A Practical Guide




Chapter I

The Secret Significance of Journalism



For the majority of people the earth is a dull planet.

It is only a Stevenson who can say: "I never remember being bored;" and
one may fairly doubt whether even Stevenson uttered truth when he made
that extraordinary statement. None of us escapes boredom entirely: some of
us, indeed, are bored during the greater part of our lives. The fact is
unpalatable, but it is a fact. Each thinks that his existence is
surrounded and hemmed in by the Ordinary; that his vocations and pastimes
are utterly commonplace; his friends prosaic; even his sorrows sordid. We
are (a few will say) colour blind to the rainbow tints of life, and we see
everything grey, or perhaps blue. We feel instinctively that if there is
such a thing as romance, it contrives to exhibit itself just where we are
not. Often we go in search of it (as a man will follow a fire-engine) to
the Continent, to the Soudan, to the East End, to the Divorce Court; but
the chances are a hundred to one against our finding it. The reason of our
failure lies in our firm though unacknowledged conviction that the events
_we_ have witnessed, the persons _we_ have known, are _ipso
facto_ less romantic, less diverting, than certain other events which