llisions, 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. 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. The second line seems to mean that they enlarged
the King at the Italian hospital. With a banquet, I suppose. An English
banquet has that effect. Further:

Il ritorno dei Sovrani

a Roma

ROMA, 24, ore 22,50.--I Sovrani e le Principessine Reali si attendono a
Roma domani alle ore 15,51.

Return of the sovereigns to Rome, you see. Date of the telegram, Rome,
November 24, ten minutes before twenty-three o'clock. The telegram seems
to say, "The Sovereigns and the Royal Children expect themselves at Rome
tomorrow at fifty-one minutes after fifteen o'clock."

I