Do children know how to value this heroism hidden in the bosom of so many families? Do they understand that there is more courage required in this struggle of months and years than one day’s assault of a battery in battle?
Very rarely do they know it, for even the best of children do not return a hundredth part of the love they have received from their parents, and especially from their mother.
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Is happiness more easily to be found in the union of a widower and a young woman, or in that of a widow and a celibate?
The answer is difficult, for the problem is too vague, and individual qualities weigh too heavily in the balance, gradually modifying the surroundings, the affections now warding off dangers, now increasing them infinitely.
If other conditions be favourable the widow is generally an excellent wife for many reasons: She has lost many illusions, but has learned to know and excuse the egotism of man. Sometimes she will have been obliged to beg her first husband’s pardon for some accession of jealousy or caprice; and as a woman always occupies herself in everything more with other people’s happiness than her own, she wishes to give her second husband perfect bliss, and often and willingly succeeds. If she cannot offer her companion the virginal flower (which after all is more a myth than a real jewel) she can give him all the treasures of amorous experience, that is often worth more than a hundred virginities.
On the other hand the widower who marries a young woman has the great advantage of her not being able to make any odious comparisons, and he also brings precious gems to the new home which an unmarried man does not know or possess. He has learned to know all the little weaknesses and great virtues of woman, he has learned to become less egotistical, to think of others more than himself, and as separate from himself, and he generally is an excellent husband.
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In all intricate problems, in all the fatal confusions which present themselves in the marriage between widows and widowers, between widows, widowers, and celibates, the anchor of safety which saves from shipwreck is always the heart. When there is great love, and it is shared by two, who join hands forever, every difficulty is cleared away, and concord ends by hoisting its banner over the new house. The most ferocious hatred is conquered by generosity, by the indulgence of one who loves much, and after a short battle of the opposing forces love scatters its flowers and blessing over the new nest. Love is the strength of strengths, which surpasses all others, and in this case it is omnipotent, so that when it exists in all its proper energy on one side only, it absorbs all the minor energies, and on the fields threatened with hail and lightning the sun shines through the last drops of the beneficent rain, and the rainbow hangs its multicoloured bridge in the sky, drawing enemies nearer and making them allies.
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