Clarksville Weekly Chronicle

The Man Who Stops His Paper.
Philip Gilbert Hamerton, in his
admirable papers on "Intellectual
Life," thus talks to a man who
"stopped his paper:" "Newspapers
are to the civilized world what the
daily house talk is to the members
of the family--they keep our daily
interests in each, they save us from
the evils of isolation. To live as a
member of the great white race that
has filled Europe and America and
colonized or conquered whatever
territory it has been pleased to occupy;
to share from day to day its
thoughts, its cares, its inspirations, it
is necessary that every man should
read his paper. Why are the French
peasants so bewildered and at sea?
It is because they never read a news-
paper. And why are the inhabi-
tants of the United States, though
spread over a territory fourteen
times the area of France, so much
more capable of concert of action, so
much more alive and modern, so
much more interested in new dis-
coveries of all kinds, and capable of
selecting and utilizing the best of
them? It is because the newspa-
papers penetrate everywhere; and
even the lonely dweller on the
prairie or in the forest is not intel-
lectually isolated from the great cur-
rents of public life which flow
through the telegraph and press."