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 THE DEMEANOUR OF ENGLAND. 219 telegrams fraught with grave tidings, when chap. notes hastily scribbled in the Lords or the „_ J. Commons, were from time to time coming in to confirm, or disturb — perhaps even to annul — former reckonings ; and these, besides, were the hours when — on questions newly obtruding, yet so closely, so importunately present that they would have to be met before sunrise — he somehow must cause to spring up sudden essays, invectives, and arguments which only strong power of brain with even much toil could supply. English journalists set themselves tasks rarely even so much as attempted on the continent of Europe, undertaking to form, to deliver, to pub- lish swift, definitive, well -reasoned judgment upon subjects quite newly presented to the knowledge or the attention of men ; (■^*) and one of the more anxious duties imposed on the editor in these midnight hours was with careful, well-defined aim to convey either orally, or by means of some brief little note, the few, yet enkindling words which were destined to evoke all at once compositions of a forcible sort, and often of great ability, from the brains of other men. In conversation, one day, a great leading- article writer conveyed an idea of his craft by using one of those metaphors which in half a minute or less did at once all the work ot long statements.(^^) ' To write a leading article,' he said, ' may take only from two hours t(v two hours and a-half, but then all the rest of