Democratic Sentinel, Volume 12, Number 47, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 14 December 1888 — Wit of the Past and of the Present. [ARTICLE]

Wit of the Past and of the Present.

Among the multitudinous complaints of the present, nothing is more frequently heard than regret over the lack of social brilliancy. The good things that have been said by wite, diners-out and bon vivants are periodicaUy dragged to the front and made to contrast with the vapid gayety and * wearisome conventionality of the presnnt. The brilliant man or woman of former generations had an immense advantage in that their sayings were caught upon the diamond pen of some professional man of letters, reburnished and handed down to us in the form oi permanent literature. Now the best minds do not work for the speciJ benefit of my Lord or my Lady, or, indeed, for any private coterie. They seek a larger audience. No brighter scintillations ever hashed forth within the best-furnished banquet hall of the f>ast than may be heard at many a pubic or semi-public gatherings to-day. But the exigences of to-day press upon one another. The chronicling of all Ae good things is left to the newspaper reporter, and however nimble his pen and and ambitious his brain, the result igain is subject to the exigencies of the newspaper office, or to the press of business upon the city editor.— Boston TranscriiL.