A General Mistake

One is very apt to take much to be particular in the relation of ethers to himself that after all. is only general. Almost alway, people will use you just as they use others. One who comes to you with slanderous stories, robbing women of their reputation and men of their honor, will not save her praises to couple with your name. You may be chaste as ice and pure as snow, and you shall not escape calumny from her tongue. She may Matter you, but close the doors of your heart against her ; she is dangerous. A girl who has jilted many men will deceive the one who fancies he has "cut the others out," whenever she gets ready to do so. The man who behaves badly to one woman will continue to behave badly to all women to the end of the chapter. Il is the nature of the creature, and that cannot be changed by any trust or goodness on the part of others. Watch your pocket when a thief is near ; expect to be tricked by a trickster and eheated by a rogue ; but let no suspicion fall on one who, in his relation to others, has proved himself true, honorable, good and noble, because you have expected of ignoble natures what they never had to give. F rom the branches of a crab-apple tree people gather crab apples ; nothing else. You would laugh at one who wept because the tree gave him nothing sweet; but which of us has not at some time vainly expected some human crab-apple, knotted, crooked and bitter to the core, to yield the golden fruit of Ilesperides for us only. We didnotknow it was a crab-apple, perhaps. There was our grand mistake. We are more careful what we plant in our orchards than what we plant in our lives. We should make sureof the nature of the man or wojaan with whom we intend to have much to do.