written, which fairly distinguishes it from the devastating journalism
that we feel bound to read in these days, morning, noon and night."

"I do not agree with you: there are some days when I find reading the
papers very pleasant indeed!" my aunt Flora broke in, to show Swann that
she had read the note about his Corot in the _Figaro_.

"Yes," aunt Celine went one better. "When they write about things or
people in whom we are interested."

"I don't deny it," answered Swann in some bewilderment. "The fault I
find with our journalism is that it forces us to take an interest in some
fresh triviality or other every day, whereas only three or four books in a
lifetime give us anything that is of real importance. Suppose that, every
morning, when we tore the wrapper off our paper with fevered hands, a
transmutation were to take place, and we were to find inside it--oh! I
don't know; shall we say Pascal's _Pensees_?" He articulated the title with
an ironic emphasis so as not to appear pedantic. "And then, in the gilt and
tooled volumes which we open once in ten years," he went on, shewing that
contempt for the things of this world which some men of the world like to
affect, "we should read that the Queen of the Hellenes had arrived at
Cannes, or that the Princesse de Leon had given a fancy dress ball. In
that way we should arrive at the right proportion between 'information'
and 'publicity.'" But at once regretting that he had allowed himself to
speak, even in jest, of serious matters, he added ironically: "We are
having a most entertaining conversation; I cannot think why we climb to
these lofty summits," and then, turning to my grandfather: "Well,
Saint-Simon tells how Maulevrier had had the audacity to offer his hand to
his sons. You remember how he says of Maulevrier, 'Never did I find in
that coarse bottle anything but ill-humour, boorishness, and folly.'"