"Something!" said Father Payne. "I don't know! I don't believe we are so stupid and so ignoble! As to mending it, that's another question. Writing is such a curious thing--it seems to represent anything in the world except the current of a man's thoughts. Reverie--has anyone ever tried to represent that? I have been out for a walk sometimes, and reflected when I came in that if what has passed through my mind were all printed in full in a book, it would make a large octavo volume--and precious stuff, too! Yet the few thoughts which do stand out when it is all over, the few bright flashes, they are things which can hardly be written down--at least they never are written down." "But what would you do?" I said--"with the newspapers, I mean." "Well," said Father Payne, "a great deal of the news most worth telling can be told best in pictures. I believe very much in illustrated papers. They really do help the imagination. That's the worst of words--a dozen scratches on a bit of paper do more to make one realise a scene than columns of description. I would do a lot with pictures, and a bit of print below to tell people what to notice. Then we must have a number of bare facts and notices--weather, business, trade, law--the sort of thing that people concerned must read. But I would make a clean sweep of fashion, and all sensational intelligence--murders, accidents, sudden deaths. I would have much more biography of living people as well as dead, and a few of the big speeches. Then I would have really good articles with pictures about foreign countries--we ought to know what the world looks like, and how the other people live. And then I would have one or two really fine little essays every day by the very best people I could get, amusing, serious, beautiful articles about nature and art and books and ideas and qualities--some real, good, plain, wise, fine, simple thinking. You want to get people in touch with the best minds!" "And how many people would read such a paper?" I said. "Oh, I don't know, I'm sure," said Father Payne with a groan. "I would for one! I want to have the feeling of being in touch day by day with the clever, interesting, lively, active-minded people, as if I had been listening to good talk. Isn't that possible? Instead of which I sit here, day after day, overflowing with my own ridiculous thoughts--and the world discharging all its staleness and stupidity like a sewer in these horrible documents. Take it away from me, someone! I'm fascinated by the disgusting smell of it!" I withdrew the paper from under his hands. "Thank you," said Father Payne feebly. "That's the horror of it--that the world isn't a dull place or a sensational place or a nasty place--and those papers make me feel it is all three!" "I'm sorry you are so low about it," said Barthrop.