Page:Sylvester Sound the Somnambulist (1844).djvu/88

 instantly acquitted of all participation, the mystery resumed its original character. Neither Sylvester, his aunt, nor their reverend friend, could imagine another clue. Even the power to conjecture seemed lost. Neither could suggest—neither could conceive—the slightest means whereby that mystery might be solved.

"We must still," said the reverend gentleman at length, "we must still have patience. Time alone can bring this strange matter to light: and that it will be brought to light, I have not the slightest doubt. We must, therefore, my dear madam, still have patience."

Patience! What an admirable attribute is patience! How sweet are its influences—how softening its effects! In the hour of affliction, how beautiful, how calm, how serene, how sublime, is patience! Behold the afflicted, racked with pain, from which Death alone can relieve them. By what are they sustained but by that sweet patience which springs from faith and hope! Patience, ever lovely, shows loveliest then. But who ever met with passive patience co-existing with active suspense? We may endure affliction the most poignant with patience—but we cannot with patience endure suspense. The knowledge of the worst that can befal us, may be borne with patience—but patience will hold no communion with our ignorance of that which we are ardently anxious to know. Aunt Eleanor, for example, had she known that the smalls had been put into the pickle-tub by cook, and that Judkins had upset the things in the parlour—nay, had she even known that Mr. Pokey and his companions, or any other gentleman and his companions, had actually entered the cottage—she would have endured that knowledge with patience; but as she was utterly ignorant of everything connected with the origin of these mysterious proceedings—as she neither knew what had induced them, nor had the power even to guess the cause to which alone they could have been fairly ascribed—patience was altogether out of the question. Hers was essentially a state of suspense with which patience had nothing whatever to do.

Still it was, notwithstanding this, all very well for her reverend friend to recommend it: it was, in fact, his province to do so; for having studied deeply the Book of Job, he held patience to be one of the sublimest virtues. It is true—quite true—that he hadn't much himself. But then look at his position. He had to read two sermons every week of his life; and his sermons cost him a guinea per dozen! Such a man could not rationally be expected to have patience. Nor, indeed, have men in general, much. The women are the great cards for patience. Hence it is that they are so frequently termed ducks; seeing that, as ducks, when they are hatching, sit upon their eggs a whole month, they are the legitimate emblems of patience. But men are not ducks.

It must not, however, be imagined, that because Aunt Eleanor was in a state of suspense then, she was not in general a patient person. She was; but being then in a state of suspense, she could not have been expected to be patient. She panted to know the cause of these strange proceedings—and people never pant with patience—and although the reverend gentleman had advised her to be patient, she continued to pant