retations of words and
facts! And in domestic affairs we are not much better informed than in
foreign. As to commercial, industrial, and agricultural interests,
political parties and social tendencies, or the personality of public
men, it is alike difficult to obtain a disinterested opinion. The more
newspapers one reads, the less clearly he sees in these matters. There
are days when after having read them all, and admitting that he takes
them at their word, the reader finds himself obliged to draw this
conclusion:--Unquestionably nothing but corruption can be found any
longer--no men of integrity except a few journalists. But the last part
of the conclusion falls in its turn. It appears that the chroniclers
devour each other. The reader has under his eyes a spectacle somewhat
like the cartoon entitled, "The Combat of the Serpents." After having
gorged themselves with everything around them, the reptiles fall upon
each other, and there remain upon the field of battle two tails.

And not the common people alone feel this embarrassment, but the
cultivated also--almost everybody shares it. In politics, finance,
business--even in science, art, literature and religion, there is
everywhere disguise, trickery, wire-pulling; one truth for the public,
another for the initiated. The result is that everybody is deceived. It
is vain to be behind the scenes on one stage; a man cannot be there on
them all, and the very people who deceive others with the most ability,
are in turn deceived when they need to count upon the sincerity of their
neighbors.

The result of such practices is the degradation of human speech. It is
degraded first in the eyes of those who manipulate it as a base
instrument. No word is respected by sophists, casuists, and quibblers,
men who are moved only by a rage for gaining their point, or who assume
that their interests are alone worth considering. Their penalty is to be
forced to judge others by the rule they follow themselves: _Say what
profits and not what is true._ They can no longer take any one
seriously--a sad state of mind for those who write or teach! How lightly
must one hold his readers and hearers to approach them in such an
attitude! To him who has preserved enough honesty, nothing is more
repugnant than the careless irony of an acrobat of the tongue or pen,
who tries to dupe honest and ingenuous men. On one side openness,
sincerity, the desire to be enlightened; on the other, chicanery making
g