may be accepted he brings little or nothing to the general fund. So they chatter.
D. Julian. By no means. You are raving.
Ernest. I beg to contradict you.
D. Julian. Then give me a name.
Ernest. Sir
D. Julian. One will do.
Ernest. There is one at hand—upstairs.
D. Julian. Name him.
Ernest. Don Severo.
D. Julian. My brother?
Ernest. Exactly, your brother? Will that suffice? or shall we add his respected wife, Doña Mercedes? and Pepito, their son? What have you to say then?
D. Julian. That Severo is a fool, Mercedes an idle chatterer, and the lad a puppy.
Ernest. They only repeat what they hear.
D. Julian. It is not true. This is false reasoning. Between gentlemen, when the intention is honourable, what can the opinion of the world really matter? The meaner it is, the loftier our disdain of it.
Ernest. 'Tis nobly said, and is what all well-bred men feel. But I have been taught that gossip, whether inspired by malice or not, which is according to each one's natural tendency, begins in a lie and generally ends in truth. Does gossip, as it grows, disclose the hidden sin? Is it a reflex of the past, or does it invent evil and give it existence? Does it set its accursed seal upon an existent fault, or merely breed that which was yet not, and furnish the occasion for wrong? Should we
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