Lovers and Husbands CHAPTER 21.
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"Mrs. Whitney is still recovering, I suppose," the wife of Doctor Arlington said to him one evening, about a week after her first visit to Emily. She had seen her nearly every day since. Not on that day, nor the day previous, however.
"Yes," returned the doctor, "she still continues to improve; but today I thought she seemed more than usually depressed. She must be lonely and desolate."
"Desolate enough. She seems to feel acutely the loss of her husband. 'He was always kind to me,' she said, the last time I was with her. 'He was not like other men; he could not struggle successfully with the world — but he was good to me. If he were disturbed by anything that occurred from home, it never caused him to speak harshly to me; though, to have shared all his thoughts, to have known all he felt, I could have borne even unkindness.'"
"He was her husband; and she best knows what was good in him. But that, in resting upon the love of such a man as he was — a man without honest and honorable principles— she laid her head upon a pillow of thorns, the result has sadly proved. She may still love, in memory, that pillow; but the wounds it has given will never cease to afflict her while life in this world remains. Time may heal them over; but the scars will be left, and there will occur seasons when they will cause her bitter anguish."
"The cause of her unusual depression may arise from the destitution that threatens her," Mrs. Arlington said. "I learned, in a conversation that I had with the woman in whose house she is, that there was some doubt whether the small legacy on which her mother had lived, would be continued to Emily. She has nothing herself; and, if this should fail, she will be thrown entirely upon her personal resources for a subsistence for herself and child. I wish you would make some inquiries into the matter, and see if anything can be done to secure it."
This Doctor Arlington promised to do at once. He found, on examination, that there was some danger of the legacy passing into other hands than Mrs. Whitney's, although he soon learned enough in regard to it, to make him satisfied that to her it rightly belonged. Prompt and judicious measures were taken by him to prevent the wrong which was intended. He was successful. Instead of being left penniless, and almost helpless, Mrs. Whitney came into the receipt of three hundred dollars a year, which gave her every external comfort she desired. On this, blessed with the friendship of Mrs. Arlington and her husband — the latter much more highly appreciated now than in former times — she lived a more peaceful life than she had known for many long years. The world presented to her a new aspect. She looked below the surface, and clearly discriminated the real from the apparent; but wisdom had come too late to give her its choicest, because its earliest and best fruits.
Time passed on pleasantly with the amiable, yet strong-minded doctor, and his lovely wife. Each day brought its renewed blessings, for which they were humbly thankful to Him whose gifts are ever good, whether they appear in the storm or the sunshine — the dreary winter, with its snows covering and protecting the good seed that has been sown in the rich and tender soil of early years; or in the congenial spring and warmer summer-time, bringing forth and ripening the grain, filling the vines with rich foliage, and swelling the grape into delicious maturity.
A year after the return of Emily from the South, Mrs. Arabella Garnett died. One more shock severed the golden cord of life. She went down into her grave unwept and unhonored by a husband who had never loved her.
Thus closes our narrative. Its lessons are too plain, it seems to us, to need a single word more. Much has been written in the fictitious histories of the past, much continues to be written in the fictitious histories of the present day, about love and marriage. They form themes of inexhaustible interest, and no wonder. They are central to all things. All that exists external to them must be tinctured with their quality; for from centers everything proceeds in just order towards externals, or circumferences. Whatever is the quality of a man's real thoughts in regard to marriage, will be the quality of his moral life. If he does not regard marriage as the holiest of all relations, and does not enter into it from pure ends — its bands will rest neither upon him nor the unfortunate being he has called by the name of wife, like silken fetters, all unfelt.
As years accumulate, and what is within comes more and more into manifest life, that is, is less concealed from the pressure of external causes — such as love of reputation, place, or some other motive — married partners who are not united by a genuine love of each other's moral beauties, are less guarded about displaying their real feelings. Then indeed comes the winter of old age, in which no green thing cheers the eye, and no mild south wind ever and always warms the sunken cheek.
Few of our writers of fiction have gone deep enough into these subjects. Few have understood the real quality of the things presented — few have comprehended the real nature of a marriage union. Our own feeble efforts have in them only a glimmering of the real truth. Such as they are, we give them forth, trusting that they will at least do some good; that the crude illustrations and vague hints presented, may become thought-inspiring to other minds; and other reapers enter the field from which we have taken only a few ripe shocks, and bear from thence a rich and abundant harvest.
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