Mr. Dabney spoke with concentrated fury, through his teeth, as if I were the primary cause of this calamity. I believe that of all uncomfortable conversationalists (and the world is full of them) the most uncomfortable are those who would convert you to your own way of thinking. This is Mr. Dabney's weakness: he conceives of all his interlocutors as heretics and antagonists. "But to what," I asked him, "do you attribute this effect?" "To too long a period of prosperity; to peace; and"--he almost spat the words from him--"to the modern press. The new journalism may not have produced it, but it has fostered it. Since you left England there has sprung up a totally new press--a press that does not dictate but flatters; that finds out what the mob wants and gives it them. A press without any mind--nothing but an infernal instinct for success. A press in the hands of young men in a hurry, without knowledge, experience, or conviction. Opportunists, improvisers, cynics." "But surely there are good papers too?" "One or two. But it is those others that have the public ear. They are the true organs of the democracy." "And yet," I said, "at the last General Election did not these popular papers lose almost every seat?" "Ah!" he said, "that is so. But that is not, I fear, any proof of their want of influence generally. Political changes are deeper than that. The mob is moved politically never by opinions but always by personality. We don't in England vote for Liberals or Conservatives: we vote for men. Sentiment controls us. We vote for one man because we are sorry for him; for another, because we once met him somewhere and he was very pleasant; for another, because his father's horse won the Derby; for another, because his opponent is So-and-so whom we detest. In England we never accept any one as a simple fellow-creature: we must always fix not only an adjective upon him but some personal feeling. That is why papers lose their influence when elections are on. But at other times they can be steadily operative for good or bad; they can vulgarise all they touch or dignify it. The new press vulgarises. Its gods are false. It knows no shame. When found out, it slavers. When chastised, it says, How charmingly you use the whip." Mr. Dabney was now happy. His face shone--it might have been with the reflected glow of his molten words. He was the Savonarola of Fleet Street. "Cynicism," he went on, "is not the only fault. A gross sensuality has also come upon us. A journalist should be something of an ascetic, a recluse: an observer from without. He should not be in the social machine; he should not know every one. How can you keep your hands clean if you know every one? His dress suit should be rusty; one cannot dine out without consuming salt, and by salt are we captured. Journalists now eat too much and too well. It was a bad day for England when a journalist first ate a plover's egg."