These
people were from the eastward, and had fallen into the old error of
Americans, that the south of France and Italy had residences far more
favourable for such a disease, than our own country. This was one of
the provincial notions of the day, that were entailed on us by means
of colonial dependency. I suppose the colonial existence is as
necessary to a people, as childhood and adolescence are to the man;
but, as my Lady Mary Wortley Montagu told her friend, Lady Rich--"Nay;
but look you, my dear madam, I grant it a very fine thing to continue
always fifteen; _that_, everybody must approve of--it is quite
fair: but, indeed, indeed, one need not be five years old."
I was prevailed on to take these passengers, and I got a specimen of
their characters even as we dropped down the bay, in the midst of the
agreeable scene to which I have just alluded. They were
_gossips_; and that, too, of the lowest, or personal
cast. Nothing made them so happy as to be talking of the private
concerns of their fellow-creatures; and, as ever must happen where
this propensity exists, nine-tenths of what they said rested on no
better foundation than surmises, inferences drawn from premises of
questionable accuracy, and judgments that were entered up without the
authority, or even the inclination, to examine witnesses.
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