A Good Word For Gossip

Kfóni Úarpor'8 Buzar. Scandal, slander, gtlssip; tittle-tnttlo - bard naincs all. And rough usage dealers in such wares roccive at the hands of the theoriste. Bnt are tho little imps quito as blaok as they aro paintod P Hunianity, as it Hos under onr observation, exists in tbree layers. The first ís tho superficially politc ariu smiling ono. Thé neighbors cali on you, and you return their calis. You meet them in thn street and at church. All is oivility, kindness and good-fellowship. Th at is layer one. Then you fuil in business, your lover jilts you, you quarrel with your wii'o, your son is rusticated at college, and the wli oio world timis glad nhd inalignant, and the air is darkened with the cloud of bad, falso, harsh rumors. No wonder yoii failed in business ! You have been living extravagantly these firo years-, with jiurplo and fine linen and sumptuous faro, wine and oquipage, endless entcrtuinniciit., and a house full of servants - tor to sucli dimensions swolls your modest ménage under the magnif yingglass of your excited neighbors. Yöur j'ltjng lover has ever been a reluctant wooer ; your wife you have abused sinco the first year of your marriage ; and the trouble with your son is that he mado himself vile and you restrained him not, and now he has killed a man, and is hi'ding from the authorities with a prico set upon bis head. This is layer uumber two ; and you are ready to rent a lodge iú some vast wilderness, whero you may be free from the sight of a malieious, evilspeaking people, thatrejoicesin itsneighbor's misfortunes. But give your anger another twist, and you will have penetrated quite through this bed of mire, and como into another stratum, clean and wholesome, and purer and finer far than anything you have yet found. When a trouble comes whose source can be never so faintly traced back to your own inisdoing, your frionds, it must be confessed, are a little hard on you. No wonder your wifo lot't you ; you have always been mean and tyrannical. No wonder your son has come to grief ; you always gave him his own head. The gludness at your troüble was not pure malice, but somewhat an intellectual appreciation of the inexorableness of law. There is a sort of poetic justico in the succession of causo and consequence whicb. never fails to givc pleasure except to the persons who illustra'te it. But let your son be brought homo to you beaten by. a burglar to the point of danger, if not death, be yoursolf stricken with illness, or let your property be endangered by a nre m the vicinity, and cvery hand is stretched out to help you. The very persons who would bc the first to look askance upon yoiir unwarrantod oxponditure will bc instant, in season and out of season, for your solace and your relief. Thcy will run to fetch the doctor for you at any hour of the day or night. They will watch day after day by your sickbcd, wil] straiu their ingenuity to invent soine ippctizing dish for your dullcd tasto, will count no service too severe, no ásssíssz j%. &$& róeí thought and attention to the rccovery of your health. When your house is thrcatened, thcy will exert evuvy effort to save it. They will put forth preoisoly as much effort to rescue your furniture from the flamea as if it were their own ; and when, after all, your house is stripped and not burnod, they will come back next day, and replaoe your goods as heartily and as thoroughly as they snatched them off. Nor can you help a eertain clutching at the throat, an unsteadiness about the mouth, a mist in the oyes, a pressure at the heart, when you think of this wonderful brothorhood of humanity- thiri unspoken, all-helpful sympathy. This is layer iiuinber three, and however deep down you go you will find nothing deeper to neutralizo it. We often froight words with a hcavier meaning than they wen neattt to beati We give to expressed disapprobation a disproportionate wcight. We are always trying to repress gossip, and never to fortify society against it. We write stories showing how lovely wonian was brought to her grave by careless rumor, but we never show how foolish it was in the lovely woman to make a grave matter of careless rumor We are always training the tongue, but we ncvcr train the car. "If you would nlways lo discreet, Five thinps observe uitb care - Of whom you snenk, to ivhom yon speak, And how, and when, and where." says Sir Mentor, nnd fancies lio has scttled tho whole matter ; but, if it is all tho samo to you, Sir Mentor, we would a great deal rather not bo discreet than pay sucli a pricc for diseretion. Conversation would bo a very livcly and piquant exercise, picketed around with these five points of Calvinisni ! A far botter way is to estímate gossip at ite real worth. A great deal that passes for scandal is but an intellectual exercise, petty for want of something largor, but sufficiently innocent. Malice, willful falsehood, carelessness of truth, design to injurc?, are útiïnitigatedly bad, and ouht to banish tlicir proprietors frohi society ; but curiosity - a fondness for story-telling and story-hearing - raay be only one form of mental activity, and entirely consistent with great good will. Let U8 givo in to it with what grace we may - when we have guardod ourselves against it as far as we can. You do not in the least pare how many har.dkerchiefs your neighbor has ; but if it gratines her to know how many you have, let her count them on the olotlies-line if shc likes. And if she thinks there are more than an economical person ought to have, and expresses her opinión in the vicinity, what harm is done 'i You need not fling it at her next time you see her, and nmke her unc.imfortable. It is not nooessary that cvorybody should npprove us in every respect before wa oan be on good terms with thein. l'eople may coridemn half the traite of our charaeter and Vet find nñough in tho other lialf to ihsure friendly feeling and friendly domeaiior. And half a loaf is so much bettcr than sour bread !