The Richmond palladium. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1855-1875, 1874-04-15
From the London Saturday Review.
BLABBING.


Il
A. Es..y o. wee. Who TALK Toe
The poets and moralists who have
grown eloquent over the sufferings
caused In the world by women have
generally been thinking rather of the
| tragic than of the comic side of life.
| The Helens who have wasted ships,
men and cities by their fatal lowell
ness; the Clytemnestras and Guine-
veres who have recklessly opened the
| fioodgates of crime rather than stife
one guilty passion; the Cleopatras who
have enslayed their fatherland for the
| pleasure of making men love them,
| and those other celebrated women
whose life has been the old tale of
Beauty and anguish walking hand in hand
/ The downward slopes OF death,
occupy much larger place in the
| world Of imagination than the Cath
crimes and other shrews who, from
| circumstances over which they had no
control, have been forced to content
| themselves with the humber part of
| making ordinary men miserable In a
common place sort of way. And yet
it scenes probable that on the stage of
life at least as much pain is caused by
the women of comedy as by the trag-
edy queens. No doubt the great Spar
tan elopement gave rise to more suf
| fering than is caused by any one case
which comes before Sir James Han
men. But then against this We may
| consider how much more frequently
| the case as dealt with by Sir James
| Hannen occurs than the case as ham
! died by Homer. And also We may
| remember that heroic sufferings are
not such an unmixed evil as those of
| more insignificant people. There is a
large amount of good to be set off
| against the sufferines and pain caused
| by the sack Troy. But there really is
| nothing. or next to nothing, which we
| can set off against the petty miseries
caused by the commonplace jilts and
shrews and talebearers Of everyday
life. Paradoxical as it sounds, there
| is sense in which the greater the
suffering the less the pain"
Among the many modes of torment
ing practiced by the ordinary woman
1! of society, one of the worst is her
habit of blabbing, or repeating to one
dear friend the things that have been
lately said and done by another dear
! friend. Some women are positively
natured and blab from malice. Old
maids whose life has been soured by
| disappointments, or who, from want
Of proper education in their youth,
have no satisfactory means Of occupa-
ton, are sometimes found to be taint-
ed with this vice. Telling tales is to
| them what torturing flies is 10 naughty
| children. The emotion displayed by
son at Oxford is constantly in the
company of such or such well-known
scapegrace; the disquiet of young
girl when they hint to her that her
| lover is generally believed to be deep
ly in debt, OF when they repeat to her
some remark of his which they know
she is likely to think shocking" and
the annoyance visible in the face of a
sensitive man when they retail some
careless and uncomplimentary remark
made about him by some one whose
good opinion he values-all these to-
kens of suffering cause them positive
pleasure. The terror which these
| people inspire among their neighbors
| gives them a sense of power, and af-
| fords them some compensation Tor the
neglect of men, the condescending airs
of mothers and wives, the sickening
frivolity of the young, the impudenee
of officials, the tyranny OF cabmen,
and all the other real or fancied inju-
ries of society. Every London coterie
! and every country village numbers at
| least one of these harpies; and man
! who cannot reckon one of them among
his own near kinswomen may think
himself fortunate. "Es muss auch
solch Kause geben." But these are
harm and inflict suffering by their
1 Lah % htahh,nr $40 hlah " hr
johnson says, usually implies rather
it may be used in either sense" The
fmajority of women blab, not from
| malice. but, as somebody is said to
have whistled, from want of thought.
| And probably quite as much pain and
annoyance is caused by thouehtless-
ness as by treacherous blabbing. In
| this, the truest sense of the word,
every fifth or sixth woman in society
is blab. Two elementary principles
of social well-being are more or less
Systematically violated by numbers of
women in society. One of these prin-
| ciples is that the1e are many things
which, though not in the strict sense
| of the word secrets, should not be re
| peated. The other is that there are
some persons to whom certain things,
not secrets, should not be repeated.
| Both these principles are comprised
| under the more general maxim that
| the sayings and doings of friends are
not common property. And both of
them are. to the infinite misery and
| discomfort of society, neglected by the
blab.
The common blab-that is to say,
every fifth woman in society-pro-
ceeds upon the principle that whatever
has not been communicated to her as
solemn secret" she is at perfect
liberty to communicate to another.
Not only does she think it perfectly
| lawful to communicate to her friend
of Tuesday whatever happens to have
been said or done by her friend of
Monday, but she looks upon this lib
erty as q kind of natural right, and
resents the notion of putting any re-
straint upon herself In such a matter.
How sensitive you men are she
cries, whenever any one after a picnic,
water party, or any other day of
pleasure-when perhaps many un-
guarded words have been spoken, and
some unprecedented deeds have been
done-ventures to suggest that it will
not add to the day S enjoyment to be
continually talking about it all next
week. At the close of any successful
day of this kind, when women have
been of the party, and when the usual
remark is made that I'VE have had a
perfect day. the reply that naturally
occurs Is. Yes, if we might never