“Flaunted In Full Dress, Spun Out Of Ourselves”

As thoroughly modern as it may appear, the drive to make a name for ourselves — to say something original and timely yet thoughtful and profound — is not just a contemporary predicament. In 1852, English theologian John Henry Newman condemned the “viewiness” required of public writers. He complained of the journalists whose intellects were “flaunted daily before the public in full dress, and that dress ever new and varied, and spun, like the silkworm’s, out of themselves.” No one who writes for a public audience today can help but feel culpable when reading these lines.