, 1886-07-15
A CURE FOR ISLANDER.


Tho Quickest and surest Way to Heal I.
Damaged Rcputation-To Pessimists-
If you're Arid of whatever common
report may say of you and fly from it,
common report will fly after you; if you
take refuge in a hole and therein bury
yourself, it will follow you to that hole.
If you keep the disgrace and stain in
your reputation always in your mind,
the world will always keep the same in
its mind. If you drop 1t out of your mind
the world will forget it also. If you keep
sending out thought of what some may
call your "infamy,- the world will keep
getting that thought. eau thought
is a live element always going out from
mind and acting on other minds. L
know two or three men in New York
who have in the past gained anything
but what the world calls clean reputa-
tions.r But they go where they please,
hob with the first-class clergy, and mob
with the pillars of church and state.
Why? Because they march straight up
to society and say in manner, Il demand
that you receive me-" They conform
outwardly to society's usages, wear good
clothes and good manners, pay their
debts and make themselves necessary
and useful.
Now, the world, which is disposed to
rake up any man or woman's past, will
forget that man or woman's past about
as fast as that man or woman set to
work, forget it themselves, pitch into the
current of events and make themselves
another mar or
We who have been scandalized have
in this business been making a great mis-
take for n long time. We've thought too
much about our own disgrace. We've
mouthed it over too much to others.
We've remembered it too much. We've
talked it to others too much. We've
kept the thing alive in our words and
thought. We should have killed it by
forgetting all about it. We could have
killed it by forgetting it. All the time
we have spent in so talking and think
ing about it represents just 80 much of
our force put out to hurt ourselves.
Thought is force. Think anything and
you send that thing elsewhere out in the
air. 1t travels and puts itself in other
minds. There is no such secrecy in
thought as people have imagined. What
you think others feel.
Scandal-mongering would die if there
was none to listen to it. When you talk
to yourself of the scandal attached to
your own name you are listening to a
scandal. You are helping, then to keep
the scandal afloat. Show me a man or
woman who will keep on talking about
what some one else has said of them, be
the same true or false, and l will show
you a man or woman who loves to dab
BILE more or less in scandal or some form
of tattle about others. / know this, be-
cause / found it out in and through my
self. l did once love not exactly to scan
dalize my friends out and out, but still
to pick little holes in their regulations,
on the plea to myself that it meant only
the discussion of their natures. It's a
a dangerous amusement. l love it now
to an extent and wish didn't. A woman
who is always annoyed at what people
are saying about her and running after
people who say it and mailing lies" and
liars or the people whom she says are
liars. does nothing but resurrect and re-
resurrect the corpse of the scandal and
keep it alive. 1t is not the world that
persecutes her; it is she who persecutes
herself and the world. This matter of
tongue persecution ryssa- 70 be put on
another basis. We'yp had the cart be-
fore the horse. We've been saying that
the world was picl2ng at u reputa-
lions, when <nan ...-- picking
has been done by ourselves in keeping
the trouble alive and kicking in our own
minds.-Prentice milford in San Fran
cisco Chronicle.