Perhaps she never anticipated this class of excesses. And, if there were
to be a precisely correlative punishment, it is to be feared it would fall
more heavily on the least guilty offender. It is not hard to fancy a poor
soul who, having been condemned to do reporters' duty for some years, and
having been forced to dwell and dilate upon scenes and details which his
very soul revolted from mentioning,--it is not hard to fancy such a soul
visited at last by a species of delirium-tremens, in which the speeches of
men who had spoken, the gowns of women who had danced, the faces, the
figures, the furniture of celebrities, should all be mixed up in a
grotesque phantasmagoria of torture, before which he should writhe as
helplessly and agonizingly as the poor whiskey-drinker before his snakes.
But it would be a cruel misplacement of punishment. All the while the true
guilty would be placidly sitting down at still further unsavory banquets,
which equally helpless providers were driven to furnish!
The evil is all the harder to deal with, also, because it is like so many
evils,--all, perhaps,--only a diseased outgrowth, from a legitimate and
justifiable thing.
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