We have put on a foolish look of consent and compromise. We join
with our new mate in extolling the wrong-doer who has inflicted him upon
us. We dare not analyze the base alloy of the composition he conveys,
which pretends to be pure gold. We must either act falsely ourselves, or
charge falsehood upon others. We prefer the guilt to seeming unkindness;
when, if we were perfectly good and wise, we should shake off the coil
of deception, refuse insincere favors, and, however infinite and
overflowing our benevolence, insist on doing, in any case, only willing
and authentic good,--for affection is too noble to be feigned. "If,"
said Ole Bull, "I kiss my enemy, what have I left for my friend?" We
must forgive and love our enemies and all men, and show our love by
treating them without dissimulation, but a sublime openness, according
to their needs and deserts.
The male or female adventurers, launching with their bag of letters for
all their merchandise on the social sea, understand well the potent
value, beyond bills of exchange, of the sheets they bear. They may have
taken them as an equivalent for some service they have rendered, in
discharge of some actual or apparent obligation in the great market
limited to no quarter of our towns and no description of articles, but
running through every section of human life.
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