to believe that those who spurn his Golden Rule you can bind to
obedience of an act entitled an act to amend an act? Bah! you fatigue
the spirit. Go get ye to your scoundrel lockouts, your villain strikes,
your blacklisting, your boycotting, your speeching, marching and
maundering; but if ye do not to others as ye would that they do to you
it shall occur, and that right soon, that ye be drowned in your own
blood and your pick-pocket civilization quenched as a star that falls
into the sea.




THE GIFT O' GAB


A book entitled _Forensic Eloquence_, by Mr. John Goss, appears to have
for purpose to teach the young idea how to spout, and that purpose, I
dare say, it will accomplish if something is not done to prevent. I know
nothing of the matter myself, a strong distaste for forensic eloquence,
or eloquence of any kind implying a man mounted on his legs and doing
all the talking, having averted me from its study. The training of the
youth of this country to utterance of themselves after that fashion I
should regard as a disaster of magnitude. So far as I know it, forensic
eloquence is the art of saying things in such a way as to make them pass
for more than they are worth. Employed in matters of importance (and for
other employment it were hardly worth acquiring) it is mischievous
because dishonest and misleading. In the public service Truth toils best
when not clad in cloth-of-gold and bedaubed with fine lace. If eloquence
does not beget action it is valueless; but action which results from the
passions, sentiments and emotions is less likely to be wise than that