Daily globe. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1878-1884, 1881-01-23
BETWEEN OURSELVES.

needed than almsgving. 1t Is
more honored in the breach
than in the observance. In its observ-
ance there is occasionally selfish prudential
motive which binders the timely plain speak
ing that would be warning to the unwary,
who are apt to be ensnared in many ways, be-
cause those who should have given them an
opportune hint, held their peace through fear
of unpleasantness to themselves.
This course simplifies the dilemma by
bringing fewer persons into any disagreeable
discovery, when the trusted ones prove treach-
erous and are found out through your own
dear experience. The clearsighted prescience
which could have saved you from quite such a
grieyous loss of faith in the honesty and truth
of humanity was silent. If you saw another
walking into pitfall unconsciously the first
| impulse would naturally be to pull him back
This would seem to hold good only of physi-
cal danger. The harm from injudicious friend
ship, association, and investment is seldom
pointed out, partly through the cowardice
which considers it none-of my business, or the
charity which will not open its lips for fear of
scandalizing any one.
Pontius PLATE washing his hands of out
spokenness in his jurisdiction, is a pitiful
fgure-drawn to truth and a merciful inter-
position on one hand, and decisive tacit de-
| ference to the popular voice on the other.
Silence in most matters concerning our
! neighbor is golden, but there is recticence
which is culpable when it leaves that neighbor
in ignorance of what will be prejudicial to him
| in his business and social intercourse
he would be amenable to friendly caution.
There is always set of wrong heads who
are generally bound to see it out for them
solves, and these are the persons who are al
ways having disastrous experiences, "-recu-
perating only to go at it again in some other
direction, or rising from the downfall OF hope
and credulity embittered enough to be conser-
vative in some enterprises for the rest of their
lives.
The suppression OF the truth may be an ad-
vantage in the way of experience to those not
gifted with the insight of character. This
reticence at the right time for speech
creates half the complications in
| daily life, and furnishes the sensational plots
| for the stage. From dramatic point of view,
reticence at certain junctures is o wondrous
help in creating the perplexities SO necessary
| to a narrowing situation.
| There is much annoyance and humiliation
| ayerted by the cautionary signals of speech.
| When you are given TO understand that Mrs.
Monfathers never spoke the truth in her life,
| and is incapable, through some moral perVer-
sion, of correctly reporting any one, it is well
= T. ~
| might irnpel you to say things which the
| lady would convert into boomerangs. Apol-
ogists for Mrs. Monfathers will attempt to
explain her untruthfulness and its results, just
| as they do moral insanity, kleptomania, color
| blindness, and the modern inability to spell.
For the poor and common herd, these fine
pleas never obtain worth cent. Moral insan-
ity is plain, unvarnished and accountable
| wrong doing among them. Kleptomania is
vulger stealing, and bad spelling-is bad spell
| ing. To excuse them we are not told that
| photography is an inborn gift.
Their deficiency is laughable, and
| excludes them from ''genteer' consideration.
| Bless the Lord no such specious excuses
were necessary for old fashioned people, nor
| for those they reared.
suggestion in time may save the uniniti-
ated from the Monfathers moral insanity in
| the matter of veracity.
| No ordinary experts could pronounce upon
it. You remember the story of Rappacini's
| daughter by Hawthorne. IT'S the story of
| Mrs. Monfathers-in prosaic measure. She
is sweet, but deadly.
As some persons are the most deceitful when
| they are excessively polite, so is this dear
| woman at her worst when she looks and acts
| her best, because she is sweet and plausible,
and refined
| A minister once summed up the gentle Mon
| fathers with succinctness that proved he
knew what he was talking about; and it has
| always been vague wonderinent in what es-
| pecial manner the result was forced on him.
CAT first" said the parson, "you like her very
much. The second time you see her, you are
doubtful-if not altogether uneasy-ard you
modify first enthusiasm considerably. The
| third time you dislike her and you are cured
beyond any possibility of relapse"
Would you care 10 leave any
one you value to come under
the noxious spell you remember 10 your cost?
If you are especially charitable an intimation
from Thomas a Kempis: Be not an intimate
of any Woman-but above all larry sparingly
in the presence of MonAathers Should you
| accept no compromise between charity and
glozing, there will be brusque assertion of
danger.
With many IT'S point of honor to take no
hearsay about people, but find them out, and
judge them for ourselves. While this is COM
mendable in general way, it is occasionally
indiscreet-on the principle that it isn't al
ways safe to venture where the bills OF health
are not regularly good. Loyalty to friends in
some stress of fate, where Misrepresentation
and accusation make havoc with good opinion
is precious, but going out of your way to make
gangrene, dry rot, and leprosy seem good to
consort with and indorse, is un&dvisable, to
put it mildly.
And yet we'do it right along, unmindful of
our warning instinct at times, and of the
thoughtful remonstrances of well-wishers at
others. We are not conscious that our al
legiance is questionable, until we are caught
by our own tenacity having a wholesome re-
bound.
Twill have its value, if the lesson is fully
rubbed in-in self distrust and humiliation.