And the bare contents
are not such as to enchant me. However, for the purpose of this essay,
I did go to a bookstall and buy as many of these papers as I could
see--a terrific number, a terrific burden to stagger away with.
I have gone steadily through them, one by one. My main impression is
of wonder and horror at the amount of hebdomadal labour implicit in
them. Who writes for them? Who does the drawings for them--those
thousands of little drawings, week by week, so neatly executed? To
think that daily and nightly, in so many an English home, in a room
sacred to the artist, sits a young man inventing and executing designs
for Chippy Snips! To think how many a proud mother must be boasting to
her friends: `Yes, Edward is doing wonderfully well--more than
fulfilling the hopes we always had of him. Did I tell you that the
editor of Natty Tips has written asking him to contribute to his
paper? I believe I have the letter on me. Yes, here it is,' etc.,
etc.! The awful thing is that many of the drawings in these comic
papers are done with very real skill. Nothing is sadder than to see
the hand of an artist wasted by alliance to a vacant mind, a common
spirit. I look through these drawings, conceived all so tritely and
stupidly, so hopelessly and helplessly, yet executed--many of them--so
very well indeed, and I sigh over the haphazard way in which mankind
is made.
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