Insider

“ This, my dear Heltzendorff, has shown me that you may with advantage use a woman of whatever age as your catspaw, your secret agent, your bait when angling for important information, or your go-between in secret transactions; but never trust one with knowledge of your own personal affairs. ”

“ My friends have behaved well to me in every instance but one, and there they have become tattlers, and inquisitors into my conduct: spying upon a secret I would rather die than share it with anybody’s confidence. ”

“ I will not trespass on my reader's patience with the details of my journey, nor ask him to form acquaintance with any of those pleasant travelling companions whose whims, caprices, and merry fancies lightened the road. The company of a diligence is a little world in all its features of selfishness, apathy, trustfulness, credulity, and unbelief. It has its mock humilities and absurd pretensions even more glaringly displayed than every-day life exhibits them. ”

“ I not only watch the heads of firms, I watch their trusted assistants and confidential men. In that big safe a thousand secrets lie locked whose revelation would furnish matter enough to run the yellow journals for the next five years. ”

“ If I leave the subject here, a thousand conjectures will at once seize upon you, and my name if not hers will become, before I know it, the football of gossip if not of worse and deeper suspicion than has yet assailed me. Gentleman I take you to be honest men ”

“ Mere inadvertencies and casual neglects arising from an unavoidable and most complicated confusion in the state of your affairs, have been treated in such language and sentiments, as nothing but the most glaring and premeditated faults could warrant. Groundless informations have, without further scrutiny, borne with you the stamp of truth, though proceeding from those who had therein obviously their own purpose to serve, no matter at whose expense. ”

“ I have so much faith in the power of truth to communicate itself that I should not believe a friend, if he should tell me that he had given credit to an unjust rumor concerning me. Suspect! Ah, yes, you may suspect a thousand things, but I well know that what you suspect most confidently of all is just the truth. ”

“ Every eye was simultaneously bent on his person, as if to inquire into the truth or falsehood of the declaration, with an intelligence and keenness that caused the subject of their scrutiny to tremble for the result. ”

“ It was rather difficult to speak distinctly; my tongue got in the way. But I strove to impress the fool with the idea that I had affairs that must be attended to—that I had private affairs.
"You aren't fit. Let me . . ." ”

“ You have relations, a family, subordinates and superiors; you are under an influence so powerful that you cannot shake it off; but you can always recognize the truth and refuse to tell a lie about it. ”

“ If it be confided to you as a secret that your friend is about to make his maiden speech in the House, you should not even invite your acquaintances to be in their places,—not if secrecy be the first object. ”

“ Can an impartial observer fail to admire their truth to domestic ties, their power of generous bounty and more generous gratitude, their indefatigable good-humor (for ages of wrong which have driven them to so many acts of desperation could never sour their blood at its source) , their ready wit, their elasticity of nature? ”

“ And though I should be loth to seem indiscreet, I must tell you that my friend and I are persons very well worthy to be entrusted with a secret. We have many of our own, which we are continually revealing to improper ears. ”

“ Candidate! you stand before the membership body of the S. B.'s. You are as yet unknown to them and they unknown to you. If you enter the secret association of the S. B.'s you must throw off and despise forever all ties of a like character. Do you agree? ”

“ During all the six years that we have been more like brothers than friends, I have never seen you so much cast down as now, when you are taking the field under the most favourable circumstances, with name, station, reputation, fortune, and with the best reason to believe those true whom you had been taught to suppose false. ”

“ From now on, you should treat every piece of information that emanates from your fingertips as likely to be covered on the evening news and repeated to everyone you’ve ever met. No matter how private you think you’re being, it’ll come out. ”

“ Even under such circumstances we should hesitate to believe some people of our acquaintance, who have tried now and again, but have never yet succeeded in telling the truth about their own affairs or those of their relatives. ”

“ I intend to write constantly to you, or to my Lord, what comes to my knowledge, true or false, and when I may cite the authors of my news I will, and what I ought to keep secret I must, but I think that there will be no occasion for that; I desire to be trusted with no secrets myself. ”

“ Private interests and the lives of individual men were what they had to think about and talk about; and just in so far as they were involved in gossip, they were debarred from the achievements of political history, and equally inclined to that sort of record in which individual lives are everything. ”

“ Thus may all men of wisdom and discretion understand the temerous madness of the rude commonalty, and not give to them too hasty credit of every sudden rumour, until the truth be perfectly known by the report of some approved and credible person, that ought to have thereof true intelligence. ”

“ Pure in private as irreproachable in public life, with strong convictions yet deferential to the popular will, patient under attack, more ready to listen than to speak, with no display and no ostentation—those who know him best bear testimony to the sense, the sagacity, and the power of analysis by which his utterances are characterized and impressed. ”

“ Every one took good care of himself, and what is more surprising, though they were all well aware of each other’s practices, no one ever impeached the rest, but kept the secret which equally affected them all. ”

“ Now, as a matter of fact, we doubt if people are any more honest as to themselves or others in a diary than out of it; and rumors, reported facts, and impressions set down daily in the heat and haste of the prejudicial hour are about as likely to be wrong as right. ”

“ Who hath fawned less upon the thriving party? Who has made fewer staggers in his profession for one or t'other Faction? Did I ever betray any secret? Have I sold one friend to buy another? Or done ugly things with one Man, to ingratiate my self with another, his enemy? ”

“ The second thing is that all on that side, whether promoters or mere hangers-on, are falling out of fashion, though no one opposes them: there never was a greater unanimity of feeling or talk everywhere. For myself (for I am sure you wish to know it) I take part in no political deliberations, and have devoted myself entirely to my forensic business and work. Thereby, as may easily be understood, I have frequent occasion to refer to my past achievements and to express my regret. ”

“ Suppose you had a secret, a real secret, something that nobody else knew and that you didn't want anybody else to know. And suppose you had the habit of talking to yourself. You might, without thinking, you know, tell that secret out loud to yourself, and some one might, just might happen to overhear! ”

“ If any one pleases to examine the truth from the business itself, and not to be convinced by my words, he will learn that they are not falsely described by me for my own favor, if he will investigate the testimonial documents written up by the stewards of her house, and if he will inquire from the true records whether the facts agree with my history. ”

“ But I am willing to excite any incredulity, and even to run the risk of being branded for a liar, partly out of a sense that it is necessary to my own honour to clear myself in the public mind, and in part because the record of my adventures and my sufferings may not be without use and interest to my fellows. ”

“ We dined quietly together without saying anything about the affair we had at heart, for nothing is more imprudent or more dangerous than to speak in the presence of servants, who out of maliciousness or ignorance put the worst construction on what they hear; add or diminish, and think themselves privileged to divulge their master’s secrets, especially as they know them without having been entrusted with them. ”

“ Secret serv- ice gossip may often give the key to the aims and desires of an individual person, and if one is willing to appeal to motives through corrupt and deceitful means, the information may be actually useful. ”

“ To the instinct for gauging men he added the instinct of gauging popular sentiment—a perception of the line which must not be over-stepped; a knack of gracious and timely withdrawal if ever he seemed to have passed the danger-point. ”

“ But who ever yet was offered a secret and declined it? ”

“ Hence the sociological significance of the secret, its practical measure, and the mode of its workings must be found in the capacity or the inclination of the initiated to keep the secret to himself, or in his resistance or weakness relative to the temptation to betrayal. From the play of these two interests, in concealment and in revelation, spring shadings and fortunes of human reciprocities throughout their whole range. ”

“ Who these men are, individually, I have no certain means of knowing, for they sign no papers, and give no open, authentic evidence of their individual membership. They are not known individually even to each other. ”

“ I dare say, if the truth were known, they go on much in their old style. Well, our people felt themselves in a fix. Many a time had they accommodated themselves to circumstances, and taken for granted what they could not understand. But this was a question seriously affecting the trustworthiness of their agents. ”

“ They suggest their great influence, are eager to grant their patronage and protection, suggest their great intimacy with persons of high position, exaggerate when they speak of their property, their achievements, and their work, and broadly deny all events in which they are set at a disadvantage. The thing by which they are to be distinguished from ordinary “story-tellers,” and which defines what is essentially pathoformic in them, is the fact that they lie without considering that the untrue is discovered immediately, or very soon. ”

“ People would at once say it was a plot I had hatched—especially as you went there under an assumed name. No; it would never do. You forget I am her trustee, and literally the only person on whom she does rely. ”

“ So many grounds of suspicion had occurred, or been laid open to his observation, during the hour of private communication, that it was not easy for one who had seen so much of the worst side of human nature, to cast them off under the mere influence of a graceful form, winning manner, and bright countenance. ”

“ They spread the most scandalous reports and, when any such emanates from themselves, they pretend that they have heard it from others, managing thus at once to originate the story and to exaggerate it. ”

“ Certainly there must be more pleasure in finding out the meaning of a secret “personal” than in answering the double acrostic charades with which the weekly papers swarm, and which must occupy the attention of thousands, if the quantities of correct and erroneous replies that are received at the various offices may be accepted as evidence. ”

“ To pry into secrets, to open or even read the letters of others, to play the spy upon their words and looks and actions—what habits more inconvenient in society? what habits, of consequence, more blameable? ”

“ Never say ‘We learn’ so-and-so, or ‘It is reported,’ or ‘It is rumored,’ or ‘We understand’ so-and-so, but go to headquarters and get the absolute facts, and then speak out and say ‘It is so-and-so.’ Otherwise, people will not put confidence in your news. ”

“ Who will dare to suspect a person that goes as you do, talks great, the Knight of the Golden Rock ? If there shall happen to be any saucy fellow impudent enough to dare to suspect you, the suspicion will rather be cast upon somebody that went away the day before. There will be a disorder among the master and the servants, and do you behave yourself as a person wholly unconcerned. ”

“ And Heaven knows, there is gossip enough in our quarter!—a complete network, above and below, of quarrels, intrigues and deceptions, woven around man, woman and the public in general. One says, "It can't be true!" ”

“ He is in difficulties—or perhaps not that even. He may stumble by accident on a secret—a secret involving life or death to some one. And his first impulse will be to speak out—to do his duty as an honest citizen. ”

“ If we look into the secret springs and motives that set people at work on these occasions, and put them upon asking advice, which they never intend to take; I look upon it to be none of the least, that they are incapable of keeping a secret which is so very pleasing to them. ”

“ Now it is a strange fact—and I appeal to my readers if their experience will not corroborate mine—that when two men thoroughly versed in these themes will talk together upon them, exchanging their stories and mingling their comments, the rest of the company will be struck with a perfect silence, unable to join in the subject discussed, and half ashamed to introduce any ordinary matter into such high and distinguished society. ”