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Authors: Dorothy Sayers
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joke. All this righteous indignation poured out in the name of the Gallant Troops or the Great British People whenever there's a hint of Government interference with the sacred rights of Branded Goods! I daresay the public ought to keep their eyes skinned. Anybody confronted with a leaderful of wrath about the pooling of This and That has only to turn over the pages of his favourite organ and see how many thousand pounds' worth of advertising it carries for Branded This and Proprietary That, and discount the righteous wrath accordingly. But I don't think it's scruple so much as sheer damned irritation.
It's not that I don't believe in a free Press. It would be a bad thing if even that kind of criticism were censored away. I shouldn't mind if I were equally free to say to the umpteen millions of readers all over the country, "That's all right, but do remember that papers have to please their advertisers." But no paper is going to make its columns free to letters of that sort, and I hate being made to feel helpless.
If only one could get a platform, one could say to these poor goops, "Do realise that, in the end, you can be the masters! Policy depends on advertising, but advertising depends in the long run on circulation. If enough of you stop taking a paper, its advertising revenue will fall off and its space-rates drop. A consumers' strike will bring any commercial body to heel." But they wouldn't do it, because they want the football news or the racing news or the fashions, so they swallow the pill of policy with the sugar. The public is fair game, very likely - but, nevertheless -
This is a queer line for me to take, isn't it? "Ingleby's always so cynical." That's why I write what you are good enough to call "convincing copy." But I've suddenly got a distaste for the game. I'm a coward, too. I don't propose - you needn't imagine it for the moment - to give up my time and energies to enlightening the public mind. I've managed to wangle an Army job, and I'm clearing out, washing my hands, behaving exactly like Pontius Pilate and all the other respectable people who let crimes go on because it's too much trouble to try and stop them. So my cynicism holds good, you see.
You've always been very kind to me, and I have a lot to thank you for, so I thought I'd prefer to tell you the truth, for once. I'm not taking a self-righteous line about the people who stick to the job. I admire those who put their shoulders to the wheel, even when the waggon has stuck fast in the midden. I've no right to the luxury of being fastidious. I despise myself for not having the guts either to shove or to take a spade to the midden. I'm the worst sort of Laodiccan, and propose to spew myself out with the least possible delay.
The gist of all this rigmarole is that I can't see my way to withdraw my resignation, and have written to that effect to Mr. Pym - putting it on the ground of "National Service", God forgive me! Please accept my assurance that nothing could be less heroic than my conduct, and believe me, - Very gratefully yours,
C. INGLEBY
Harriet, Lady Peter Wimsey, to Mr. Paul Delagardie, in London.
TALBOYS,
GREAT PAGFORD, HERTS.
15.1.40.
Dear Uncle Paul,
Your amusing letter came just in time to put me in a good temper and prevent me from writing a stinker to Helen, which would only have aroused family prejudice and done the Ministry of Instruction and Morale no good at all. I've sent her a postcard, and make my complaint to your sympathetic ear instead.
It was only a trifle, really. For the last four months I have been badgering H. for speakers for our W.R.I., and get nothing but evasive promises. Now the M.I.M. want to send someone down, and Helen is "astonished" because I can't let her have a date before the summer. She knows perfectly well that we have to get our lists our early - she had plenty of experience of that kind of thing at Duke's Denver. But because she is in an official position, she pretends to be "astonished."
The
It's not that I don't believe in a free Press. It would be a bad thing if even that kind of criticism were censored away. I shouldn't mind if I were equally free to say to the umpteen millions of readers all over the country, "That's all right, but do remember that papers have to please their advertisers." But no paper is going to make its columns free to letters of that sort, and I hate being made to feel helpless.
If only one could get a platform, one could say to these poor goops, "Do realise that, in the end, you can be the masters! Policy depends on advertising, but advertising depends in the long run on circulation. If enough of you stop taking a paper, its advertising revenue will fall off and its space-rates drop. A consumers' strike will bring any commercial body to heel." But they wouldn't do it, because they want the football news or the racing news or the fashions, so they swallow the pill of policy with the sugar. The public is fair game, very likely - but, nevertheless -
This is a queer line for me to take, isn't it? "Ingleby's always so cynical." That's why I write what you are good enough to call "convincing copy." But I've suddenly got a distaste for the game. I'm a coward, too. I don't propose - you needn't imagine it for the moment - to give up my time and energies to enlightening the public mind. I've managed to wangle an Army job, and I'm clearing out, washing my hands, behaving exactly like Pontius Pilate and all the other respectable people who let crimes go on because it's too much trouble to try and stop them. So my cynicism holds good, you see.
You've always been very kind to me, and I have a lot to thank you for, so I thought I'd prefer to tell you the truth, for once. I'm not taking a self-righteous line about the people who stick to the job. I admire those who put their shoulders to the wheel, even when the waggon has stuck fast in the midden. I've no right to the luxury of being fastidious. I despise myself for not having the guts either to shove or to take a spade to the midden. I'm the worst sort of Laodiccan, and propose to spew myself out with the least possible delay.
The gist of all this rigmarole is that I can't see my way to withdraw my resignation, and have written to that effect to Mr. Pym - putting it on the ground of "National Service", God forgive me! Please accept my assurance that nothing could be less heroic than my conduct, and believe me, - Very gratefully yours,
C. INGLEBY
Harriet, Lady Peter Wimsey, to Mr. Paul Delagardie, in London.
TALBOYS,
GREAT PAGFORD, HERTS.
15.1.40.
Dear Uncle Paul,
Your amusing letter came just in time to put me in a good temper and prevent me from writing a stinker to Helen, which would only have aroused family prejudice and done the Ministry of Instruction and Morale no good at all. I've sent her a postcard, and make my complaint to your sympathetic ear instead.
It was only a trifle, really. For the last four months I have been badgering H. for speakers for our W.R.I., and get nothing but evasive promises. Now the M.I.M. want to send someone down, and Helen is "astonished" because I can't let her have a date before the summer. She knows perfectly well that we have to get our lists our early - she had plenty of experience of that kind of thing at Duke's Denver. But because she is in an official position, she pretends to be "astonished."
The
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