A WORD AT PARTING. 93 



When will this stain depart from our land ? When 

 will that moody silence and reserve that disconnects 

 rank from rank, and class from class, and man from 

 his brother man, cease to shut us up from each 

 other's view, like sealed pacquets of humanity, 

 destined and directed ' private and confidential ' each 

 to its own special clique and circle, locking up the 

 cheap yet gladdening benevolence of words from all 

 'below 'it? 



If man, vain aspiring man, did but truly measure 

 the reactive influences for good, or ill, by which his 

 own existence is surrounded ; if he did but know the 

 rich freight of happiness and of positive blessing to 

 his poorer and humbler brethren, which he bears 

 within him in the mere gift of language. If instead 

 of reserving all his soft words for the rich, and the 

 caressing of the tongue for those who least require 

 or value it, he would stoop to remark its instant 

 effect, and permanent influence for good, on those who 

 seldomest receive it, how changed would be the 

 working out of that strange problem of society which 

 is ever leaving the largest numbers most uncared 

 for, their power and influence only felt when it is 

 dangerous ! 



Of all the sweeteners of human toil, of all the mo- 



