xperiment in itself,
though it is new in reference to your particular case, and I await its
effects with interest. I shall be curious to observe the consequences,
to an intellect constituted as yours is, of that total cutting off from
the public interests of your own century which an abstinence from
newspapers implies. It is clear that, whatever the loss may be, you
have a definite gain to set against it. The time which you have hitherto
given to newspapers, and which may be roughly estimated at about five
hundred hours a year, is henceforth a valuable time-income to be applied
to whatever purposes your best wisdom may select. When an intellectual
person has contrived by the force of one simple resolution to effect so
fine an economy as this, it is natural that he should congratulate
himself. Your feelings must be like those of an able finance minister
who has found means of closing a great leak in the treasury--if any
economy possible in the finances of a State could ever relatively equal
that splendid stroke of time-thrift which your force of will has enabled
you to effect. In those five hundred hours, which are now your own, you
may acquire a science or obtain a more perfect command over one of the
languages which you have studied. Some department of your intellectual
labors which has hitherto been unsatisfactory to you, because it was too
imperfectly cultivated, may henceforth be as orderly and as fruitful as
a well-kept garden. You may become thoroughly conversant with the works
of more than one great author whom you have neglected, not from lack of
interest, but from want of time. You may open some old chamber of the
memory that has been dark and disused for many a year; you may clear the
cobwebs away, and let the fresh light in, and make it habitable once
again.

Against these gains, of which some to a man of your industry are
certain, and may be counted upon, what must be our estimate of the
amount of sacrifice or loss? It is clear to both of us that much of what
we read in the newspapers is useless to our culture. A large proportion
of newspaper-writing is occupied with speculation on what is likely to
happen in the course of a few months; therefore, by waiting until the
time is past, we know the event without having wasted time in
speculations which could not effect it. Another rather considerable
fraction of newspaper matter consists of small events which have
interest for the day, owing to their novelty, but