By habit you stow this muck every day, but you come by and by to
take no vital interest in it--indeed, you almost get tired of it.
As a rule, forty-nine-fiftieths of it concerns strangers only
--people away off yonder, a thousand miles, two thousand miles,
ten thousand miles from where you are. Why, when you come to think
of it, who cares what becomes of those people? I would not give
the assassination of one personal friend for a whole massacre
of those others. And, to my mind, one relative or neighbor mixed
up in a scandal is more interesting than a whole Sodom and Gomorrah
of outlanders gone rotten. Give me the home product every time.
Very well. I saw at a glance that the Florentine paper would
suit me: five out of six of its scandals and tragedies were local;
they were adventures of one's very neighbors, one might almost say
one's friends. In the matter of world news there was not too much,
but just about enough. I subscribed. I have had no occasion
to regret it. Every morning I get all the news I need for the day;
sometimes from the headlines, sometimes from the text. I have never
had to call for a dictionary yet. I read the paper with ease.
Often I do not quite understand, often some of the details escape me,
but no matter, I get the idea. I will cut out a passage or two,
then you see how limpid the language is:
Il ritorno dei Beati d'Italia
Elargizione del Re all' Ospedale italiano
The first line means that the Italian sovereigns are coming back
--they have been to England.
Pages:
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219
220
221
222
223
224
225
226
227
228
229
230