Ellsworth American. [volume] (Ellsworth, Me.) 1855-current, 1872-03-07

things are never beyond the reach OF
all their residents. and people there
are kept alive to great thoughts if on.
ly by the yells of the newsboys in the
streets.
In very truth, rs We all know, wher-
ever gossip is cherished, it degener.
ates into Islander, becomes scandal.
creates relish for stronger meat. and
no soul within its sound is safe. Has
he the make and mien Of agod? Yes.
But he drinks. Is her bencvolence a
by-word: Yes. But charity covers a
multitude of sins. Lovely? Yes. But
then. yon know her mother-To every
one, in short, is allowed that which is
indisputable, and that only. and as if
that only; and as if human nature were
IN danger of too heavenly virtue. to
every one counterbalancing but
that hides the latter end in darkness
a pregnant, sinister. awful "but =" For
no one is there any gliding of the lily
allowed the business is 10 soil, not TO
swceten To pull down, not TO build up :;
pieces. not 10 heal and make whole.
There are instances of those who
having endured great poverty or great
worldly Disaster, and failed To see
Gods providence in IL. or To have faith
that there was providence in it even
II unseen. IN whom we can understand
the source and meaning of such bitter
feeling, and pity If not pardon it-pure
envy though the feeling be. envy dis
guised under the mask of criticism or
tastidiousness. But those who are
warm in the sunshine of prosperity,
and who yet ding their shafts of sus-
pIcions or affirmation into the lives and
regulations of others, have certainly
no claim 10 any regard or region but
such as Dante gave them. From what
malignant spirits must their whispers
come What a poisonous place do
they make the earth around them, as
the dragons vomiting fame did in the
old myths What pleasure could they
ever have in heaven, where the arch
angels are beyond the reach Of their
arrows:
1t has been in our experience to
know n woman, brilliant, beautiful.
we!l-born, and good, beset by the voice
Of slander. bounded from her home.
bounded 10 proud, innocent death, 10
death IN the open streets of great
citv ; but 10 no one could this moral
murder be traced. for the first rumors
had risen like e1halations from the
ground around her, the ascription OF a
wrong motive. the utterance of a pre-
sumcd possibility. swellin. and grow
Ing with hue and cry till all the dogs
were at her throat. Such things, they
say, do no, exist, with duello; but We
have the whispered and spoken insinu-
alton IN the other, the shrug of the
shoulder, tho lifting of an sy.iash. does
the work as we'll We have seen, too,
man, who for twenty years lived I'M
der ban that was daily crucifixion,
accused Of setting the fires that raw
aged his place Of residence. and, al
though detectives aud police proved
him guilucss, never acquitted bv the
acquslatances who saw his pallor on
the morning AFTER every fresh fire, his
face knotted with suffering, his sensl-
tive shrinking under the consciousness
OF their uuceasing scrutiny. Why when
al length the confessed incendiary WAS
found and punished, he did not drop
down dead from the very rebound at
thought of the new tree life, the new
skies under which he Was 10 walk. the
new faces he was 10 meet, could only
have been because in his twenty years
OF torture he had learned how " de-
spise any and all opinions that those
faces could mirror. But how the men
and women who had ruthlessly aud
thoughtlessly made his life burden 10
hun dared TO meet his glance. is among
the inscrutable mysteries.-Yet We are
sure that one place in the world bub.
bling over with gossip, scandal and
spite, has been purified even through
fire. Well if all our households and
villages were the same, though it re-
| quired the humiliation Of every crea.
ture who, in sewing-circle or reading.
room, rolls the sweet morsel undeI
| their tongue i'-Udrper's Bazar.