The Commonplace 15 



bought a paper resplendent with photography 

 and colored ink. The first page had eight 

 articles, seven of which were devoted to cases 

 of divorce, common rascality and crime, and 

 unimportant local accidents, all displayed as if 

 it would advantage a man to read them. Only 

 one article dealt with public affairs, and this 

 was hidden underneath small headlines. The 

 newspaper had no sense of proportion. All the 

 detail of a divorce case was given with as much 

 circumstantial minuteness as if it were of equal 

 importance with a debate in Congress or the 

 deliberations of the international peace confer- 

 ence. 



As I was about to write these sentences, I 

 chanced to pick up the following editorial para- 

 graph from a country newspaper (The Seneca 

 Falls, N. Y., " Reveille"): 



" The sound and wholesome qualities which 

 make for all that is most prized in life are to be 

 found in the great masses of the people, and are 

 scarcely touched by the currents of the time 

 which make for evil, and with which the news 

 of the day is necessarily so largely concerned. 



