I once came across a passage in a work of fiction published in "Harper's Monthly Magazine" wherein a character's "repentant soul" was likened to a daguerreotype plate that had been "wiped clean." Although I read the passage from a volume in my own library, I cannot, for the life of me, find it again. Today's passage, found in an article about American periodicals, is a similar, brief and wonderful analogy. - - - - - - - - - - - From an article titled, "Our Leading Journals, with Some Account of Their Beginning" by W. T. Coggeshall, in "The Ladies' Repository" (Cincinnati) Vol. 16, No. 8 (August 1856) pp. 481, paragraph 5: When holding one of the New York daily papers, the American can realize the force of a description by Rev. Dr. Adams, that "the newspaper is a daguerreotype of the whole world--its warrings and diplomacies--it buyings and sellings--its parturitions and its dyings-- a real microcosm--the world made smaller, held in the hand, and brought under the eye; . . . . ." -------------------------------------------------------------- 08-01-98