It means that not even the welfare of your country will prevent you
from running to the Press with any secret which you may have been
entrusted with, or which you may have surprised. It means, this
peculiar kind of profession, that all things open and excellent, and
conspicuous to all men, are with you of no account. Art,
literature, politics, are to cease to interest you. You are to
scheme to surprise gossip about the private lives, dress, and talk
of artists, men of letters, politicians. Your professional work
will sink below the level of servants' gossip in a public-house
parlour. If you happen to meet a man of known name, you will watch
him, will listen to him, will try to sneak into his confidence, and
you will blab, for money, about him, and your blab will inevitably
be mendacious. In short, like the most pitiable outcasts of
womankind, and, without their excuse, you will live by selling your
honour. You will not suffer much, nor suffer long. Your conscience
will very speedily be seared with a red-hot iron. You will be on
the road which leads from mere dishonour to crime; and you may find
yourself actually practising chantage, and extorting money as the
price of your silence. This is the lowest deep: the vast majority,
even of social mouchards, do not sink so low as this.
The profession of the critic, even in honourable and open criticism,
is beset with dangers.
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