Except for half a dozen in each town the citizens are proud of that achievement of ignorance which is so easy to come by. To be 'intellectual' or 'artistic' or, in their own word, to be 'highbrow,' is to be priggish and of dubious virtue.

With ... small-town life ... there are hundreds of thousands ... who are not content. The more intelligent young people ... flee to the cities ... and ... stay…

A village in a country which is taking pains to become altogether standardized and pure, which aspires to succeed Victorian England as the chief mediocrity of …

It has not yet been recorded that any human being has gained a very large or permanent contentment from meditation upon the fact that he is better off than oth…