without superfluous aid , without interference in the guise of encouragement and cheer, anything Imay think worth my saying . Nothing is worth my saying that I cannot help myself out with better, I hold , than even the most suggestive young gentleman
with a notebook can help me. It may be fatuous ofme, but, be lievingmyself possessed of somemeans of expression , I feel as if I were sadly giving it away when , with the use of it urgent, I don 't
gratefully employ it, but appeal instead to the art of somebody else.' . . . “ ' It is very difficult,'he said , seeking to diminish the tension so
often felt by a journalist, even at themoment of a highly appre ciated occasion , 'to break into graceful license after so long a life of decorum ; therefore you must excuse me if my egotism doesn 't
run very free or my complacency find quite the right turns.' . . . “ Heexplained his weighing of his wordsby telling an anecdote by which an Englishman explained the slight production of air
ships in England , ‘ Because the airship is essentially a bad ship , and we English can 't make a bad ship well enough.' 'Can you pardon ,' Mr. James asked , “my making an application of this to
the question of one's amenability or plasticity to the interview ? The airship of the interview is for me a bad ship , and I can 't make a bad ship well enough .' ” 34 The interviewer may find suspicion cast on his well-meant
endeavors to give a deserved publicity to important subjects.
Even in 1905 British physicians were reported to be discussing with much bitterness the propriety of granting interviewsto news papers on medical topics because such a policy seemed to them to
savor of advertising.35 The interviewer may find that “ talking for publication ” be comes the equivalent of “ talking for buncomb;" he may find his way blocked at every turn and realize that “ it is much easier to interview the President of the United States than the assistant secretary of anything ;” 36 he may be even more embarrassed in
asking for important information than is a person in refusing it; he may be charged with killing journalism , as he is told that
34 Preston Lockwood, New York Times, March 21, 1915 . 35 The Globe, July 19, 1905. 36 R . S . Durstine, “ Appearing in Print,” The Outlook , June 13, 1914 , 107
