528 The Malcontent. [Nov. 



how pressing the hospitable earnestness that he would come again ! 

 He came again, and again. It is inconceivable, by the way, the quan- 

 tity of spirit whereof this man was nightly the willing recipient. Our 

 tastes were similar, our pursuits alike. He praised my furniture he 

 appreciated my drawings (clever things, done by myself!) he admired 

 my wife ! A virtuous woman, I well knew, was a crown to her husband 

 a crown that must by no means be changed ; besides, not really think- 

 ing mine worth sixpence, it may easily be imagined that I was not too 

 apt to imbibe the deleterious mixture jealousy. But circumstances 

 transpired a strong hint was afforded me in the nocturnal disappearance 

 of the guilty pair. The viper succeeded in effecting his escape, in con- 

 sequence of the very culpable inattention and remissness of those torpid 

 rattle-snakes the watchmen ; who were, as usual, walking in their sleep 

 at the time. When first I woke to the maddening conviction, I was 

 stifled with rage quite black in the face, like Othello and resolved to 

 pursue, overtake, and exterminate; but upon cooler reflection it will 

 hardly be believed how soothing a consolation was permitted to me in a 

 sure conviction of the absence of my departed wife. Removed from me, 

 I was better able, indeed better qualified, to judge of her merits and 

 defects, to contrast and compare them, and to allow her such praise, or 

 convict her of such faults, as this impartial course of investigation justi- 

 fied. My friends, as usual, made wry faces at my philosophy ; while 

 some hesitated not to avow that I had been seen to give way to an inde- 

 cent unbending of the lower jaw, in the frequent coinage of smiles, and 

 to have partaken too largely of that which, administered heedlessly, I 

 admit, destroys the equilibrium, and encourages horizontal, extension and 

 land-measurement, not to be accomplished by proxy. But worse than 

 this ; when intelligence reached me of the subterraneous appropriation 

 of my ill-fated wife, they were callous enough to bruit it abroad that I 

 indulged in inexplicable exuberances of spirit, dancing, singing, and 

 quaffing, as if, not a calamity, but a deliverance were just notified unto 

 me ; whereas, I can prove, but it is hardly worth while, that the above 

 were exhilarations caused by other I mean by certain joyous announce- 

 ments not in the least appertaining to my wife's demise. Even my 

 summary of her estimable qualities, spoken in solemn under- tone, waa 

 said to be a servile copy of the obituary style ; as though the language 

 of grief were not always alike ! too bad ! too bad ! 



But why should I bear this ? Heavens and earth ! why do I bear 

 this ? 



" Have I not suffered things to be forgiven ?" 



Shall I any longer permit these monsters, with heads all vacuum, and 

 with hearts like paving-stones, to make a highway of my feelings, that 

 they may trample over them with their most cloven hoofs ? The time 

 will come 



Hilloah ! hilloah ! who the devil's thundering at the door ? Ha ! a 

 letter a black seal what do I read ? My aunt dead, and left the whole 

 of her property between the Lying-in Hospital and the Lunatic Asylum ? 

 I shall go mad, and be dependent on her bounty in the latter of these 

 institutions. Horrid old woman ! truly unprincipled, and culpably 

 thoughtless hag ! I'll go this instant and abuse, threaten, kick, and it 

 may be, destroy, the unworthy executors ! 



