Home Lights and ShadowsArthur, T. S. (Timothy Shay)
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Home Lights and Shadows
Arthur, T. S. (Timothy Shay)
American fiction -- 19th century; Domestic fiction; Short stories
Mrs. Tarleton was both hurt and offended at this, and immediately
after the party, commenced talking about it and mis-stating the
whole transaction, so as not to appear so much to blame as she
really was. Mrs. Bates, on the contrary, said little on the subject,
except to a few very intimate friends, and to those who made free to
ask her about it, to whom she said, after giving fairly the cause of
complaint against Mrs. Tarleton--"I spoke to her coldly because I
wished our more intimate acquaintance to cease. Her conduct was
unworthy of a lady, and therefore I cannot and will not consider her
among my friends. No apologies, if she would even make them, could
change the wrong spirit from which she acted, or make her any more
worthy of my confidence, esteem or love."
"But you will surely forgive her?" said one.
"The wrong done to me I am ready enough to forgive, for it is but a
trifling matter; but the violation of confidence and departure from
a truly honest principle, of which she has been guilty, I cannot
forgive, for they are not sins against me, but against Heaven's
first and best laws."
But that did not satisfy some. Persons calling themselves mutual
friends strove hard to reconcile what they were pleased to call a
misunderstanding in which "both were to blame." But it availed not.
To their interference, Mrs. Bates usually replied--"If it will be
any satisfaction to Mrs. Tarleton to be recognized by me and treated
kindly and politely in company, I will most cheerfully yield her all
that; but I cannot feel towards her as heretofore, because I have
been deceived in her, and find her to be governed by principles that
I cannot approve. We can never again be on terms of intimacy."
But it was impossible to make some understand the difference between
acting from principle and wounded pride. The version given by Mrs.
Tarleton was variously modified as it passed from mouth to mouth,
until it made Mrs. Bates almost as much to blame as herself, and
finally, as the coldness continued until all intercourse at last
ceased, it was pretty generally conceded, except by a very few, that
"both were about equally to blame."
The reader can now make up his own mind on the subject from what has
been related. For our part, we do not think Mrs. Bates at all to
blame in at once withdrawing herself from intimate association with
such a woman as Mrs. Tarleton showed herself to be, and we consider
that a false charity which would seek to interfere with or set aside
the honest indignation that should always be felt in similar cases
of open betrayal of confidence and violation of honest and honorable
principles.
We have chosen a very simple and commonplace incident upon which to
"hang a moral."--But it is in the ordinary pursuits of business and
pleasure where the true character is most prone to exhibit itself,
and we must go there if we would read the book of human life aright.
IT'S NONE OF MY BUSINESS.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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