r, every man he knew, had his set of private
enemies, with whom he was not on speaking or bowing terms. Mrs.
Harrison, who was very friendly to most of the men, scarcely spoke to a
single woman in the place; but this was, perhaps, only carrying the war
into Africa, as the ladies of "our set" generally had intended not to
recognize her as one of them. These numberless feuds made it very
difficult to arrange an excursion, or to get up a dinner at the
_restaurant_ of a "colored gentleman," whose timely settlement in
Oldport had enabled Mr. Grabster's guests to escape in some measure the
pangs of hunger. On studying the cause of these disagreeable
hostilities, he found that, among relatives, they were often caused by
disputes upon money matters; that between persons not related they
frequently sprung from the most trivial sources--frivolous points of
etiquette, petty squabbles at cards, imaginary jealousies--but that in
both cases the majority of them could be traced to the all-pervading
spirit of scandal. His purely intellectual education, if it had not made
him somewhat of a misogynist, had at least prevented him from gaining
any accurate knowledge or appreciation of women: he set them down _en
masse_ as addicted to gossip, and was not surprised to find in the
American ladies what he assumed as a characteristic of the whole sex.
But he was surprised to find the same quality so prevalent among the
men. Not that they were in the habit of killing reputations to give
themselves _bonnes fortunes_, as Frenchmen might have done under similar
circumstances; their defamatory gossip was more about men than about
women, and seemed to arise partly from a general disbelief in virtue,
and partly from inability to maintain an interesting conversation on
other than personal topics. And though much of this evil speaking was
evidently prompted by personal enmities, much also of it seemed to
originate in no hostile feeling at all; and it was this that
particularly astonished Ashburner, to find men speaking disparagingly of
their friends--those who were so in the real sense of that much-abused
term. Thus there could be no reasonable doubt that the cousins, Benson
and Ludlow, were much attached to each other, and fond of each other's
society; that either would have been ready to take up the other's
quarrel, or endorse his notes, had circumstances required it. Yet Harry
could never refrain from laughing before third parties at Gerard's
ignoranc