common to all journalists, when they survey the
monumental works of our brethren in the superior ranks of the literary
profession: "Have I not cast my life and energy away on things ephemeral
and unworthy? Have not I preferred a kind of glorified pot-boiling to
the service of the spirit?" In the end, however, like the painter with
the journalist's heart in Robert Browning's poem, I console myself for
having enlisted among the tradesmen of literature rather than among the
artists:

For I have done some service in my time,
And not been paid profusely.
Let some great soul write my six thousand leaders!

It is, I admit, an appalling thought to have covered so much paper and
used so much ink. But, after all, an apology may be made for mere volume
in journalism analogous to that made for it by Dr. Johnson when he said
that poets must to some extent be judged by their quantity as well as
their quality. Anyway, I am inclined to be proud of my output. When an
occasion like the present makes me turn back to my old articles, I am
glad to say that my attitude, far from being one of shame, is more like
that of the Duke of Wellington. When quite an old man, somebody brought
him his Indian Despatches to look over. As he read he is recorded to