And, since all these
sellers must earn their bread and butter, the more one searches for a fair
point of attacking the evil, the more he is perplexed.
The man who writes must, if he needs pay for his work, write what the man
who prints will buy. The man who prints must print what the people who
read will buy. Upon whom, then, shall we lay earnest hands? Clearly, upon
the last buyer,--upon him who reads. But things have come to such a pass
already that to point out to the average American that it is vulgar and
also unwholesome to devour with greedy delight all sorts of details about
his neighbors' business seems as hopeless and useless as to point out to
the currie-eater or the whiskey-drinker the bad effects of fire and
strychnine upon mucous membranes. The diseased palate craves what has made
it diseased,--craves it more, and more, and more. In case of stomachs,
Nature has a few simple inventions of her own for bringing reckless abuses
to a stand-still,--dyspepsia, and delirium-tremens, and so on.
But she takes no account, apparently, of the diseased conditions of brains
incident to the long use of unwholesome or poisonous intellectual food.
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