T. Wemyss Reid

“ London was to me the city of all cities—the one great goal of the journalist's ambition. I took short views of life even then, but my secret hope, ever present to my mind, was that I might some day attain a post in connection with the London Press. As the crawling train came into the southern counties—farther south than I had ever been in my life before—I remember counting the milestones on the road, and suffering all the emotions of the youth in "Locksley Hall" as he draws nearer to the world's central point. ”

“ Next to the delight of a first appearance in print, there is nothing that brings so much joy to the heart of a young writer as the discovery that something which he has written has won the sympathy and secured for him the friendly approval of some unknown reader. It is in this that there lies, after all, the highest reward of the journalist. No honours, no money, no fame can ever satisfy him as does the knowledge that by means of his pen he is influencing the thoughts, and winning the affections, of some at least of that vast unknown public whom it is his duty to address. ”

“ Not one writer in a thousand has stopped at a first book, and not one newspaper contributor in a million has stopped at a first letter to the editor. Like much better people, I had made the discovery that whilst my opinions regarding the Genius of Shakespeare, the Art of Fiction, and the Character of Cromwell were not wanted by anybody, there were some questions cropping up, as it were, at my own door, about which I might, if I liked, give an opinion that some persons at all events would think worth printing. ”

“ Of all his qualities none was more attractive than the staunchness of his friendship. To those whom he really liked, old or young, eminent or obscure, Wemyss Reid was always the same, a champion who would brook no slight, and whose help was readiest when times were worst. A literary man, he was quite without literary jealousy, and never so happy as when giving a hand-up to a new writer or a young journalist. ”

“ Talking to me one day at that time, he said, "John Morley told me yesterday that I ought not to be able to sleep in my bed at nights for thinking of all the men who have lost their lives over this business." If at any time in my life I had been inclined to believe in government by newspapers, I should certainly have been cured of that delusion after seeing what a mess even so brilliant a journalist as Stead made of the attempt to control the policy of a nation from an editor's desk. ”

“ Instantly, and as it seemed instinctively, the great crowd of men formed in a semicircle around us, out of earshot, but gazing with wondering and sympathetic eyes upon the man who had escaped so cruel a fate.
I remember the first words that Forster spoke to me. "They may say what they like," he said, "but it is Mr. Parnell who has done this. He is the man who sowed the seed of which this is the fruit." And then he talked of the victims, of Lord Frederick, so gentle, kindly, honourable in all the relations of life, and of Burke, "the most loyal man," he declared, "who ever served the Crown." ”

“ It is emphatically true, as Sir William Harcourt once wrote to me, that "Youth is the age of Wegotism." When I wielded that magnificent editorial "we," and was able to back up my own crude ideas with all the authority of a great daily newspaper, I felt that I, too, was somebody in the world of affairs, and that though I might live in modest lodgings and possess but narrow means, I was not without a distinct place and influence of my own in the great commonwealth. Such are the illusions of the youthful leader-writer— foolish, perhaps, but not ignoble. ”

“ Houghton said to me as we sat in the library at Fryston. I could hardly believe my own ears, and expressed my surprise at hearing such a sentiment from the lips of one of Mr. Gladstone's greatest admirers. "Don't you see," responded Houghton, "that if he dies now he will be one of the greatest figures in English history? He has just won the greatest triumph a statesman ever enjoyed. It is impossible that he can remain at this dazzling height. Now is the time for him to die." ”

“ Then Leeds claimed him, and next he settled in London, in the short-lived happiness of his early married life, returning to Yorkshire—this time as chief of the paper he had served so well. During his career as editor of the Leeds Mercury I saw comparatively little of him. We were both busy, though in different ways; but we kept up, then and always, a brisk correspondence, and his letters, all of them brimful of public interest and family affection, are before me now. The world is a different place to me now, but "memory is a fountain of perpetual youth" and nothing can rob me of its sweetness. ”

“ He quoted the opinions of foreign critics to the disadvantage of Mr. Disraeli; he emphasised them by fine flights of his own imagination; and he illustrated his speech with a wealth of gesticulation and a variety of intonation that convulsed his scanty audience with laughter. People wondered mildly what punishment was in store for the audacious man who was thus breaking one of the unwritten canons of the House, for in those days it was regarded as bad form on the part of a man not himself in the front rank to attack one in the position of Mr. Disraeli. ”

“ Cowen's views on home politics as being too advanced, I was one of the most enthusiastic of his adherents in his self-appointed mission against the tyrannies of the Continent. How well do I remember some of the faces and figures of Mr. Cowen's friends and guests! I can still see Kossuth with his grey hair and wrinkled brow, and Mazzini with his melancholy eyes and handsome face; I can still hear the tones of Louis Blanc as he stands on the platform of the lecture room and talks to us in excellent English of the epoch of the Great Revolution. ”

“ I never met the Great Man in after life without seeing him, in my mind's eye, flourishing a chair upside down, or lovingly patting with his mighty hand an embroidered coverlet.
Upon the whole, the most important of the events in which I took part as reporter and descriptive writer during this period at Leeds was the series of Reform demonstrations in which Mr. Bright played the leading part in the autumn of 1866. I remember no public meetings in the course of my life that equalled them in enthusiasm. ”

“ A sheet of paper is but a flimsy thing, yet, as a rule, when used by the journalist it cuts off the electric current of sympathy which passes between speaker and auditor when they are visible to each other. The discovery that it may sometimes be a conductor, instead of an obstruction, to the current warms the heart of a young writer in a wonderful fashion, and is the best stimulus that he can have in the pursuit of his profession. To my dying day I shall think of Leeds with pleasure and gratitude, in remembrance of the fact that it was there that I first enjoyed this delightful experience. ”

“ He was the last man in the world to think of such a thing; and yet to many of us he seemed the perfect example of how a man should bear himself in such a strait. I have heard young men speak of him as old-fashioned, and, judged by some modern standards, his virtues were indeed those of the antique world. He loved his profession for its own sake, believed in its influence and dignity, hated sensationalism—whether in politics or in newspapers—would rather that any rival should gain any advantage over him than that he should divulge a secret or betray the confidence of a friend. ”

“ Gladstone wielding the mighty broadsword of his powerful eloquence, and seeming as if at every moment he would annihilate his antagonist; Disraeli, with marvellous skill and exquisite adroitness, bringing the rapier of his wit to bear upon his opponent, and again and again pinking him with some stinging epigram or smart retort that set all the Tory benches roaring with delight. It made one's young blood grow warmer to watch the struggle from the impartial height of the Reporters' Gallery. ”

“ Suddenly, as I looked upon the scene from the steps of the club, I saw the crowd fall back on either hand, opening a narrow lane through it. Along this lane, with bent head, came Lord Hartington, brother of one of the murdered men, passing from the newly-made house of mourning in Carlton House Terrace to his home at Devonshire House. No one ventured to speak to him, but every hat was lifted in token of silent sympathy. ”

“ I trembled for him when he began his great speech, for, unlike any English orator I ever heard, he did not warm to his subject gradually, taking care to make his audience accompany him step by step, but sprang in a moment to a height of passionate and tempestuous eloquence from which it seemed inevitable that he must quickly fall to an anti-climax. But no anticlimax came. For more than an hour he continued to pour forth a torrent of burning words that seemed to keep the vast multitude before him in a state of excitement and enthusiasm hardly to be exaggerated. ”

“ It is, I think, impossible to deny that very great harm has been done, not merely to the spirit of Liberalism, but to the actual fortunes of the Liberal party, by the new system. It has brought a new spirit into the direction of our party, a spirit which is too apt to regard the catching of votes as the one great object to be pursued and attained, no matter by what means. ”

“ The noise of the workmen's hammers as they made the scaffold fast was almost drowned by the roar of the quickly gathering crowd. All the scoundreldom of London seemed to have assembled for the occasion. It was the last Old Bailey execution crowd. The windows of the public-house opposite the scaffold had been thrown open, and at every window men and women were crowded together, eagerly waiting for the grim approaching spectacle. It was not an edifying sight, this execution crowd. ”

“ It was strange to see this great, powerful man, who had passed through so many years of fierce conflict on his own account, broken down by sorrow for one of whom he had comparatively little personal knowledge, but whose character and fate appealed to all that was best and truest in his nature. Looking back upon my years of friendship with Forster, there are no incidents that touch my sympathies more keenly than those which relate to his heartfelt grief for Gordon, the great victim of ministerial muddling and administrative incapacity. ”