St. Landry democrat., 1889-06-15
The Trustful.

Anna Cora Richie, in The Appeal.
The Trusting, as general rule, are the
trustworthy. Those who "think no evil"
are usually those who least deserve that
evil should be thought of them. Ignorant
of heart treason-never looking for wrong
from others because never doing wrong to
others-never doubling because never de-
ceiving-trustfulness is inherent in their
natures.
Suspicion that vaguely roams abroad is
the offspring of Deception, hidden in the
generating warmth of our own hearts at
home. An unconscious judging of others
by ourselves measuring by our own
height, and coloring by our own complex
ion, actuate the whole universe. There
are no foibles which we so quickly detect
in the concealed depths of other spirits as
those with which our eyes are most fam
liar when their mental vision is turned
inward.
Lavater warns us to "shun the man
who laughs, who disl;kes music and the
glad face of a child" The counsel i'm
plies that mirth, harmony and innocence
are strangers to such being. Upon the
same principle should we avoid the man
who mistrusts the motives of his fellow
men, who always suspects that sel6shness
is the secret spring of every fair seeming
action--who mistakes courtesy for policy,
who disbelieves in the genuineness of Vir-
tue until she has passed through some
fiery ordeal with unscathed garments, and
thus proved her supernal origin.
'sTreat your friends as though they
might one day become your enemies" is
the advice of these graduates of wisdom's
worldly school but he who darkens the
genial sunshine of friendship by the
shadow of this anticipated enmity, is in
capable of becoming a disinterested friend.
His admission of the possibility of change
in another reveals the instability of his
own sentiments.
When we speak of trusting natures we
do not mean temperaments that are simply
credulous-that, without reflection or dis
elimination impulsively accept all offered
hands, and believe all uttered professions,
from sort of quick-swallowing credulity,
as capacious as Garagantua's month. By
the trustful we designate those who are
not given to cGuseless misgivings-who
confde, where they love, with an unques
tioning, uncalculated simplicity-a gentle
reliance, which sometimes evokes sincerity
even out of falsehood Their trustfulness
is often an unconscious shield, which turns
aside the weapons of the willy, and makes
Deception blush and lay down her arms,
as a giant ashamed to waste strength or
stratagem upon defenceless infancy.
True, these trusting natures suffer much
in lifes combat. Disappointment deals
them crushing blows they find many of
their idols made of clay many a seeming
oak, against which they lean, proves a
broken reed many flower, cherished in
their bosoms, exhales poison. They
shrink, appalled, from the harsh lesson of
Experience, who teaches them how few in
the world resemble themselves yet their
very trustfulness is its own compensation.
It is the province of poets to condense
truths in music that haunts the mind with
its ringing changes. An ong these haunt
ing truths, welded to melodious verse,
are Fanny Kemble's lines:
Better trust all, and be deceived
And weep that trust and that deceiving,
Than doubt one heart that If believed
Had blest ones life with true believing.
oh. in this mocking world, too fast
The doubling fend o'ertakes our youth,
Better be cheated to the last,
Than lose the blessed hope OF truth.
Z