Americans, to paraphrase a well-known expression, are a newspaper-ridden people. We must have some sort of paper at breakfast, dinner, and supper. We are not even satisfied with one each day, but require two or three more every twenty-four hours. The time that should be devoted to the study of good books, wherein can be found solid instruction and food for reflection, is thus too often wasted on the lucubrations and speculations of half-informed men who are as incapable of emitting sound ideas as they are of appreciating the immoral drift of much that daily falls from their own pens. Hence inordinate readers of newspapers necessarily become shallow-minded, superficial thinkers; their intellectual tastes are vitiated, and their judgment is weakened and perverted. Like a shattered mirror, their minds are incapable of reflecting one entire well-defined image, but present only fragments of thought in forms indefinite and distorted. The higher aspirations of our nature, those sublime conceptions which lift us above the grosser things of earth, and, even in this life, bring us nearer and nearer to our Creator, can never be generated by ephemeral newspaper literature. While we may feel compelled by business considerations or a natural political curiosity to glance over the columns of our daily journals, we should not forget that the intellect receives neither health nor strength from prolonged indulgence in such enervating pursuits. Newspapers undoubtedly have their use and mission; they have become an important factor in our present system of civilization, and are capable of accomplishing much good in their own sphere; but their effect and scope are limited, and should be circumscribed so that they be not permitted to interfere with the reading of solid history, the works of our best writers, and the essential duties of life, among which must be considered the pursuit of Christian knowledge and the elevation and purification of the immortal part of our being.
MY FRIEND MR. PRICE.
A STORY OF NEWPORT.
The summer was upon me, and with it the yearning for the dulcet plash of the salt sea wave.
“Whither?” became the vexed question of the hour, and Newport made reply to it.
To Newport I accordingly transported myself. I shall not say whether it was last season, or the season before, or even the season before that again. The readers of this narrative must determine the exact date. I refuse point-blank to do so.
Newport was in the height of the season when I entered my humble name, John V. Crosse, Lexington Avenue, New York, on the leaf of the register at the Ocean House.
It was a lovely evening in August, and the piazza of the hotel was crowded with high, mighty, and fashionable humanity. Dinner was a thing of the past, and the drive was looming in the near future. Ladies were chatting in parti-colored groups, men smoking in acrobatic postures. A delicious stillness prevailed—a warm, life-caressing glow. A wooing message from the sea, laden, as it sped upon its errand inland, with the perfume of a myriad glowing flowers, fanned the cheek. The sun shot bars of molten gold between the trellised branches of the slumbering trees, and the indolence of waking repose descended upon everything like a rosy cloud.
I went on the piazza, and, selecting an able-bodied wooden chair, flung myself into it, placing my feet on the iron railing in front of me, ere proceeding to light a cigar. When I had succeeded in emitting half a dozen puffs of my most excellent weed I looked right and left of me.
On my right sat a man of about thirty, or perhaps more, apparently tall, and slender to leanness. He was dark as a gipsy, with coal-black hair waving naturally but sparse upon the temples—he had removed his hat—which had a craggy look. His large eyes were deep-set, while his mouth wore an expression of superb self-complacency. He was clean-shaved, except for a fringe of long, silky black whisker far back upon the cheek, but both moustache and beard were clearly marked by the blue-black shade on his lip and jaw. The man was not ugly—just escaping ugliness by a very narrow margin. He was well dressed in a suit of light Scotch tweed that fitted him like “the paper on the wall,” whilst a certain je ne sais quoi bespoke the Englishman.
On my left lounged a handsome young fellow with clear blue eyes, a fair moustache, and one of the brightest smiles I have ever seen upon a human countenance. He twirled an unlighted cigar between his red lips, and as vehicle after vehicle dashed up to the “ladies’ entrance” fair dames and damosels gave him cheery and gracious salutation, cheerily and graciously responded to, accompanied by the flourish of a rakish little straw hat perched on the side of his superbly-set head.