The Portland daily press., 1880-12-30
PRICE 8 CENTS.

ding about Allentown, and the respectable
citizens son remembered that be used to share
his candy and fruit with "Sadie" when they
went to Sunday school together, and other
persons remembered the girls when they at
tended the common schools, and remembered
their nine brothers and sisters and their father
and mother, and great deal besides, which
they would now be thankful to have their
neighbors forget, for the Allentown Bern
hardts deny the whole story, punish the orig
inators of it, and leave those who have con-
firmed it and embelished it with details with
out any visible means Of moral support
1t is very pitiful, very small and very con-
temptible, but is there not a lesson in III? Has
the readiness with which this little story was
received, the celerity with which it was mag
niied, the quickness with which it was spread
abroad, nothing akin to the manner in which
everything to the discredit of its heroine has
been welcomed by the gossips?
If respectable citizens give aid and COM
fort to falsehood, it is too much TO believe that
woman who has rivals and enemies who are
by no means respectable citizens, and who
have motives thousand-fold stronger than the
silly desire OF self-glorifcation, may have been
belied now and then? The history of Bern
hardt, the woman, does not concern the pub
lie; but is 1t not possible that as it stands it is
fairer than that of those whose own accounts
are darkened by the accusations which they
bring against her, although otherwise they may
be stainless
Furthermore, may not this hibiscus OF Con-
necticut scandal, as its petals futter to the
earth after their brief blooming. time, read d
sermon to those who are beginning to cry out
for "the truth about George Eliot" meaning
thereby the scandal, the petty details of her
history? Was there not enough Of this detest-
able prying into the lives of the Bronte sisters
to disgust every creature with a human heart,
that the life of one who was greater than they
must be subjected to the Shiny touch of those
who were not worthy to look upon her? Is it
necessary because women without brains
enough to appreciate their own likeness to
Rosamond Vincy demand it, because it Is de-
manded by men whose apologies for souls are
overfowing with envy of the woman who
surpassed them, to tell the story over and
over again? 1t is not sin the interes. of NOR
ais" to do 30, as some of the would-be scandal
mongers plead, for George Eliot and her books
nave no more moral connection than carpen-
ter and the work of his hands. 1t is not in the
interest OF reIiglon, unless there be some creed
which enjoins the consideration and confess
sion OF the faults of other persons; and it is
not in the interest Of society, for George Eliot
never mingled with 1t in life, and is now be-
| yond its jurisdiction. Upon the whole, can
we not make up our minds to take the books
| which she has left us, thankfully and grate-
fully acknowledging that it was great genius
that was with US for many years, and showing
our gratitude and thankfulness by leaving her
| life in the obscurity in which she herself
chose to involve 1t? While living she asked
! for no ones sympathy; brayely she fought her
| fight and skilfully she used each weapon of
her armory, and now, as she lies dead. let her
be treated with all honor, and let no profaning
hand raise her visor to see the face beneath,
away the ghouls who will hover about her
| grave, eager to tear her thence and feast upon
her heart as they have fed upon Shakspeares
Keatss and Shelley's.