You should therefore
encourage correspondence for the same reason that the prefect of
police takes special care that the street lamps of Paris are kept
lighted.
3. OF SPIES.
To come so low as to beg servants to reveal secrets to you, and to
fall lower still by paying for a revelation, is not a crime; it is
perhaps not even a dastardly act, but it is certainly a piece of
folly; for nothing will ever guarantee to you the honesty of a servant
who betrays her mistress, and you can never feel certain whether she
is operating in your interest or in that of your wife. This point
therefore may be looked upon as beyond controversy.
Nature, that good and tender parent, has set round about the mother of
a family the most reliable and the most sagacious of spies, the most
truthful and at the same time the most discreet in the world. They are
silent and yet they speak, they see everything and appear to see
nothing.
One day I met a friend of mine on the boulevard. He invited me to
dinner, and we went to his house. Dinner had been already served, and
the mistress of the house was helping her two daughters to plates of
soup.
"I see here my first symptoms," I said to myself.
We sat down. The first word of the husband, who spoke without
thinking, and for the sake of talking, was the question:
"Has any one been here to-day?"
"Not a soul," replied his wife, without lifting her eyes.
Pages:
289
290
291
292
293
294
295
296
297
298
299
300
301
302
303
304
305
306
307
308
309
310
311
312
313