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The nuns from the convent were present, down to the most humble lay Sister; but they were under great obligations to her mother, and their abbess was her father's sister. There were few other women except the old crones from the hospitals and nurseries, who were never absent when there was an opportunity to weep or to backbite.
Until we caught sight of the prompter we had credited Mr. Archer with being a ventriloquist given to casting his voice to the wings. Mr. Clement Scott their Benjamin Backbite was a ventriloquist too, but not in such a large way as Mr. Archer. His voice, so far as we could make out from an occasional rumble, was in his boots, where his courage kept it company.
The latter used to go about snapping and snarling, with a broad laugh painted on his countenance; and I can assure you that, whatever may be said of the gravity of a monkey, or the melancholy of a gibed cat, there is no more melancholy creature in existence than a mountebank off duty. The only thing in which all parties agreed was to backbite the manager, and cabal against his regulations.
We pay no heed to any idle talk the first year, but we begin by degrees to believe in it the second. We two will meet once a week and laugh away the mischief people would like to make between us; we shall be able to meet occasionally at a dance, and keep step together until everything sings about us, while those who backbite us are sitting around.
Ah! my brother, hast thou never seen a virtue backbite and stab itself? Man is something that hath to be surpassed: and therefore shalt thou love thy virtues, for thou wilt succumb by them. Thus spake Zarathustra. Ye do not mean to slay, ye judges and sacrificers, until the animal hath bowed its head? Lo! the pale criminal hath bowed his head: out of his eye speaketh the great contempt.
"Rash judgment" that is, having in your mind and really believing that a person is guilty of a certain sin when you have no reason for thinking so, and no evidence that he is guilty. "Backbiting" that is, talking evil of persons behind their backs. You would not like your neighbor to backbite you, and you have no right to do to him what you would not wish him to do to you.
They try to domineer, and they frighten us with kingdom come; and they wear a sanctified air in public, and expect us to go down on our knees and ask their blessing; and they intrigue, and they grasp, and they backbite, and they slander worse than the worst courtier or the wickedest old woman. I heard this Mr. Swift sneering at my Lord Duke of Marlborough's courage the other day.
If we backbite our friends, we give them free permission to backbite us, or we know that they do it, which amounts to pretty much the same thing. The biting may not be very severe, and, as a rule, it leaves no scars; but, of course, there are exceptions to the rule.
Any one now who did not know me, would really think I was a great sinner, by your way of putting things; I don't bear false witness, however. Worthy. You mean, I suppose, you would not swear away any man's life falsely before a magistrate, but do you take equal care not to slander or backbite him?
I never was more posed: I'm sure you cannot mean that ridiculous old knight, Sir Christopher Crab? "Lady S. A wretch! his assiduities are my torment. "Spat. Perhaps his nephew, the baronet, Sir Benjamin Backbite, is the happy man? "Lady S. No, though he has ill-nature, and a good person on his side, he is not to my taste. "Spat.
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