in
large measure to his Oxford training. He also was one of the few
writers who have brought to journalism the talents, and sympathies,
and touch hitherto regarded as belonging more properly to the
writer of fiction. It was the dream of Mr T.P. O'Connor, when he
started the 'Sun,' to have the happenings of the passing day
described in the style of the short-story writer. The experiment
failed, because it was tried on an evening paper with printers
clamouring for copy, and the beginning of the story generally had
to be written before the end of the story was in sight or the place
of the incidents could be determined. Mr Steevens tried the same
experiment under more favourable conditions, and succeeded. There
never were newspaper articles that read more like short stories
than his, and at the same time there never were newspaper articles
that gave a more convincing impression that the thing happened as
the writer described it."

A more personal note was struck perhaps by a writer in the 'Morning
Post':--

"Few of the reading public can fail to be acquainted with the
merits of his purely journalistic work. He had carefully developed
a great natural gift of observation until it seemed wellnigh an
impossibility that he should miss any important detail, however
small, in a scene which he was watching. Moreover, he had a
marvellous power of vivid expression, and used it with such a skill
that even the dullest of readers could hardly fail to see what he
wished them to see. It is given to some journalists to wield great
influence, and few have done more to spread the imperial idea than
has been done by Mr Steevens during the last four or five years of
his brief life. Still it must be remembered that, in order to
follow journalism successfully, he had to make sacrifices which he
undoubtedly felt to be heavy. His little book, 'Monologues of the
Dead,' can never become popular, since it needs for its
appreciation an amount of scholarship which comparatively few
possess. Yet it proves none the less conclusively that, had he
lived and had leisure, he would have accomplished great things in
literature. Those who had the privilege of knowing him, however,
and above all those who at one period or another in his career
worked side by side with him, will think but