THE SCRAPBOOK has been wearing black this week, mourning the loss of the New York Sun, which published its last issue on September 30. Like its namesake, a venerable New York institution that closed in 1950, the 21st-century incarnation of the Sun described itself aptly as a newspaper that "stood for constitutional government, equality under the law, free enterprise, and the American idea."

We are sorry first of all for the paper's many devoted readers in New York, who will now have to make it through the day without a beloved publication. We are sorry also for our friends who worked as reporters, critics, columnists, and editors at the upstart paper over the last seven years and found it a congenial outlet for their labors.

In his obituary for the paper, "Picking Up the Flag of the Sun," Stephen Miller captured the joy and exuberance that characterize newspapering at its finest moments:

Inside the Chambers Street newsroom, just a block from the original Sun offices across from City Hall, spirits ran high. A tiny crew-a handful of reporters and one photographer at the start-cranked out the paper every weekday. Prospective news assistants were asked if they had driver's licenses because, the managing editor explained, they might be called upon to drive the newspaper's delivery trucks. The paper marked the 150th anniversary of the decision to create Central Park with an editorial correcting the original New York Sun's opposition to the plan. .  .  .