dailies in its literary quality) asking me to come to New York. I had
never seen a man on the paper--had never been in New York except for a
day when I landed there on a return voyage from a European trip that I
took during one vacation when I was in the University. Then I went to
New York straight and quickly. I had an interesting experience on the
old _World_, writing literary matter chiefly, an editorial now and then,
and I was frequently sent as a correspondent on interesting errands. I
travelled all over the country with the Tariff Commission. I spent one
winter in Washington as a sort of editorial correspondent while the
tariff bill was going through Congress. Then, one day, the _World_ was
sold to Mr. Pulitzer and all the staff resigned. The character of the
paper changed."

What better training could a journalist ask for than this? Page was only
twenty-eight when these five years came to an end; but his life had been
a comprehensive education in human contact, in the course of which he
had picked up many things that were not included in the routine of Johns
Hopkins University. From Athens to St. Joe, from the comedies of
Aristophanes to the stockyards and political conventions of Kansas
City--the transition may possibly have been an abrupt one, but it is not
likely that Page so regarded it. For books and the personal relation
both appealed to him, in almost equal proportions, as essentials to the
fully rounded man. Merely from the standpoint of geography, Page's
achievement had been an important one; how many Americans, at the age of
twenty-eight, have such an extensive mileage to their credit? Page had
spent his childhood--and his childhood only--in North Carolina; he had
passed his youth in Virginia and Maryland; before he was twenty-three he
had lived several months in Germany, and, on his return voyage, he had
sailed by the white cliffs of England, and, from the deck of his
steamer, had caught glimpses of that Isle of Wight which then held his