C.N. Douglas, comp. Forty Thousand Quotations: Prose and Poetical. 1917. Widow
A widow is like a frigate of which the first captain has been shipwrecked.Alphonse Karr.
1 Widows, like ripe fruit, drop easily from their perch.La Bruyère.
2 Young widows still bide their time.H. W. Shaw.
3 Handsome widows, after a twelvemonth, enjoy a latitude and longitude without limit.Balzac.
4 May widows wed as often as they can, And ever for the better change their man; And some devouring plague pursue their lives, Who will not well be govern’d by their wives.
Dryden.
5 Why are those tears? why droops your head Is then your other husband dead? Or does a worse disgrace betide? Hath no one since his death applied?
Gay.
6 Thus, day by day, and month by month, we pass’d; It pleas’d the Lord to take my spouse at last. I tore my gown, I soil’d my locks with dust, And beat my breasts—as wretched widows must: Before my face my handkerchief I spread, To hide the flood of tears I did—not shed.
Pope.
7 The widow who has been bereft of her children may seem in after years no whit less placid, no whit less serenely gladsome; nay, more gladsome than the woman whose blessings are still round her. I am amazed to see how wounds heal.Charles Buxton.
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