nature to that openly alleged, fail not, as you value everything that is just and equitable in the conduct of one human being towards another—fail not to appeal directly to the injured party, so as to allow her an opportunity of exculpating, or at least of excusing, herself.
If this had but been done in one instance out of a thousand, where slander has scattered her poison upon the foundation of human love, what a different position would woman now maintain in the scale of moral excellence. How much of real good the hand of friendship might by this means have drawn out from seeming evil; how many a wounded bosom the balm of friendship might have healed; how many of those who are now lonely and unloved might have been linked together in the endearing fellowship of mutual affection!
People talk as if the worst thing that could happen to us, was to be deceived; they dare not be generous, they dare not trust, because they should thereby incur the risk of being deceived. That this theory may very properly be acted upon in business, I am quite disposed to allow; but if in friendship there is no other alternative than to listen to injurious rumour, to lean to the side of suspicion, and to believe the first report against a friend; let me rather be deceived a thousand times, for then I shall at least enjoy the consciousness of having known what it was to trust, as well as love.
Friendship has many trials. Though vanity and selfishness are at the root of many of these, they are for the most part too minute, and apparently too trifling, for description. Perhaps the greatest of these arises out of the undue value attached by women to the general attentions of men. For the assistance, the protection, and the disinterested kindness of the other sex, all women ought to be deeply grateful; but for those common attentions which good breeding
