The daily phoenix. [volume] (Columbia, S.C.) 1865-1878, 1869-05-09
coNCERNING WIDOWS.

are tuOSe WHO are Dereaycu, ana lnOSe VINO
are released; those who lose their support,
and those whose. chains are broken; those
who are sunk in desolation and those who
wake up into freedom OF the first we will
net speak. Theirs is q sorrow too sacred to
be publicly handled, even with sympathy;
but the second demands no suoh respectful
reticence. The widow who is no sooner re-
leased from one husband than she plots for
another, and the widow who leaps into liber-
ty over the grave of a geoler, not O lover,
are fair game enough. They have always
their wits on; and while men are what they
are-laughing animals, apt to see the humor
lying in incongruity, and with spice of the
devil to sharpen that same laughter into
satire-they will remain favorite subjects,
tragic as the state is when widowhood is
deeper than mere outward condition.
There are many varieties of the widow,
and all are not beautiful. For one, there is
the widow who is bent on re-marrying,
whether men like it or not-that thing of
prey who goes about the world seeking
whom she may deyour; that awful creature
who bears down on her victims with vigor
in her assaults that puts to fight the popu-
lar fancy about the weaker sex and the dis
tribution of power. No hawk, poised over
brood of hedge birds; no shark, cruising
steadily towards shoal of small fry; no pi-
accountable to no law save success, was ever
more formidable to the weaker things pur-
sued, than is the hawk widow bent on re-
marrying. She knows so much; there is
not manoeuvre by which victory can be
stolen that she has not mastered, and she is
not afraid of even the most desperate mea-
sures.. When she has once struck, he would
be clever man and q bold one who could
escape her. Generally left but meagrely
provided for in worldly goods-else her
game would not be so diffioult-she makes
up for her poverty here by her wealth OF
bold resources, and by the courage with
which she takes, her ,oGn fortunes in hand,
and, with her own, those Of aher more eligi.
BILE masculine associates. She is n woman
OF purpose, and lives for an end; and that
end is re- marriage, If fate has dealt hardly
by her-1tEough, may be, compassionately
by her successive spouses-and has landed
her in the widowed state twice or thrice
she is nowise daunted, and as little abashed
She merely re6ts after certain time of an
chorage, and goes out into the open again
for repetition of her chance. She has no
notion of perpetuity of weeds, and, though
she may have cleared her half century. with
margin besides, thinks the suggestive
orange blossoms of the bride infinitely
more desirable than the fruitless heliotrope
of the widow. If one husband is taken,
she remembers the old proverb, and reflects
on the many, quite as good, who are poten-
TALLY left subject to her choice. And some
how she manages. It has been said that
any woman can marry any man if she de-
termines to do go. and follows on the line
of her determination with tenacity and
common sense. The hawk widow exempli-
ies the truth of this saying. She determines
upon marriage, and she usually succeeds
the question being one of victim only, not
of sacrifice. One has to fall to her share
there Is no help for IL, AID the whole CON
test is, which shall it be? which is strong
est to break her bonds2 which craftiest to
slip out of them? which most resolute not
to bear them from the beginningp This
the struggling covey must settle among
themselves the best way they can. When
the hawk pounces down upon it's quar-
ry, it is sauoe qui peut! But oil cannot
be saved. One, has to be caught, and
the choice is determined partly BY chance.
and partly by relative strength When
the widow of experience and resolve bears
down upon her prey, the result is equal
" certain, Floundering avails nothing;
struggling and splashing are just as futile;
one anong1the crowd has 0toscome to the
slaughter, and to assist at his own immola-
ton. The best thing he can do is to make
handsome surrender, and to let the world
of men and brothers believe he rather likes
his position than not.a,lu rni-,-
But there are pleasanter types of the re-
marrying widow than this. There is the
widow of the Wadman kind, who has out
lived her grief and is not disciplined to
repetition Of the matrimonial experiment,
if asked thereto by AN experimenter after
her own heart. But in srpretty, tender,
womanly way; if not, quite SO timidly as a
girl, Jet as becomingly in her degree, and
with that peculiar fascination which nothing
but the Combination of experience and mo-
desty can give. The widow of the Wadman
nor hawk; ut the worst she is but cooling
dove; making just the sweetest little noise
in the world, the tenderest little call, to in