The Cecil Whig. [volume] (Elkton, Md.) 1841-current, 1869-03-13
Next.DOOr Neighb0rs.
BY JULIA kANASAGH

Next door nelghbOrs have ever been
fast friends or bitter enemies. They
have either fought and died for each
other-in very barbarous times, of
coursc-or they have cut each others
threats; and the one thing, it is sad
to say, they have done much oftener
than the other. Strong hate seems, as
matter of course, to spring from close
vicinity in these old times. The Cap
ulets and the Montagues must have
been next-door neighbors, though
Shakespeare does not say so. Super
fetal people may think that Romeo and
Juliet more than made UP the feud ;
but deep thinkers will rather consider
these gentle Veronese lovers as illus
trious exceptions, than as precedents
at all affecting the two great laws of
love and hate, which rule next-door
Relationships. Besides, it is all very
well to talk of the Romeo who takes
poison, and dies at his Juliet's feet
Old people of the world shake their
heads and sigh; they know that these
sort of things take place at o certain
time of life, and at that time only
You see no Italian chroncler, no Shake
speare, no lovely old legend has said
word about the youthful Romeo of
twelve, who, maybe, tied an old sauce
pan to the tail of Juliet's favorite grey
hound, when that careless housemad
let it out or who, young hardened
sinner, threw cabbage stocks at Juliet
herself over the garden-wall AS for
the bachelor Romeo of forty, who did
his best against the unwedded Juliet
of thirty-iive, who worried her by rails
ing up a turret with numerous win
dows, whence his prying eyes invaded
her privacy, who went three times to
law with her about the partition wall,
and who made her exclaim twenty times
day, THAT dreadful man will be the
death of me y that Romeo, we say, has
been ignored altogether.
With the progress Of time and good
breeding, next-door neighbors have
grown to be civilly affectionate or po-
litely rancorous, and now, as rule, the
kissing or the pickering, as the case
may be, is carried out on the most
moderate scale. When next-door
neighbors meet, they bow to, or stare
at, or cut each other as distantly as
they can well do these things, and they
generally walk through life as they
mostly go to heaven, by roads that,
having once met at right angles, are
never by any means to meet again, but
go on widening and widening away
till they flow into the great reconciling
sea of death
But still we meet every now and
then, chiefly in small or out-ofthe-way
places, with instances Of cruel hate or
tender love, of bitter animosity or kind
and brotherly offices, which bring back
the old relation in its vivid aspect be-
fore us,-modi6ed, indeed, by change
of manners, but still the same at heart
Such instances must be known to
many; two will illustrate our meaning.
Two workmen were next-door eigh-
bors in one of the London suburbs
They lived at peace for whole year :;
then the dog of one having flown at the
child of the other, war was declared
Still, though embittered on both sides
by wives and children, the contest was
carried on languidly. But hate was
there, passive and phlegmatic in one
man, keen and active in the other, and
unluckily strong in both These men
drank freely, and used to meet and
quarrel at the same public-house. 1t
was inevitable that they should come
to blows, and at length they did. The
phlegmatic man, being much the
stronger of the two, had no trouble in
defeating his enemy. The worsted one
was henceforth bent upon revenge, and
chance, or his own ingenuity, gave him
what he wanted. He came one even
ing to the usual haunt, his face still
bearing the mark of the blow that had
felled him. He drank his beer in surly
silence he bore with his foes boastful
looks and with the jeering of the by
ISLANDERS but when he went to pay his
reckoning, and was waiting for his
change, he said to the landlady:-
al owe you something, Mrs. Smith.
Please to make it all square. That man"
and he pointed scornful forefnger at
his enemy, "is q thief! 1 come here
no more that man is thief He got
three months for robbing his master ten
years back. Let him deny it,-let him
deny it"
Pale, CHASTITY, and struck as by death,
the wretched man stood there and de-
MED nothing. They all stared, and he
denied nothing. They looked askance
at him. and he denied nothing. 1t was
true. He had been thief once,-once
only,-for he was one of the very few
men who, having thus fallen, rise out
of and triumph over their sin. He was
honest now, and therefore the discov-
cry and the shame were too much for
him. He skunk away with rage and
grief in his heart, and was seen in the
public-house no more. Nor was this
all. His story spread. His wife, on
learning it, reviled him; his children
got to be ashamed Of him the whole
world, he felt, had in some sort turned
against him. He could not bear this
new lot He rose early one morning,
went out, and never came back. And
the saddest part of this sad story is
that his triumphant enemy never re-
pented his share in his neighbours ruin.
These two men who could have lived
at peace so easily if they had but been
little farther apart, could not resist
the opportunities for dislike and ami
mostly which vicinity threw in their
way. And what is true of hatred is
happily also true of love. Natures
which might have remained languidly
wrapped up in selfindulgence forever
are reused to generous exertions and
undergraduates by the same close re-
lation.
A few gears ago there came to lit
tie county town Of England lady
whom We shall call Miss. joining
This was not her name, indeed, but her
story is true one, and that is the only
matter of interest in this case. She
came to take possession of little house
and of hundred year, both of which
,Ln L, 4 ;pborifod fhrourh tho dooth IF