race Greeley did n't rise up before me. One of the first
questions asked by any camp-fire is, "Did ye ever see Horace?"

HERBERT. Which shows the power of the press again. But I have often
remarked how little real conception of the moving world, as it is,
people in remote regions get from the newspaper. It needs to be read in
the midst of events. A chip cast ashore in a refluent eddy tells no tale
of the force and swiftness of the current.

OUR NEXT DOOR. I don't exactly get the drift of that last remark; but
I rather like a remark that I can't understand; like the landlady's
indigestible bread, it stays by you.

HERBERT. I see that I must talk in words of one syllable. The newspaper
has little effect upon the remote country mind, because the remote
country mind is interested in a very limited number of things. Besides,
as the Parson says, it is conceited. The most accomplished scholar will
be the butt of all the guides in the woods, because he cannot follow a
trail that would puzzle a sable (saple the trappers call it).

THE PARSON. It's enough to read the summer letters that people write
to the newspapers from the country and the woods. Isolated from the
activity of the world, they come to think that the little adventures of
their stupid days and nights are important. Talk about that being real
life! Compare the letters such people write with the other contents of
the newspaper, and you will see which life is real. That's one reason I
hate to have summer come, the country letters set in.

THE MISTRESS. I should like to see something the Parson does n't hate to
have come.

MANDEVILLE. Except his quarter's salary; and the meeting of the American
Board.

THE FIRE-TENDER. I don't see that we are getting any nearer the solution
of the original question. The world is evidently interested in events
simply because they are recent.

OUR NEXT DOOR. I have a theory that a newspaper might be published at
little cost, merely by reprinting the numbers of years before, only
altering the dates; just as the Parson preaches over his sermons.

THE FIRE-TENDER. It's evident we must have a higher order of
news-gatherers. It has come to this, that the newspaper furnishes
thought-material for all the world, actually prescribes from day to day
the themes the world shall think on and talk about. The occupation of
news-gathering becomes, therefore, the most important. When you think of
it, it is astonishing that this department shoul