Again and again.
Tells the story of grief and pain,
Which the mellow-hearted reader hears.
INGRATITUDE
Ingratitude is the crime of weak, inferior intellects. The man who will eagerly accept favors of another, and not feel grateful towards the donor afterwards, displays the coarse inferiority of the brute. The savages and barbarians are noted for their spirit of gratitude. They never forget a kindness. The genuine superlative ingrate is generally the spectacular white man. The man in whom vanity and self-interest predominates all the finer feelings of the soul.
Very often he is a self-sainted molder of public opinion, standing high in the church and political circles, with an inordinate appetite for public position where he can be observed by the passing world. He is the self-stuffed hypocrite who pretends to love humanity—for the profit it will bring him.
I have in my mind a parasitical vampire in human form who had a friend moving in political circles where railroad passes where supposed to be gifts of friendship. This was before the anti-free pass law came into effect. The parasite begged his friend to secure a pass for him, and it was secured and given to him, midst a shower of profound thanks and pledges of eternal gratefulness. The pass was used to a gluttonous extent, and renewed at its expiration, and again accepted with many obsequious bows and renewed pledges of everlasting friendship.
A few years ago the friend died, and his relatives expected words of kindly remembrance from the parasite. Even the dead man’s enemies spoke kindly of him after death had silenced his tongue and put the eternal chill upon his warm heart. It is one feature of our higher civilization to always speak well of the dead—to overlook the dead man’s faults and remember only his good qualities. To spurn the dead body of one’s fellow man is considered cowardly, dastardly and inhuman. But when a supposed friend turns on the body of one whom he made a victim of his hypocrisy and deceit while living, and stings the dead with the venom of a treacherous viper, the world looks on and blushes for very shame.
This was the case with the parasite I have referred to. No sooner had the breath left the body of the man who had so often befriended him, than he began circulating stories that told how corrupt his dead friend had always been during life.