Mrs. Hambry

Mrs. Hambry has been observing the modern condition, with diminishing enthusiasm, for longer than she cares to specify. She came to journalism by way of three other careers she considers more dignified and will not discuss. Her society column has been running, without formal editorial approval, since approximately the Clinton administration.

She is said to have been present at the correspondents' dinner in 2004 where the joke that broke the ballroom was made. She neither confirms nor denies this. She was seated at a table she had not requested, next to a man she had never heard of, who went on to run a country. She made a note of the evening in her calendar. The note read: "Regrettable."

Her reporting style is built on a single working theory — that the truth of any situation is visible to anyone paying adequate attention, and that most people are not. She does not chase scoops. She does not correct the record. She describes what happened and trusts the reader to arrive at the appropriate conclusion, or not, in which case that is also a kind of answer.

She has received no major journalism awards. She has, however, been invited to judge three of them. She declined two. The third she attended in order to leave early, a mission she accomplished with characteristic efficiency.

Outside the newsroom, she maintains a small garden, a smaller circle of friends, and an immaculate collection of fountain pens, the oldest of which predates most of her colleagues. She writes her columns by hand first, then dictates them to whoever is available. She has been told this is inefficient. She has not changed the practice.

She was once described, in a now-defunct magazine, as "the last reasonable person in print." The sentence was intended as praise. She has never forgiven the author.

She has seen the world become louder, and has responded by becoming quieter.