Perhaps, from his
shrewd old head, as he kept his seat at his desk, like a sharp-shooter
on the watch and wary for the foe, he only covered us with the surly
weapon of his tongue in the equitable way for which we have here been
contending ourselves! Certainly we were quite satisfied, if the
Englishman was.
But printed lies, as well as written, are largely sympathetic. We are
bitter against the press; and surely it needs a greater Luther for its
reformer. But its follies are ours; its corruptions belong to its
patrons. The editor of a paper edits the mind of those that take it. He
cannot help being in a sort of close communion. Perhaps he mainly
borrows the very indignation, not so very pure and independent, with
which he reproves some ingenuous satirist of what may appear indecent in
our fashions of amusement, or unbecoming in the relations of the sexes
or the habits of the young. "The voice is the voice of Jacob, but the
hands are the hands of Esau." He is two and more, as we all are, while
he is one, and must not be blamed on his own score alone. The London
"Times," already mentioned, is called the _Thunderer_; but, like the man
behind the scenes at the theatre with his machinery, it thunders as it
is told.
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