Page:The World's Famous Orations Volume 7.djvu/108

 THE WORLD'S FAMOUS ORATIONS ; that even its praises are empoisoned, its applauses malicious, its silence criminal; its gestures, motions, and looks have all their venom, and spread it each in their way.

Now the first pretext which authorizes in the world almost all the defamations, and is the cause that our conversations are now continual censures upon our brethren, is the pretended insignificance of the vices we expose to view. We would not wish to tarnish a man of character or ruin his fortune by dishonoring him in the world; to stain the principles of a woman's conduct by entering into the essential points of it—that would be too infamous and mean; but upon a thousand faults which lead our judgment to believe them capable of all the rest; to inspire the minds of those who listen to us with a thousand suspicions which point out what we dare not say; to make satirical remarks which discover a mystery, where no person before had perceived the least intention of concealment; by poisonous interpretations to give an air of ridicule to manners which had hitherto escaped observation: to let everything, on certain points, be clearly understood, while protesting that they are incapable themselves of cunning or deceit, is what the world makes little scruples of; and tho the motives, the circumstances, and the effects of these discourses be highly criminal, yet gaiety and liveliness excuse their malignity, to those who listen to us, and even conceal from ourselves their atrocity.