_You_ despair. Why? "You are a widow." Of how much sorrow is that little word the voice? Oh! I know, poor mourner, how dark earth looks to you. I know that sun and stars mock you with their brightness. I know that you shut out the placid moonbeams, and pray to die. Listen! Are there no bleeding hearts but yours? Your dead sleep peacefully; their tears are all shed; their sighs all heaved; their weary hands folded over quiet hearts; but oh, repiner! the _living_ sorrows that are masked beneath the smiling faces you envy! the corroding bitterness of a _dishonored_ hearth-stone; the mantle all too narrow, all too scant, to hide from prying, malignant eyes, the torturing secret!--bone of your bone, flesh of your flesh, and yet, stranger to you than the savage of the desert--colder to you than the dead for whom you so repiningly grieve. Ah! are there no bleeding hearts save yours? Is the "last vial" emptied on your shrinking head?
But your little children stand looking into your tear-stained face, imploring you for bread--bread that you know not where to procure; your ear aches for the kind words which never come to you. Oh, where is your faith in God? Who says to you in accents sweeter than ever fell from human lips: "A bruised reed will I not break;" "Let your widows trust in me." No kind words? Is it nothing, that those musical little voices call you "mother?" Is the clasp of those soft arms, the touch of those velvet lips, nothing? Is it thus you teach them to put their little hands into that of the Almighty Father, and say, "Give us this day our daily bread?" Oh, get on your knees before those sweet little teachers, who know no danger--no harm, who fear no evil while "mother" is near, and learn of them to watch, and hope, and trust; for sure as the sun shines above your and their heads, so sure is _His_ promise to those who believingly claim it.
"Lonely," are you? Oh, above all loneliness is his, who, having thrown away his faith in God, and bereft of earthly idols, stands like some lightning-reft tree, blossomless, verdureless, scathed, and blasted!
The New York woman doteth on rainbow hats and dresses, confectionery, the theater, the opera, and flirtation. She stareth gentlemen in the street out of countenance, in a way that puzzleth a stranger to decide the question of her respectability. The New York woman thinketh it well-bred to criticise _in an audible tone_ the dress and appearance of every chance lady near her, in the street, shop, ferry-boat, car, or omnibus. If doubtful of the material of which her dress is composed, she draweth near, examineth it microscopically, and pronounceth it--"after all--silk." The New York woman never appeareth without a dress-hat and flounces, though the time be nine o'clock in the morning, and her destination the grocer's, to order some superfine tea. She delighteth in embroidered petticoats, which she liberally displayeth to curious bipeds of the opposite sex. She turneth up her nose at a delaine, wipeth up the pavement with a thousand-dollar silk, and believeth point-lace collars and handkerchiefs essential to salvation. She scorneth to ride in an omnibus, and if driven by an impertinent shower therein, sniffeth up her aristocratic nose at the plebeian occupants, pulleth out her costly gold watch to--ascertain the time! and draweth off her gloves to show her diamonds. Arrived at Snob avenue, she shaketh off the dust of her silken flounces against her fellow-travelers, trippeth up her aristocratic steps, and holding up her dress sufficiently high to display to the retreating passengers her silken hose, and dainty boot, resigneth her parasolette to black John, and maketh her triumphant exit.