An active man or woman stopping to think in the morning may well be appalled at the variety of his or her life. The ubiquity of the modern American subconsciousness is something unique. We wish to know everything there is to know. We are interested not merely in our own and our neighbors’ affairs--with a knowledge of which so many citizens of other lands are peacefully contented--but we are eager to know, and to know with tolerable accuracy, what is going on all over the world--in England, China, Russia, and Australia. Not merely politically, but socially, artistically, scientifically, philosophically, and ethically. No subject is too technical for our interest, provided it comes in our way, whether it concern the canals in Mars or the antitoxin germ. The newspaper and the telegraph have done much to promote this ubiquity of the mind’s eye all over the world, but the interests of the average American are much wider and more diversified than those of any other people. An Englishman will have his hobbies and know them thoroughly, but regarding affairs beyond the pale of his limited inquiry he is deliberately and often densely ignorant. He reads, and reads augustly, one newspaper, one or two magazines--a few books; we, on the other hand, are not content unless we stretch out feelers in many directions and keep posted, as we call it, by hasty perusals of almost innumerable publications for fear lest something escape us. What does the Frenchman--the average intelligent Frenchman--know or care about the mode of our Presidential elections, and whether this Republican or that Democrat has made or marred his political reputation? We feel that we require to inform ourselves not only concerning the art and literature of France, but to have the names and doings of her statesmen at our fingers’ ends for use in polite conversation, and the satisfaction of the remains of the New England conscience. All this is highly commendable, if it does not tend to render us superficial. The more knowledge we have, the better, provided we do not fall into the slough of knowing nothing very well, or hunt our wits to death by over-acquisitiveness. There is so much nowadays to learn, and seemingly so little time in which to learn it, we cannot afford to spread ourselves too thin.