be %pectator
September 22.1866
Graphic reporters are the valets of public life; no man is a hero to them; every weak point of character is exposed to derision, every un- guarded utterance pitilessly recorded by their avenging pencils. The sad result is that, as even the statesmen and judges of the land must feel, the charm of omniscience, of serene and un- clouded wisdom with which the popular faith used to invest them, has been rudely broken. It is only a Cromwell who can afford to be painted "with his warts;" such plain-dealing is not very palatable to men who, however prudent and sagacious they may be, cannot refrain from playing the fool sometimes, and it would be better for them to do so in private, or before a select audience on whose discretion they could rely, than in presence of the whole civilized world represented by its delegates the graphic reporters.
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