For a long time after the advent of our new journalism, the kind of writing which we practised--light, sarcastic, a little cruel, with a preference for the foibles of our political enemies as themes--seemed to be the pleasure of good society, which in that serious yet hopeful time did not object to such conscience as we put into our mocking. Some who possibly trembled at our boldness darklingly comforted themselves for our persiflage by the good cause in which it frisked. When anything very daring came out in the afternoon the young news-editor in his round of calls could hear the praise of it from charming readers in the evening, or he might be stopped in the street next day and told how good it was by the fathers, or brothers, or brothers-in-law, of those charming readers. It was more like the prompt acclaim the drama enjoys than the slow recognition of literature; but I, at least, was always trying to make my writing literature, and after fifty-odd years it may perhaps be safely owned that I had mainly a literary interest in the political aspects and events which I treated. I felt the ethical quality of the slavery question, and I had genuine convictions about it; but for practical politics I did not care; I wished only to understand enough of them to seize any chance for a shot at the other side which they might give. I had been in the midst of practical politics almost from my childhood; through my whole youth the din of meetings, of rallies, of conventions had been in my ears; but I was never at a meeting, a rally, or a convention; I have never yet heard a political speech to the end. For a future novelist, a realist, that was a pity, I think, but so it was.