“And now the dirty bubble began to float. Not being a constant reader of this particular paper, I knew nothing of its mischief until a week had gone by. Then remonstrances began to be sent to me from all parts of the country, denouncing my hoary frivolity. From half the states of the Union they came, and in such numbers that few days of the past month have been free from a morning insult. My mail has been crowded with solemn or derisive editorials, with distressed letters, abusive postal cards, and occasionally the leaflet of some society for the prevention of vice, its significant passages marked. During all this hullabaloo I have been silent. The story was already widespread when my attention was first called to it. It struck me then as merely a gigantic piece of summer silliness, arguing emptiness of the editorial mind. I felt, too, how easily a man makes himself ridiculous in attempting to prove that he is not a fit subject for ridicule, and how in the long run character is its own best vindication. I should accordingly prefer to remain silent still; but the story, like all that touches on questions of sex, has shown a strange persistency. My friends are disquieted. Harvard is defamed. Reports of my depravity have lately been sent to me from English and French papers, and in a recent number of _Life_ I appear in a capital cartoon, my utterance being reckoned one of the principal events of the month. Perhaps, then, it is as well to say that no such incident has occurred, and that now, when all of us have had our laugh, the racket had better cease. “But such persistent pursuit of an unoffending person throws into strong relief four defects in our newspapers, and especially in the attitude of our people toward them. In the first place, the plan of reporting practiced here is a mistaken one, and is adopted, so far as I know, nowhere else on earth. Our papers rarely try to give an ordered outline of an address. They either report verbatim, or more usually the reporter is expected to gather a lot of taking phrases, regardless of connection. While these may occasionally amuse, I believe that readers turn less and less to printed reports of addresses. Serious reporting of public speech is coming to an end. It would be well if it ended altogether, so impossible is it already to learn from the newspapers what a man has been saying.