There are few people in the world who have more opportunity for
getting close to the hot, interesting things of one's time than the
special correspondent of a great paper. He is enabled to see "the
wheels go round;" has the chance of getting his knowledge at first
hand. In stirring times the drama of life is to him like the first
night of a play. There are no preconceived opinions for him to go by;
he ought not to, at least, be influenced by any prejudices; and the
account of the performance is to some extent like that of the dramatic
critic, inasmuch as that the verdict of the public or of history has
either to confirm or reverse his own judgment. There is a peculiar
and unique fascination about this reading of contemporary history, as
it grows and develops while one peers with straining eyes through
one's glasses. There is something like a first night, too, about the
way the critics view things. Sometimes great difference of opinion. I
recollect the afternoon of Nicholson's Nek--Black Monday, as it was
afterwards called--when we returned into Ladysmith half the
correspondents seemed to be under the impression that the day had been
quite a successful one; while, on the other hand, one had headed his
despatch with the words, "Dies Iræ, dies illa!" To get to the heart of
things; to see the upspringing of the streams of active and strenuous
life; to watch the great struggles of the world, not always the
greatest in war, but the often more mighty, if quiet and dead silent,
whose sweeping powerfulness is hidden under a smooth calmness of
surface--to watch all this is to intimately taste a great delicious
joy of life. The researches of the historian of bygone times are
fascinating--absorbingly fascinating, although he is always
handicapped by remoteness; but the historian of to-day--of his
day--this day--whose day-page of history is read by hundreds of
readers, the day after has set to him a task that calls for all, and
more than all, that he can give--stimulates while it appalls, and
would be killingly wearying if it were not so fascinatingly
attractive. That close contact with the men of this struggling world,
and the men who _do_ things, and shove these life-wheels round, warms
up in one a great love for one's kind--a comrade feeling, like that
which comes from being tent-mates in a long campaign. Two o'clock in
the morning wake to the tramp, tramp of men marching in the
dark--marching out to fight--and the unknown Tommy you march beside
and talk to in low voice, as men talk at that hour, is your comrade
unto the day's end of fighting; when returning, to the sentries'
challenge you answer "A friend," and, dog-tired, you re-enter the
lines, welcomed by his sesame call, "Pass, friend; all is well."