I
am an impassioned reader of newspapers. I read five English and two
French dailies, and the news-agents alone know how many weeklies,
regularly. I am obliged to mention this personal fact lest I should
be accused of a prejudice against newspapers when I say that I
object to the reading of newspapers in the morning train. Newspapers
are produced with rapidity, to be read with rapidity. There is no
place in my daily programme for newspapers. I read them as I may in
odd moments. But I do read them. The idea of devoting to them
thirty or forty consecutive minutes of wonderful solitude (for
nowhere can one more perfectly immerse one's self in one's self than
in a compartment full of silent, withdrawn, smoking males) is to me
repugnant. I cannot possibly allow you to scatter priceless pearls
of time with such Oriental lavishness. You are not the Shah of
time. Let me respectfully remind you that you have no more time than
I have. No newspaper reading in trains! I have already "put by"
about three-quarters of an hour for use.
Now you reach your office.
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