Abstract

In the Driftway

A Drifter remarked that he liked the sights and sounds of a printing plant. He described some of the sights, but he didn't have room for the sounds. Yet the sounds of a printing plant are as inspiring as the sights. Sometimes it seems as if modern city dwellers must become immune to sound or else die of nervous exhaustion. The cities are filled with so much unmusical sound, such a blare of discord, that one's only hope seems to lie in developing a protective insensibility. Yet amidst the din some sounds are inspiring, agreeable, and even soothing. Among them the Drifter would include what is commonly called the roar of the printing press, though it sometimes seems more like a moan. The Drifter is thinking for the moment not about small machines but of the big rotary presses of the daily newspapers. It is from them that one gets the sound of a printing plant in most impressive and dramatic form.