Mary is in Trê-Madoc workhouse; they treat her pretty kindly, and in general she is good and tractable. Occasionally the old paroxysms come on; and for a time she is unmanageable. But some one thought of speaking to her about Nest. She stood arrested at the name; and since then, it is astonishing to see what efforts she makes to curb her insanity; and when the dread time is past, she creeps up to the matron, and says, "Mary has tried to be good. Will God let her go to Nest now?"
THE YOUNG MAN'S COUNSELOR.
GENERAL CONDUCT.
Move with the multitude in the common walks of life, and you will be unnoticed in the throng; but break from them, pursue a different path, and every eye, perhaps with reproach, will be turned toward you. What is the rule to be observed in general conduct? Conform to every innocent custom as our social nature requires, but refuse compliance with whatever is inconsistent with propriety, decency, and the moral duties; and dare to be singular in honor and virtue.
In conversation, truth does not require you to utter all your thoughts, yet it forbids you to speak in opposition to them. To open the mind to unreserved communication, is imbecility; to cover it with a vail, to dissever its internal workings from its external manifestations, is dissimulation and falsehood. The concordance of the thoughts, words, and deeds, is the essence of truth, and the ornament of character.
A man who has an opportunity to ruin a rival, with whom he is at enmity, without public dishonor, and yet generously forbears, nay, converts the opportunity into a disinterested benefit, evinces a noble instance of virtuous magnanimity. He conquers his own enmity, the most glorious of all conquests, and overcomes the enmity of a rival by the most heroic and praiseworthy mode of retaliation.
As to an evil report of a neighbor, the opinion of the frivolous is lightly regarded, the calumny of the known slanderer is discredited by all who venerate truth, and the character of the known liar is a sufficient antidote to falsehood. A respectable man, in his good name, offers a guarantee for his veracity; and, impressed with the benevolent affections and the love of justice, he is scrupulous to believe an evil report, and still more so to repeat it.
As a rill from a fountain increases as it flows, rises into a stream, swells into a river, so symbolically are the origin and course of a good name. At first, its beginning is small: it takes its rise from home, its natural source, extends to the neighborhood, stretches through the community, and finally takes a range proportioned to the qualities by which it is supported—its talents, virtue, and usefulness, the surest basis of an honorable reputation.
The relatives and kindred of a young man, by a natural process, communicate his amiable and opening character to a wider circle than that of home. His associates and friends extend the circle, and thus it widens till its circumference embraces a portion more or less of society, and his character places him in the class of respectable men. With good principles and conduct, neither envy nor malice can intercept the result of this progressive series; without good principles and conduct, no art or dissimulation can realize the noblest aim of a social being—a well-founded reputation.