for the perfection of provincial reporting--given, indeed, word
for word. Now it is natural to think that Mr. Smith is a much more
eminent man than those other men whose salvers and charity sermons
find no place in the newspaper: and Mr. Smith's agricultural
parishioners no doubt think so. A different opinion is entertained
by such as know that Mr. Smith's uncle is a large proprietor in
the puffing newspaper; and that he wrote the articles in question
in a much warmer strain than that in which they appeared, the editor
having sadly curtailed and toned them down. In the long run, all
this quackery does no good. And indeed long accounts in provincial
journals of family matters, weddings and the like, serve only to make
the family in question laughed at. Still, they do harm to nobody.
They are very innocent. They please the family whose proceedings
are chronicled; and if the family are laughed at, why, they don't
know it.

And, happily, that which we do not know does us no harm: at least,
gives us no pain. And it is a law, a kindly and a reasonable law,
of civilized life, that when it is not absolutely necessary that
a man should know that which would give him pain, he shall not be
told of it. Only the most malicious violate this law. Even they
cannot do it long: for they come to be excluded from society as
its common enemies. One great characteristic of educated society
is this: it is always under a certain degree of Restraint. Nohody,
in public, speaks out all his mind. Nobody tells the whole truth,
at least, in public speeches and writings. It is a terrible thing
when an inexperienced man in Parliament (for instance) blurts out
the awkward fact which everybody knows, but of which nobody is to
speak except in the confidence of friendship or private society.
How such a man is hounded down! He is every one's enemy. Every one