At
Clawbonny, we had our gossip too, but it was innocent, seldom
infringed much on the truth, and usually respected the right of every
person to possess certain secrets that might remain inviolate to the
world. No such rules prevailed with my passengers. Like a certain
editor of a newspaper of my acquaintance, who acts as if he fancied
all things in heaven and earth were created expressly to furnish
materials for "paragraphs," they appeared to think that everybody of
their acquaintance existed for no other purpose than to furnish them
food for conversation. There must have been some unusual cause for so
much personal _espionnage_, and, at length, I came to the
following conclusion on the subject. I had heard that church
government, among the puritans, descended into all the details of
life; that it was a part of their religious duty to watch over each
other, jog the memories of the delinquents, and serve God by ferreting
out vice. This is a terrible inducement to fill the mind with the
motes of a neighbourhood, and the mind thus stowed, as we sailors say,
will be certain to deliver cargo. Then come the institutions, with
their never-ending elections, and the construction that has been put
on the right of the elector to inquire into all things; the whole
consummated by the journals, who assume a power to penetrate the
closet, ay, even the heart,--and lay bare its secrets.
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