The Virginia enterprise. [volume] (Virginia, St. Louis County, Minn.) 1893-19??, 1905-09-01
BY MARGARET E. SANGSTER.

Own Age.
| BY MARGARET E. SANGSTER,
| copyright, 1905, by Joseph B. Bowles)
| In little hamlet by the sea, never
mind where. there dwells a family to
the members of which exceptional good
years ago the father and mother cele-
brated their golden wedding, surround
f, ed by their children and grandchildren,
an unbroken circle. No death had in
vaded their ranks. There was no va
cant chair at any table. Such continu-
ity of blessing is exceptional and de-
! lightful but most families undergo loss
and change, and not all who love one
another are privileged to live together
to the very end of their days.
| When husband or wife is taken away,
there is an upheaval in the home, as if
an earthquake or a cyclone had swept
the house from it's foundation. The
survivor feels at first as if the world
had come to an end. It does not seem
as though ever again there can be joy
and gladness in the universe, or any
chance of going on. Things have COL
!, lapsed for the hour
| Outsiders are very apt to gauge the
fidelity to an ideal of man or woman
by the length of time that passes be-
fore there is an effort to fill the empty
place. 1t is, however, only in accord
: ance with law of nature that there
shall be. after time, cessation of grief
! and the effort to go on again under
new conditions, and with a new part
ner.
Nature always hastens to repair her
waste places. Flowers spring up and
bloom in the track that has been swept
by fire. The greenest spots are those
where battles have been fought.
No grief should last forever. 1t i'm
plies not the slightest disrespect, hard
ly forgetfulness of the past, in begin
ming again a new chapter OF life, in
new circumstances, with some one else.
In most cases it is inevitable that a
desolate heart should snatch at some
probability of renewed comfort and
| that there should be once again the en-
joyment OF home life which is incom-
plete to the widowed.
it is the outsider who has nothing to
do with it who generally feels and ex-
presses most jealousy at a second mar
riage of neighbor or friend. 1t hap
pens, too. that often there is apparent
ly good cause for this impersonal jeal-
ousy. For instance. husband who
was sufficiently devoted to first wife,
yet v1G made no fuss about her. who
surrol ..dcd her with few delicate atten-
lions, and took for granted all the sac
rifices she made, is often most gallant
and lover-like in his attitude to his Sec
ond wife. She comes to him after the
first difficult strife of youth, to acquire
a competence, is over. In a way. she
inherits the self-denial and sacrifice of
her predecessor. The wife of the man S
youth did her own work: saved and
skimped had few outings, and seldom
a long holiday. A handsome gown was
perhaps an event to her. She was sat-
isfed with few luxuries. She was help
ing her husband to get a firm foOthold,
and make his money. BY and by, it
may be, worn out with incessalt labor,
she slipped away into the grave
The woman who. after decent in
terval of mourning, has taken her place
is younger, prettier, and much less in
clined to strenuous domesticity than
she was. She wears dainty gowns
and hats, and has plenty of changes in
her wardrobe. Her step-children do not
weigh heavily on her hands, the older
ones being promptly sent to school.
and the younger ones put under the
care of nurse or gOverness This
wife has leisure, retains her good looks,
is her husbands comrade and COM
panion everywhere. and has the JOY
always priced by a woman OF knowing
that he is proud of her. Not infre-
quently the lot of second wife is far
more enviable and desirable than that
of her who was woOed and won in the
freshness Of early girlhood.
There is room in the same breast fol-
faithful love as we all know, in more
than one direction. We love our friends
our parents, our children, and the vari-
Gus affections do not crowd or jostle
or quarrel one with another. We low,
people for different reasons, and alone
different lines. Thus, a second mar
riage may be equally as congenial and
equally as beneficial in it's results tc