a part of the collective
experience of man as to allow each one of us to see that he has
visualized and expressed them with exactness; and so to realize that he
possesses in his style a wonderful instrument.

With the aid of that instrument it has been said he can expose the
technicalities of a battle or the transformations of the human heart.
How great is the power of that instrument is at no time so generally
susceptible to proof as when it is seen applied to facts as in the
writings of Mr. Belloc on the war, which it is proposed to examine in
this chapter. But before we enter upon our examination of the nature and
influence of those writings, it may be well to emphasize their
importance as an example of style.

In his writings on the war, and more especially in his weekly chronicle
in _Land and Water_, Mr. Belloc is not expressing views or ideas of his
own; he is not writing in support of the thesis or argument; he is
stating facts. He is stating the facts of military science, which may be
found in a hundred books, side by side with the facts of the war, which
may be found in a thousand official _communiques_; and he is stating
both sets of facts, so that the one set is explanatory of the other set,
and so that both may be easily understood. This Mr. Belloc is only able
to accomplish by virtue of his peculiar power of lucid expression.

Not alone, then, in this particular, but supremely alone in this
particular, Mr. Belloc towers above other contemporary writers on the
war. He can explain as they can never explain: expound as they can never
expound: describe as they can never describe. His meaning stands clear
in print while theirs must be read between the lines. He makes himself
understood while we must make ourselves understand them.

This is the supreme power that has carried all his other powers to
fruition. We do not think that "there are many men who could do the same
thing."

That this great power, tremendous as it is, is afflicted by weaknesses
in practice is unfortunately true. These weaknesses arise mainly from
the clash of Mr. Belloc's overpowering honesty with the cynical attitude
towards newspapers in general which recent methods in journalism have
engendered in the public. There was a time in the history of journalism
when it was a crime to be wrong. For "wrong" modern journalism has
substituted "dull." In recent years competition among newspaper
proprietors and editors of newspapers has not been,