University of Virginia Library

4. CHAPTER IV.
THE EDITOR'S STORY.

“Sir,” said Mr. Ticklum, “we were editor
and proprietor of the Light of the People—
more commonly and familiarly called the
People's Light—a paper, sir, extremely well
known, and, when it came into our hands,
and indeed, as we may justly say, for some
years after, of the highest repute in the world
of letters. Sir, it was a vigorous paper, and
it had seven thousand subscribers; more than
one half of whom were good pay. It was a
rich paper, therefore, as well as a good one,
and we were making our fortune by it.

“Sir—when we became the editor of the
People's Light, we were acknowledged to be
the ablest hand that had ever conducted it;

and we were, sir—we scorn all affected
modesty; as an editor, sir, we have a right
to praise ourself. Besides our natural abilities,
sir, we enjoyed the advantage of an extensive
acquaintance with the public tastes.
Our predecessor was an experienced man,
and our friend; and when we bought him out,
he gave us a deal of instruction on the true
principles of nasiduction.”

“Nasiduction?” said I, interrupting the
gentleman; “what is that?”

“Sir,” said Mr. Ticklum, “it is a word
used among editors, to express their art, that
being otherwise without a name. It means,
sir, to lead by the nose—or nose-leading; and
is thus expressive of the object of the art
editorial, which is to manage the public.

“Our predecessor gave us the results of
his experience on the subject of nasiduction;
and, thus accomplished, we entered upon the
duties of the People's Light with the skill, the
power, and the success of a veteran. We
became a shining light in the party—that is,
the party we belonged to—and were soon esteemed
its chief organ. As a politician, we
flatter ourself, our abilities were undeniable;
and in the other spheres of editorial avocation
we were not found wanting. Our talent

for invective was universally acknowledged;
we abused our opponents with a zeal that
gained us the love and respect of every
member of our faction. If a reputation was
to be blasted, a spirit wounded to the quick,
a doubtful friend to be held up to contempt,
or an incautious enemy to execration, who
was so ready, who so able, to wield the lash
of punishment? Nay, if the party itself was
to be humbugged, if the interests of the
leaders, our great patrons, required a little
dust to be thrown in the eyes of our readers,
who could effect the purpose with equal address?
Sir, we knew how to inflame the
rage, and disturb the fears, of our subscribers;
we knew how to awaken their self-love,
their vanity, their pride, and thus lead them
to deeds of glory. In short, sir, we were a
first-rate editor, a man of reputation, sir, a
man of power, a man of money—we were
making our fortune, and—no thanks to virtue
—with none of her assistance. We were a
happy man, sir: we sat under our own vine
and fig-tree, we warmed ourself at our own
fire, we rode our own horse, we fattened on
our own chickens, and we endured the scolding
of our wife, and the squalling of our
children, with equanimity, for we endured
them in our own house. As we said before,
we were making our fortune: we had a
thousand friends to help us spend it.

“Behold how virtue—sir, we say virtue, for
virtue it was—crept betwixt us and the sunshine
of prosperity; hacked to pieces our
vine and fig-tree, put out our fire, spavined
our horse, killed our chickens, and brought the
sheriff's surliest deputy into our best parlour.

“We had the misfortune, one night, to
dream that the devil came to our bed-side,
bidding us get up and follow him. This we
did, (that is, we dreamed we did,) for we saw
he was a person not to be trifled with; but
we must confess, sir, it was with fear and
trembling. We ventured, however, as he led
us into the street, to ask whither he was carrying
us. `To your appointed place,' said
he, looking as black as midnight, but wagging
his tail, as if pleased with our company.
Then taking us by the hand, he made a spring
into the air at least ten feet high, and flinging
up his legs, and ours too, as we reached that
height, he made a dive headlong into the
pavement, which, instead of dashing out our
brains, as we expected, yielded to the shock,
and away we went through flag-stones and
gravel, gas-pipes and culverts, the solid earth

and still more solid rock, until we gained his
infernal dominions about two miles below.
Here, sir, we saw sights that made our hair
stand on end; and it is our purpose, on some
future occasion, to commit an account of them
to the press: but at present we shall speak of
them briefly, and of such only as are illustrative
of our own story.

“Pray, sir,” said the Honourable Mr.
Smash, here interrupting the story, “allow
me to ask if you can't speak of them in the
first person singular? I don't wish to be
critical or impertinent; but, really, after what
I have suffered from the press, I assure you
I never hear that grand editorial WE, without
feeling as if again undergoing the pangs of
castigation; and, upon my honour, sir, the
fancy is quite uncomfortable.”

“Any thing to gratify our patrons—that
is, I mean, to oblige a friend,” said Mr. Ticklum,
descending from the style professional
to the humbler phrase of individuality. With
which proof of his condescension and good
nature, he resumed his relation, as follows.

“A very strange and dismal-looking place
into which I was led by the devil, my conductor,
attracted my curiosity; and asking him
what place it was, he told me, The Place of

Public Spirits. And being pleased with the
interest I displayed in his concerns, he proceeded
to show me the rarities of his realm,
with which I was wonderfully struck. `This
province of my dominions, containing my
good Public Spirits,' said he, `is divided into
several departments, or hells, very methodieally
arranged, each containing a peculiar
genus of the damned. For example—you
are now passing through the Hell of Politicians;
consisting of two rooms, the one containing
the politic by ambition—or those who
went into public life for the noble purpose
of rising to distinction and power; the other
appropriated to the politic by covetousness—
your base dogs who served nations with the
view of picking their pockets.'

“With that, I looked about me in the first
room, a great grotto lighted by fires that were
stirred up by imps, and saw the ambitious
gentry hung up by the heels against the ceiling,
like so many bats in a cave, smoking and
broiling, and seeming ever on the point of
dropping into the fires below; of which there
was the more danger, as each had his bundle
of peccadilloes tied to his neck, weighing him
down, and the little imps of the fire every
now and then saluted them with a volley of

red hot chunks, as if trying to knock them
from their holds. In the next chamber, a
cavern similar to the first, were the politic by
covetousness—fat placemen boiling in caldrons
of molten gold and silver, bubbling up
and down like so many tormented bullfrogs,
with little scullion imps that sat stirring the
pots, and occasionally tapping each seething
sinner over the head, with red-hot pokers.

“`Truly,' said I, surprised at the sight, `I
thought politicians were more virtuous people.
Have you any of our American patriots
here?'

“`Oh,' said the devil, `a plenty of them.'

“With that, we passed into a third grot,
where were a number of souls, some in great
sieves, in which they were searced along with
pitchforks and cannon-balls at a white heat;
others roasting in heaps, for all the world like
heaps of ore roasting at a furnace; and some
again being mashed under fulling-hammers,
that ground them to atoms at every blow; while
others were flaming in refining-pots with
white and black flux, that kept them sputtering
and flashing in a manner marvellous to behold.

“I asked, what kind of public spirits these
were that were handled so roughly.

“`Oh,' said the devil, `they are Reformers

and Agitators—honest personages now undergoing
a process to reform their own qualities
—a matter which, in their eagerness to amend
their neighbours, they entirely forgot to attend
to in the world above.'

“The next thing that struck me was a
multitude of souls, some grovelling along the
floors of a dark passage which we walked
through, others cowering away in corners as
if to hide them from sight, but all, as I could
perceive, having their heads strown over with
live coals, and vipers fastened on their
breasts. I asked my satanic guide, `who
these unlucky wretches might be.'

“`What,' said he, `don't you know them?
and some of your own work, too? These are
all small game—the tools and victims of the
good fellows you have been looking at.'

“Upon which, rapping some dozen or two
of them over the shoulders with a stout bamboo
he carried, they started up and displayed
the countenances of individuals I very well
remembered, some of them poor devils that,
being in want of public places, had been employed
to do the dirty work of the party, by
way of deserving them, as well as their own
damnation; some, not place-hunters, but
sovereign citizens, who, by a little drumming

at their fancies and passions, had been induced
to do the same thing, under the impression
they were playing the parts of good
and honest citizens; besides sundry persons
of better note, some of them men of promise,
ambitious to serve the public, whom, having
become obnoxious to, or put themselves in
the way of the party, I had helped to bring
under the lash of correction, or drive into the
shades of obscurity, where there was little
fear of our ever being troubled by them
again.

“The sight of these latter personages
caused me some concern. Until that moment,
it had never occurred to me, that calling
a man in the public papers `traitor,'
`hireling,' `villain,' and so on, and teaching
society to think him so, was doing him any
mischief, except a political one; but the embers
upon the head, and the worm at the
heart, struck me with both dismay and compunction.
Nor were these feelings much
diminished, when my conductor whipped up
sundry other sufferers, who fell foul of me
with their tongues, upbraiding me with numerous
other sins of which I had never made
much account before. Some charged me
with having made them the victims of

sharpers, by lauding speculations that were
designed for no purpose but to gull numskulls.
Here was a soul who accused me of
cheating him out of his dollars, by recommending
to purchasers some swindler's ware,
of which I knew nothing, except that it was
good-natured to commend; while a hundred
and fifty opened upon me full mouth as their
murderer, for having lauded the excellency of
a steamboat, by which they were all blown
into eternity.

“But the most grievous part of the spectacle
was the multitudes, the very herds of
people who laid their deaths at my door, because
of the quack medicines they had
taken on my recommendation; for though, in
an argument with the devil on the subject, I
insisted that the notices of nostrums in my
paper were puffs written by the proprietors,
and printed and paid for as advertisements,
and that, therefore, I had no share in commending
them; he declared I was entirely
mistaken, that the giving publicity to such
things was in itself a recommendation, and I
was as much chargeable with their effects as
if I had accepted an agency from the compounder,
and, myself, supplied the public with
death, at a dollar a bottle.

“Having settled this matter, much more
to his own liking than mine, Diabolus bade
me `never mind such small ware, (meaning
the tools and victims,) but come along and see
something of greater importance.' And giving
me a jerk, he dragged me onwards, until
the passage we trod terminated in a great
chamber, the floor of which, sinking down like
the sweeping sides of an amphitheatre, ended
at last in a great bog or quagmire; while at the
top, where we paused, were long ranges of
galleries running all around. In these galleries
lounged a great variety of devils, looking
down with interest upon what passed below;
while in the quagmire, floundering in it up to
the knees, were multitudes of men, great and
small, engaged with marvellous earnestness
pelting one another with mud. `Upon my
word,' said I, `I don't understand this at all.
What kind of public spirits are these? and
what place is it?'

“The devil looked amazed. `Is it possible,'
said he, `you don't know? that you don't
recognise your friends from their amusement?
Zounds, sir, this is the hell of editors!' Upon
my word, I could not help laughing, it all
looked so natural. There they were, indeed,
my learned and able contemporaries, bedaubing

one another with mudballs, with
such zeal and energy as if the weal of a universe
depended upon their pastime. Thinks
I to myself, `if a certain place that I know of
is no worse than this, it is not so bad, after
all.' `Don't be too sure of that,' said Old
Nick, reading my thoughts; `it is all fine fun
for a while, but no such pleasant life to lead
for ever.' And, indeed, as I looked, and
observed one gentleman get a ball in the eye,
another a pellet on the cheek, a third a whole
mountain of mud on his back, I began to
grow melancholy at the thought that the
Lights of the World should be so unworthily
engaged thus wasting their energies on one
another. Nor was this feeling but a little increased,
when Diabolus took occasion to observe,
`he was fond of editors: with other
sinners,' said he, `I have a deal of trouble,
and am obliged, on the average, to appropriate
the services of at least one imp among
a thousand, for the purpose of tormenting
them. Editors, fortunately, know how to
torment themselves.—And now, Mr. Daniel
Ticklum, of the People's Light,' said he, `you
know your place—descend.'

“With that he seized me by the nape of
the neck, and tossed me into the thick of my

contemporaries, who received me with a shower
of mud-balls, which, for all of their softness,
had such an effect upon my feelings
that I considered myself murdered outright,
and opened my mouth to cry for quarter,
which I received in the shape of a second
volley from the whole company. At that
moment, I awoke, and found it was all a
dream.

“It was a dream, sir; but the more I revolved
it in my mind, the more it troubled
and perplexed me. At last, however, I became
persuaded it was a vision of warning,
sent me by some good angel, (for one would
not think the devil so benevolent,) which it
became me to improve. I became a new
man. Sir, would you believe it? I began to
think, that, in accommodating my principles to
those of my patrons, in toiling to please the
party and my neighbours, at the sacrifice of
some truth and more independence, I was
doing wrong. I resolved to change my course,
and act the part that became a high-minded,
conscientious man—I had no idea of going to
the devil for my subscribers. I resolved to turn
over a new leaf, and pursue that fearless,
honest, independent course, for which so many
of my worthy fellow-citizens were calling:

for, indeed, it was a common subject of lamentation,
throughout the land, in my day,
that we had so few editors of high, fearless,
independent spirit.

“Sir, when I made that resolution I had
seven thousand subscribers: a week after I
had put it into execution, I had but two thousand!
My first independent remark was the
signal of my ruin. And what was that remark?
Why, sir, a compliment to an enemy,
an opposition candidate—an admission
that he was an honest and able man, in many
respects superior even to our own candidate,
and worthy of confidence and honour. A
few more truths ended the matter. `Stop
my paper!' was echoed in my ears by two
thousand voices, and thrown before my eyes
in as many epistolary missives. Nay, sir, one
half even of the three thousand subscribers
who never paid their dues, fell into the like
anger, and bade me `stop their papers.'—In
short, sir, it was a lost case with me, my subscribers
left me, my creditors put their accounts
into the hands of lawyers, and my
friends, not knowing how else to dispose of
me, clapped me into this Asylum.

“Draw your own moral from my story: it
is a true one. As long as I was willing to

enslave my spirit, to crush my sense of right
and wrong, to forget my principles, to devote
the energies of my mind to flatter the whims
and passions of my patrons, I enjoyed their
favour, and prospered; the moment I became
a man of principle, I lost it.—I say again,
that men love virtue best in the abstract.
The dignity of independence, the beauty of
honour, the excellence of principle, are ever
in the mouths of men, nine-tenths of whom
will conspire together to ruin the editor who
reduces them to practice.

“But here is my young friend and contemporary,
Slasher, a brother of the press,
and, like me, a victim of his virtue: he can
substantiate every thing I say.