THEY SAY.
Do they, indeed; and who are they? What is this tyrant which ruins so much private peace and public fame? They say that Deacon Dodder was seen coming home late Saturday night in such a state! Drunk? Oh, I don’t know. I am sure I know nothing; but they do say that he was about the crankest man in town that evening. They say that his wife was sitting at home crying her eyes out. Poor thing! and only married last June. It’s really dreadful! They say she wishes she had never been married; and that her uncle Timothy vows lie will never give her a cent, because they say that his cousin Joshua heard him say that he had no money to spare to buy grog for Deacon Dodder.
Poor Deacon Dodder! who all this time is just as honest and sober a man as Cousin Joshua, or Uncle Timothy, or any body else; and against whom They Say has leveled his darts because he chances to be the most convenient target.
The French tell the truth about They Say. The French have a proverb that They Say is a liar; and the French are right. This sly, malicious, insidious snake, that crawls and squirms all over fair fames and pure characters, he is a liar, and the father of lies. Of course he is perfectly irresponsible. What They Say does its work, whether you find it to be true or untrue. You may prove Deacon Dodder to be, and to have been always, the most sober and honest of men. But the air tainted by They Say is poisoned air, and whoever has breathed it, though but for a moment, has breathed death. The bride weeping for her dead husband may dry her eyes when she finds him living; but you can not dry the tears that have been shed. The child, frightened at night, may be comforted and his fears removed; but who shall console the terrors that shook him before the succor came? They Say may be proved the blackest of liars, but the proof does not blunt the point of the sting which is forever resharpened.
Don’t suffer him in your house. Don’t give him the hospitality of your conversation. If any body tries to introduce They Say, insist upon discovering if he knows what he is doing. Whatever is told you upon the authority of They Say reject at once—or, better still, cling to it, and show how false and futile it is. For, even if the thing be true, you will be sure to find it untruly told—sure to find it so grinning all over with suspicion and malignity as to be another thing altogether.
If a man lived in a tower over a beautiful city swarming with busy men and women, and teeming with lovely children, and night and day, in his lofty tower, he were distilling poison from marsh flowers and garden vegetables and noble trees, which he secretly infused into the air, and, by his wicked machinery, drove into the streets and houses, so that the people breathed the corruption, and slowly and mysteriously withered and died, what a criminal the man would be—how he would be scorned through history! Yet everybody who gives aid and comfort to They Say, by repeating his stories, is really helping that poisoner in the lofty tower—is really distilling death for the busy men and women and the lovely children. They Say is a mask from behind which envy and jealousy stab. It is a secret mine which is lighted by a slow match from a distance, and explodes only after the criminal who puts the fire to it has escaped. “They Say” is an anonymous letter, spoken, not written.