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He absorbs facts and principles with the shades and variations the daily paper gives them. Reports of events and announcements of policies are colored to suit the aims and opinions of the editors and proprietors. Windy platitudes at least for those who know facts and have studied principles become gospel truth for the unthinking mass. Public Opinion is thus conscripted by an "irresponsible power."
Emma found again in adultery all the platitudes of marriage." Platitudes of marriage! He who did the cutting here has said: Now, here is a man who says that in marriage there are only platitudes! It is an attack on marriage, it is an outrage to morals! You will agree, Mr. Attorney, that with cuttings artistically made, one can go far in the way of incriminating.
It was the last word that was said, and I have always believed that it was not exactly in the plan. I saw some venerable brethren on the platform, bishops among them, wince when Dr. Charles H. Parkhurst, rending some eminently respectable platitudes to shreds and tatters, cried out for personal service, loving touch, as the key to it all:
Happily, in those days the platitudes and weary vulgarities of what they call SPIRITUALISM, had not been heard of in those quarters, and the soft light of imagination yet lingered about the borders of that wide region of mingled false and true, commonly called Superstition. It seems to me the most killing poison to the imagination must be a strong course of "spiritualism."
I am tired of poverty and all needful discipline. I am tired of seeing babies born to people who don't know how to bring them up. I am tired of folks who smile continuously. I am tired of amiable fools and the platitudes of unintelligent saints. I am tired of mediocrity. I am tired of cats, both human and feline. I am tired of being a soldier and marching with the advance guard.
But she was not a woman to whom it was easy to speak comfortable platitudes. She knew the risks her husband ran the risk of battle, and the worse risks which would follow defeat. Neal rose at last and bid her farewell. "When you are saying a prayer for your husband," he said, "say one for me; I'll be along with him. I'm going to fight, too."
That a girl, who, in virtue of her snug fortune and attractive face, her blood and her breeding, might, as they put it, have the "pick of the county," if she wanted a husband, should lend a willing ear to the pompous platitudes, the heavy rolling periods of this alien to her native State a man without grace of manner or beauty in their nomenclature, "a solemn prig," defied all ingenuity of explanation, was an increasing wonder outlasting the prescribed nine days.
But no one, not the dullest, not the weakest, not the laziest and lustfullest, not the most indifferent to ideas or the most tolerant of platitudes and paradoxes, can pass him by without being arrested, quickened, stung, purged, stirred to uneasy self-examination by so strange a personality expressed in prophecies of art so pungent.
The last was so phenomenally dull that there were no repetitions. The speakers were called by classes, and the oldest in graduation had the platform. The result was disastrous. These old men all spoke too long, and it was an endless stream of platitudes and reminiscences of forgotten days until nearly morning.
"It may be a platitude, but I am beginning to discover that what are called platitudes by the young are biting truths to the old," said Lady Mary. "I've felt it a thousand times. Words come so easily to my lips when I'm speaking to you, I am so certain you will understand and respond. But with Peter, I sometimes feel as though I were dumb or stupid.
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