Wesley and his wife, however, were again united, but were far from being happy. So things proceeded till 1771. “On one occasion, she seized his letters and other papers, and put them into the hands of such as she knew to be his enemies, that they might be printed, as presumptive proofs of illicit connections.” She even interpolated letters which she had intercepted, so as to make them bear a bad construction, and then read them to different persons in private, for the purpose of defaming him. In one or two instances, she published interpolated or forged letters in the public prints.[128] She accused Charles Wesley of idleness, and declared that, for years, his dearest Sally had been John Wesley’s mistress. Charles danced with rage at this imputation cast upon his wife; but his Sally calmly smiled, and said, “Who will believe my sister now?”[129] Frequently she would drive a hundred miles to observe who was in the carriage with her husband on his entering a town. Sometimes her passions hurried her into outrage and indecency. More than once, she laid violent hands upon his person, and tore his hair.[130] “Jack,” said John Hampson, senior, to his son, “I was once on the point of committing murder. Once, when I was in the north of Ireland, I went into a room, and found Mrs. Wesley foaming with fury. Her husband was on the floor, where she had been trailing him by the hair of his head; and she herself was still holding in her hand venerable locks which she had plucked up by the roots. I felt,” continued the gigantic Hampson, who was not one of Wesley’s warmest friends, “I felt as though I could have knocked the soul out of her.”[131] Other statements of the same character might be multiplied; but we are aweary of this painful subject. “Fain,” writes Southey, “would she have made him, like Marc Antony, give up all for love; and, being disappointed in that hope, she tormented him in such a manner, by her outrageous jealousy and abominable temper, that she deserves to be classed in a triad with Xantippe and the wife of Job, as one of the three bad wives.” In the midst of all this, Wesley, on one occasion, wrote her as follows:— “I cannot but add a few words: not by way of reproach, but of advice. God has used many means to curb your stubborn will, and break the impetuosity of your temper. He has given you a dutiful but sickly daughter; He has taken away one of your sons; another has been a grievous cross, as the third probably will be. He has suffered you to be defrauded of much money; He has chastened you with strong pain. And still He may say, ‘How long liftest thou up thyself against Me?’ Are you more humble, more gentle, more patient, more placable than you were? I fear, quite the reverse; I fear, your natural tempers are rather increased than diminished. O beware, lest God give you up to your own heart’s lusts, and let you follow your own imaginations!