Читать книгу Adventures in Journalism онлайн

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It was, after all, a great game! It is still one of the best games in the world for any young man with quick eyes, a sense of humor, some touch of quality in his use of words, and curiosity in his soul for the truth and pageant of our human drama, provided he keeps his soul unsullied from the dirt.

Looking back on my career as a journalist, I know that I would not change for any other. Fleet Street, which I called in a novel The Street of Adventure, is still my home, and to its pavement my feet turn again from whatever part of the world I return.

When I first entered the street, twenty years ago alas! the social status of press men was much lower than at present, when the pendulum has swung the other way, so that newspaper proprietors wear coronets, the purlieus of Fleet Street are infested with barons and baronets, and even reporters have been knighted by the King. In my early days a journalist did not often get nearer to a Cabinet Minister than the hall porter of his office. It was partly his own fault, or at least, the fault of those who paid him miserably, because the old-time reporter—before Northcliffe, who was then Harmsworth, revised his salary and his status—was often an ill-dressed fellow, conscious of his own social inferiority, cringing in his manner to the great, and content to slink round to the back doors of life, rather than boldly assault the front-door knocker. Having a good conceit of myself and a sensitive pride, I received many hard knocks and humiliations which, no doubt, were good for my soul.