Part 26 (1/2)

”Foul suspicion! thou turnest love divine To joyless dread, and mak'st the loving heart With hateful thoughts to languish and repine, And feed itself with self-consuming smart; Of all the pa.s.sions of the mind thou vilest art.”

SPENCER.

The words of his mouth live with a spirit of doubt, incredulity, and jealousy. Actions, thoughts, motives, are questioned as to their reality and disinterestedness. Good counsel given in time of perplexity is attributed to some ulterior purpose which is kept out of view. Gifts of beneficence are said to be deeds of selfishness--patronage is expected in an affair you have on hand, or you antic.i.p.ate as much or more in return in some other ways. A family visited with a severe affliction is suspected to have the cause in some secret moral delinquency in the father, or mother, or elder son or daughter. A merchant meets with reverses in his business, and he is suspected of something wrong, for which these reverses are sent as punishment. A traveller meets with an accident, by which a member of his body is fractured or life taken away: he is suspected of having been a great sinner before G.o.d, for which His vengeance now visits him.

The suspicious talker may be found in one or other phase of his character in almost every cla.s.s and grade of society. How often the husband suspects the wife, and the wife the husband; the master the servant, and the servant the master; brothers suspect brothers; sisters sisters; neighbours neighbours; the rich the poor; the poor the rich.

The talk of the suspicious is bitter, stinging, exasperating. How often it ends in jealousy, strife, quarrels, separations, and other evils of a similar kind!

This talk seldom or ever effects any good. It more frequently excites to the very thing on which the suspicion has fixed its demon eye, but of which the subject of the suspicion was never guilty.

Suspicious talk, like many other kinds, has frequently no foundation to rest upon, excepting the fancy of an enfeebled mind or the ill-nature of an unregenerate heart.

”That was a very nice present which Mr. Muckleton sent you on Christmas-Day,” said Mr. Birch to his neighbour.

”O, yes,” he replied in a sort of careless way; ”I _know_ what he sent it for--that he may get my vote at the next election of town councillors. I can see through it.”

”Did not Mr. Shakleton call at your house the other day? and were you not pleased to see him?”

”So far as that goes, I was pleased; but I _know_ what he called for; not to see me or mine. It is not worth saying, but I _know_.”

”Has not Mrs. Mount recently joined your church? She is an excellent lady, of very good means and intelligence. I should think you will value her acquisition to your number.”

”Well, as for that, I cannot say. I like persons to act from pure motives in all things, especially in religious. Don't you know Mrs.

Mount is a widow, and there is in our church that Squire Nance, a bachelor? I needn't say any more.”

”The Rev. Mr. Wem has left our church and gone to a church in London.”

”Indeed! I was not aware of that, but I guess it is to obtain more salary.”

”How do you know that?”

”How do I know it? You may depend he wouldn't have gone unless he could better himself.”

”My dear,” said Mrs. Park to her husband one evening as they were sitting alone, ”Tom has gone with young Munster to the city, and will be back about ten o'clock.”

”What has he gone there for?” asked Mr. Park, rather sternly. ”No good, I venture to say. You know the temptations that are in the city, and he is not so steady as we would like him to be.”

When Tom came home at ten o'clock, he had to endure a good deal of suspicious tongue-flagellation, which rather excited him to speak rashly in return.

”I do really think,” said Mrs. Lance, snappishly, to her servant one day, ”you are guilty of picking and biting the things of the larder, besides other little tricks. Now, I do not allow such conduct. It is paltry and mean.”

Mrs. Lance had no ground for this utterance but her own suspicions. The servant, conscious of her integrity, became righteously angry, and gave notice to leave at once. So Mary left her suspicious mistress. She was not the first nor the sixth servant she had driven away by her suspicious talk in regard to the ”larder,” the ”cupboards,” the ”drawers,” and the ”wardrobe.”

Squire Nutt one day went a drive of twelve miles in the country to attend ”a hunt dinner,” promising his wife that he would be home by eleven o'clock at night. This hour came, but no Squire. Twelve struck, and he had not returned. One struck, yea, even two, and no husband. Mrs.

Nutt all this time was alone, watching for the Squire, and suspecting with a vivid imagination where he had gone, and what he was doing. At half-past two a sound of wheels was heard coming to the door, and in a few minutes the suspected husband entered the hall, and greeted his little wife with signs of affection. Instead of receiving him kindly in return, and waiting till the effects of the dinner had escaped before she called him to account, she began in a most furiously suspicious way to question him. ”Where have you been all this time? Have you been round by Netley Hall? _I know all about what you have been up to._ This is a fine thing, this is, keeping me watching and waiting these hours, while you have been galavanting--ah! _I know where._”