D. Julian. Name him.
Ernest. Don Severo.
D. Julian. My brother?
Ernest. Exactly, your brother? Will that suffice? or shall we add his respected wife, Doña Mercedes? and Pepito, their son? What have you to say then?
D. Julian. That Severo is a fool, Mercedes an idle chatterer, and the lad a puppy.
Ernest. They only repeat what they hear.
D. Julian. It is not true. This is false reasoning. Between gentlemen, when the intention is honourable, what can the opinion of the world really matter? The meaner it is, the loftier our disdain of it.
Ernest. 'Tis nobly said, and is what all well-bred men feel. But I have been taught that gossip, whether inspired by malice or not, which is according to each one's natural tendency, begins in a lie and generally ends in truth. Does gossip, as it grows, disclose the hidden sin? Is it a reflex of the past, or does it invent evil and give it existence? Does it set its accursed seal upon an existent fault, or merely breed that which was yet not, and furnish the occasion for wrong? Should we call the slanderer infamous or severe? the accomplice or the divulger? the public avenger or the tempter? Does he arrest or precipitate our fall? wound through taste or duty? and when he condemns, is it from justice or from spite? Perhaps both, Don Julian. Who can say? though time, occasion, and facts may show.
D. Julian. See here, Ernest, I don't understand an iota of all this philosophising. I presume 'tis on such nonsense you waste your intelligence. But I don't want you to be vexed or worried. It's true—you really wish for austere independence, to stand alone at a post of honour?
Ernest. Don Julian!