an who wrote the article had suddenly gone mad
and written the title. But I know that we have here to deal with two
different types of journalists; and the man who writes the headlines I
will not dare to describe; for I have not seen him except in dreams.

Another innocent complication is that the interviewer does sometimes
translate things into his native language. It would not seem odd that a
French interviewer should translate them into French; and it is certain
that the American interviewer sometimes translates them into American.
Those who imagine the two languages to be the same are more innocent
than any interviewer. To take one out of the twenty examples, some of
which I have mentioned elsewhere, suppose an interviewer had said that I
had the reputation of being a nut. I should be flattered but faintly
surprised at such a tribute to my dress and dashing exterior. I should
afterwards be sobered and enlightened by discovering that in America a
nut does not mean a dandy but a defective or imbecile person. And as I
have here to translate their American phrase into English, it may be
very defensible that they should translate my English phrases into
American. Anyhow they often do translate them into American. In answer
to the usual question about Prohibition I had made the usual answer,
obvious to the point of dullness to those who are in daily contact with
it, that it is a law that the rich make knowing they can always break
it. From the printed interview it appeared that I had said,
'Prohibition! All matter of dollar sign.' This is almost avowed
translation, like a French translation. Nobody can suppose that it would
come natural to an Englishman to talk about a dollar, still less about a
dollar sign--whatever that may be. It is exactly as if he had made me
talk about the Skelt and Stevenson Toy Theatre as 'a cent plain, and two
cents coloured' or condemned a parsimonious policy as dime-wise and
dollar-foolish. Another interviewer once asked me who was the greatest
American writer. I have forgotten exactly what I said, but after
mentioning several names, I said that the greatest natural genius and
artistic force was probably Walt Whitman. The printed interview is more
precise; and students of my literary and conversational style will be
interested to know that I said, 'See here, Walt Whitman was your one
real red-blooded man.' Here again I hardly think the translation can
have been quite unconscious; most of my inti