A lady who had been in the habit of spreading slanderous reports once
confessed her fault to St. Philip Neri, who lived several hundred years
ago. She asked him how she could cure it. "Go," he said in reply, "to
the nearest market-place, buy a chicken just killed, pluck its feathers
all the way, and come back to me." She was greatly surprised, wondering
in what way a dead chicken could help her overcome her evil habit; but
she did as he bade her, and came back to him with the plucked chicken in
her hand. "Now go back," he said, "and bring me all the feathers you
have scattered." "But this is impossible," she replied: "I cast the
feathers carelessly, and the wind carried them away; how can I recover
them?" "That," he said, "is exactly like your words of slander. They
have been carried about in every direction. You cannot recall them. Go
and slander no more." It was a striking way of teaching a very important
lesson.
1778
He who slanders his neighbors makes a rod for himself.
--_Dutch._
1779
He will always be a slave, who does not know how to live upon a little.
--_Horace._
1780
Slaves cannot breathe in Britain; if their lungs
Receive our air, that moment they are free;
They touch our country, and their shackles fall.
--_Cowper._
1781