blue sea, and even as it did so it altered its attitude.
Jack, stunned and bleeding, lifted himself laboriously upon one
elbow to stare. The giant once more caught hold of his ankle,
wavered twice as in a wind, and then went over into the great sea
which washes the whole world, and which, alone of all things God
has made, was big enough to drown him.


XXI

A Great Man

People accuse journalism of being too personal; but to me it has
always seemed far too impersonal. It is charged with tearing
away the veils from private life; but it seems to me to be always
dropping diaphanous but blinding veils between men and men.
The Yellow Press is abused for exposing facts which are private;
I wish the Yellow Press did anything so valuable. It is exactly
the decisive individual touches that it never gives; and a proof of this
is that after one has met a man a million times in the newspapers it
is always a complete shock and reversal to meet him in real life.
The Yellow Pressman seems to have no power of catching the first
fresh fact about a man that dominates all after impressions.
For instance, before I met Bernard Shaw I heard that he spoke with
a reckless desire for paradox or a sneering hatred of sentiment;
but I never knew till he opened his mouth that he spoke with
an Irish accent, which is more important than all the other
criticisms put together.

Journalism is not personal enough. So far from digging out