In this age where there are more voices than ears, more books than readers, and more ease than willingness to learn, it is unlikely that a true intellectual authority will rise up and achieve the prestige of a Voltaire, a Goethe, or a Walter Scott. The attention he would garner for himself would at most be fleeting, and he would therefore hardly enjoy the solid and lasting recognition that great intellectuals have enjoyed in other times. This shows but one characteristic of this age of diffuse and uninterrupted bombarded attention. It is to be feared what can come of an age not only lacking true authorities, but guided by false ones; but, in any case, what one must conclude is that, to the intellectual, everything has become considerably better.
In This Age Where There Are More Voices Than Ears…
