Few Peo i eS Keep J Secret Secret BY MARGARET E SANGSTER A secret is no longer secret if it has passed your our Ups lips Two persons may perhaps safely share it but ir if it be con to the ear of a third the probability ity is that it will before long be com common corn cornmon mon property By some strange fatal fatality fatality ity few people can be trusted with se secrets secrets crets the desire to reveal them over overcoming overcoming coming the determination to be silent Of course there are innocent secrets and harmless mysteries that belong to the joyOUS and peaceful conditions of life such as the happy secrets that make our homes so delightful at holiday holi holiday day times or the forecasts of coming events important in the annals of a family These may be and commonly are preserved intact for a time or if they are told the telling does no harm But on occasion there are secrets affecting af affecting the honor and of In nr r a household and these r should not so whispered In Inthe inthe the pr privacy vacy of a closet to ones most Intimate friend if there is the slight es danger to be Incurred by spreadIng them abroad For example a man in the prime of oftie tie suddenly shows symptoms of men mental mental tal breakdown They are not so pro pronounced pronounced that his business associates or orthe orthe the neighbors perceive anything out of the ordinary although his wife and children are aware of a change and the family physician looks grave and sends the patient to a specialist The thing may mav or ar may not prove Drove serious Rest medical treatment a journey the dropping of certa certain cares and burdens may result favorably It Itis is to the last degree if some member or of orthe the family in strIct confidence tell teU an outsider about the solicitude felt add adding ing the that there is a shadow shad shadow ow over Iver the house and everybody has the sens sensation ii n or of a sW sword rd suspended in inthe inthe the air by a thread The friend is deeply sympathetic and very mu much h impressed She watches the theman theman man thereafter with anew and peculiar v detec s signs of oddity In hIs conduct that once never would have occurred to her attaches a m meaning aning much too great to unimportant trifles and finally t thinks inks it no harm to whis whisper per the matter under the rose to her sister h her r cousin or some one else to whom the parties concerned are known Sometimes this Is done In a veiled and vague manner with hints and does and sometimes the story is related under pledge of silence to a third per person person son who is supposed not to be acquaint acquainted ed with the people mentioned and who on that account may be tr trusted sted How However However ever it is done the secret Is out It Is Isas isas as if that which has been told in the closet is proclaimed from the housetop It may ruIn the man in business or a disaster di aster that have been averted Secrets that have to do i with peoples sanity anity even though they merely graze the edge of conjecture are not permissible nor should they be risked to the discretion of weak human nature Physicians and lawyers are the custodians cus of many family secrets ts and these are safe because the honor of both professions is pledged ledged arid and guarded by V vows Vs and trad traditions that keep keen se secrets secrets crets inviolate Other good men and wo women women men supposed to tobe be wise in counsel are approached by the worrIed and wearied among their friends and are asked for tor advice and sympathy hy Often they give it sometimes they find it difficult to re restrain restrain strain themselves from gratifying the curiosity of inquIsitive folk tolk who are sure they could speak if only they would Fate Faw are the unofficial counsellors in this world who have the strength and goodness to loci Jock a secret secre forever behInd closed lips lipsIn lipsIn In certain families there are secrets supposed to be burled under the accumulations accumulations of long years Twenty or thirty years ago something happened that made a stir at the tIme but toe Ule memory of it has been swept away In Inthe inthe the rapid course of the seasons and ana It is supposed that no one has the faIntest knowledge of f it now Something hap happens happens pens that revIves the old name er the theold theold old story Somebody tells it quietly to a friend somebody else tells it to another Pres I it forms the gist of an interesting half column of gossip in a local paper the old scandal is revived and hearts are made to ache and trouble that nev never n v ver er need have taken place springs up ina in ina a crop of evil words and thoughts Aman man or a woman may be eccentrIc and queer Or ma may fall under the dominion domin dominIon Ion of a tyrannical habit It ma may be al alcohol alcohol cohol or morphia or cocaine Why speak of it Why tell about the dis cIrcumstances that accompany lapses of disease It If it be n a woman who is the unfortunate subject It is a thousand tImes worse for her than for fora a man to have the comments of unkindly un unkindly kindly tongues fastened on her conduct conductor or character chara ter There should never be secrets about people of good character and reputation But if there are let Iet hose who post pos ess ess them lock them In their own breasts I 1 C could uld tell you if I 1 chose said a garrulous old lady Some thins about the grandfather of a certain family in town things that would make your hair rise with horror Why should she Why should any anybody anybody body listen H Her r tales mIght be true or orthey orthey they might he false fale Vh should any one spend time in gossip that Is purely malicious StorIes about people are like snow snowballs balls balIs that gather size and weight as they rolf along Should a story begin at one end of the street and be told I from house to house along the length of the village by the time it reached the outlying suburb It would be essen essentially I different from the original ver version slon sion In a tit fit of anger or caprice a man I may make a foolish threat By the time I that twenty people have hati a re repeated it It I has assumed proportions of astonIsh astonIshing astonishing ing magnitude Secrets ts are equally prone to grow with every repetition Society is bounds bound together by a thou thousand thousand sand cords some of them slight as threads others as strong as cables but butan an all important to the fabric and none without a coherence on the strength or of orthe the whale The old sayIng that speech is silver and silence Is golden ap lIes with great force to our social inter intercourse intercourse course We do no rot often regret our sl Si Silence lence But frequently we regret our speech A delicate sense of honor should be cultivated by those who in fn any way be become become come aware of secrets relating to the 1 contentment tranquilI sty and stability of their friends Secrets ar arnot arnot not always told they are sometime seen To what was not mean for one and they the to reveal it is to dis display play a despicable and unworthy lack of reticence Most Ios people enjoy carryl Ing tidings and like Ilke to be authors of 11 sensation To repress this wish when whenever ever one onee better feeling and goo breeding show it to be essential Is to tn onI only course for a person of instincts and kindly nature Copyright 1906 1006 by Joseph B BowIes BOWles