wouldn't be bad.

The thought left him and his eyes fastened themselves upon a sheaf of
proofs.... Watch out for libel ... look for hunches ... scribble
suggestion for changes ... peer for items of information that might be
expanded humorously or pathetically into Human Interest yarns.... These
were functions he discharged mechanically. A perfect affinity toward his
work characterized his attitude. Yet behind the automatic efficiency of
his thought lay an ironical appreciation of his tasks. The sterile
little chronicles of life still moist from the ink-roller were like
smeared windows upon the grimacings of the world. Through these windows
Dorn saw with a clarity that flattered him.

A tawdry pantomime was life, a pouring of blood, a grappling with
shadows, a digging of graves. "Empty, empty," his intelligence whispered
in its depths, "a make-believe of lusts. What else? Nothing, nothing.
Laws, ambitions, conventions--froth in an empty glass. Tragedies,
comedies--all a swarm of nothings. Dreams in the hearts of men--thin
fever outlines to which they clung in hope. Nothing ... nothing...." His
intelligence continued a murmur as he read--a murmur unconscious of
itself yet coming from the depths of him. Equally unconscious was the
amusement he felt, and that flew a fugitive smile in his eyes.

The perfunctory hysterics of the stories of crime, graft, scandal, with
their garbled sentences and wooden phrases; the delicious sagacities of
the editorial pages like the mumbling of some adenoidal moron in a gulf
of high winds; headlines saying a pompous "amen" to asininity and a
hopeful "My God!" to confusion--these caressed him, and brought the
thought to him, "if there is anything worthy the absurdity of life it's
a newspaper--gibbering, whining, strutting, sprawled in attitudes of
worship before the nine-and-ninety lies of the moment--a caricature of
absurdity itself."

His efficiency aloof from such moralizing moved like a separate
consciousness through the day, as it had for the sixteen years of his
service. His rise in his profession had been comparatively rapid. Thirty
had found him enshrined as an editor. At thirty-four he had acquired the
successful air which distinguishes men who have come to the end of their
rope. He had become an editor and a fixture. The office observed an
intent, gray-eyed man, straight nosed, firm lipped, correctly shaved
down to the triangular trim of his mustache, his dark hair evenly
parted