No one will ever hear it publicly alluded to,
and assuredly they will never hear it uttered in slanderous
vituperation of the absent party. I may be permitted here to narrate an
incident illustrative of this peculiarity.
A gentleman, knowing of a dissension between two parties, was dining
with one of them, in company with several others. This guest spoke to
the hostess disparagingly of the enemy of her husband, who, hearing the
remark, rebuked his officious guest by remarking to him: "Doctor, my
lady and myself would prefer to find out the foibles and sins of our
neighbors ourselves." The rebuke was effectual, and informed the
doctor, who was new in the country, of an honorable feeling in the
refined population of the land of his adoption alien to that of his
birth, and which he felt made these people the superior of all he had
ever known.
No one has ever travelled upon one of those palatial steamers abounding
on the Mississippi, in the spring season of the year, when the waters
swell to the tops of the levees, lifting the steamer above the level of
the great fields of sugar-cane stretching away for miles to the forest
on either bank of that mighty river, who has not been delighted with
the lovely homes, surrounded with grounds highly cultivated and most
beautifully ornamented with trees, shrubs, and flowers, which come upon
the view in constant and quick succession, as he is borne onward
rapidly along the accumulated waters of the great river.
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