It has been four weeks since I had seen
a newspaper, and this lack seemed to give life a new charm and grace,
and to saturate it with a feeling verging upon actual delight.
Then came a change that was to be expected: the appetite for news
began to rise again, after this invigorating rest. I had to feed it,
but I was not willing to let it make me its helpless slave again;
I determined to put it on a diet, and a strict and limited one.
So I examined an Italian paper, with the idea of feeding it on that,
and on that exclusively. On that exclusively, and without help of
a dictionary. In this way I should surely be well protected against
overloading and indigestion.
A glance at the telegraphic page filled me with encouragement.
There were no scare-heads. That was good--supremely good. But there
were headings--one-liners and two-liners--and that was good too;
for without these, one must do as one does with a German paper--pay our
precious time in finding out what an article is about, only to discover,
in many cases, that there is nothing in it of interest to you.
The headline is a valuable thing.
Necessarily we are all fond of murders, scandals, swindles,
robberies, explosions, collisions, and all such things, when we
knew the people, and when they are neighbors and friends, but when
they are strangers we do not get any great pleasure out of them,
as a rule. Now the trouble with an American paper is that it has
no discrimination; it rakes the whole earth for blood and garbage,
and the result is that you are daily overfed and suffer a surfeit.
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