The weekly clarion. [volume] (Jackson, Miss.) 1863-1882, 1871-06-08

From the n. 1. Standard.
The world is full of people who are
perpetually snatehing at occasions fol
| informing the one with whom they last
talk that they e'always thought So" Nc
Sabbath School Superintendent can be
come bank defaulter; no clergymen turn
out to be reprobate of unmentionablt
crimes no public officer proved to have
accepted brides, without the chatterine
of swarm of gossips who swear thai
they suspected the thing from the first
No enormity surprises them, for then
malignant omnisclence protects them
against surprise. The intuitions OF the
scandalmonger are wonderful intellect
ual phenomenon. He Is sort OF mailg
nant moral surgeon, who, indifferent tc
the agony he causes, probes the wound
| in order to extract the bullet-not OF truth,
but of misrepresentation.
No doubt it is a rare gift to know, by
intuition, that a certain man Is villain,
vet utter no word against him until he Is
proved to be so. The gift is so rare that
we would not like to run the risk of being
unjust to humanity by calculating the sell
domness with which it is vouchsafed. But
human nature would assuredly manifest
| itself in a much more noble light, if men
and women, when any act of villainy per
| petrated by man of hitherto good repu
tation becomes public, would refrain from
telling each othes, with significant winks
| and mods, that they always Thought so >
of the perpetrator, and that Mr.. Strange
ways, or Mr. Deadly Darke, or whatever
| his name may be, was never any better
than he ought to be. Detraction of this
kind is generally spoken without the
slightest reference to many counterbalan-
cling good points in the character of the
accused. 1t is verbally striking man
when he is down, helping to kick him to
death with scandals lamest spiders.
Rouchefoucald, celebrated maxim
might, with justice, be so modified as tc
read, GIN the suddenly discovered crimes
of men Of hitherto spotless reputation,
there is something which is not unpleas-
ant to us. 1t is actually so. The ma
iority of us do lose our appetites because
Bacon accepts bride and Marlborough
does not refuse one. We are apt to care
Iessly inspect our previous opinions OF the
man, and to fancy we detect among them
very shrewd suspicion Of latent dup
| licity. The 1-always-thOught- theory
is generally ready to spread its wings and
futter on its plausible way. Perhaps we
take a secret satisfaction in feeling that
the crimes or the vices to which we have
often felt vehemently impelled have
actually been committed by man whom,
in spite of them, cannot help confessing
| in our secret hearts to be our moral and
intellectual superior. We feel e1ated
that our weakness should have
been not only shared, but even yielded to,
by character nobler than our own.
And yet even the pleasure of gratified
vanity like this does not console us suf-
| ficiently to lead us to set charity as a
sentinel at our lips, to keep the purely
malignant suspicion from passing deity
through.
People who, when man of good repu
tation commits a crime, habitually ex
claim that is just what they expected,
and exactly what ought to have been an
ticipated by all who knew him, at least
place themselves in an Undesirable strait.
! There are circumstances when to make
Gus suspicious known not only ceases to be
scandalous, but even rises into virtne
and he who, on good grounds, cherishes
a conviction pointing to a mans criminal
ity may very readily be imagined capable
of being placed in circumstances where to
reveal his suspicious becomes imperative
ly his duty. Into the dilemma of having
entertained the conviction which he pro
fesses to have cherished, the person who
habitually boasts that he ''aways thought
so must often run the risk of thrusting
himself. When a man whom we believe
to be good turns out to be exceptionally
bad, we ought to be able to think only
with tenderness over the beauty Of our
past belief in his integrity. Not even his
baseness can rob us of the generous
sweetness of the faith we once placed in
him; not even our own selfshness ought
to be able to persuade us that we were
foolish in laying ourselves open to his de-
ceDtiOnS