Widgeon

“ I do not wish to be young again—and I would not be a widow, if I could help it. A young widow, widder, or widdy, as the word is variously spelt, has been a byword, of odd import, ever since the days, when Sara, the daughter of Raguel, exclaimed, in the fifteenth verse of the third chapter of the book of Tobit—“My seven husbands are already dead, and why should I live?” All this tilting against the widows, with goose quills for spears, arises from the fact, that these weapons of war are mainly in the hands of one sex. Men are the scribblers—the lions are the painters. ”

“ Enter the Lady Widdow-Plus, her two daughters Frank and Moll, her husband’s Brother an old Knight Sir Godfrey, with her Son and heir Master Edmond, all in mourning apparel, Edmond in a Cyrpess Hat. The Widdow wringing her hands, and bursting out Into passion, as newly come from the Burial of her husband.
WIDOW.
Oh, that ever I was borne, that ever I was borne!
SIR GODFREY. Nay, good Sister, dear sister, sweet sister, be of good comfort; show your self a woman, now or never.
WIDOW. Oh, I have lost the dearest man, I have buried the sweetest husband that ever lay by woman. ”

“ In making you believe I was dead, she exposed you to a possible seizure. You might have died.
Bramble
You?—she would've enjoyed to make me die.
Widow Thank God's Mercy, you look—well. You appear healthy. I am furious with—that woman.
Bramble All this has merely redoubled my feelings for you. I can't really express them.
Widow I feel, also, that my love for you—I don't know how to say it. Huh— how I hate the Countess.
Bramble This is like a renewal of the feelings I had for you when we first met.
Widow
Yes. It's like a second honeymoon.
Tuneless
A posthumous marriage. ”

“ To Lincolnshire, and mind thy dog and horn!
You’ll never do for town! “The Widow Jones”
To come from Italy! Stay not in town,
Or you’ll be married to the Widow Jones,
Since you’ve forsworn, you say, the Widow Green!
And morn and night they’ll din your ears with her!
“Well met, dear Master Wildrake. A fine day!
Pray, can you tell whence came the Widow Jones?”
They love a jest in town! To Lincolnshire!
You’ll never do for town! To Lincolnshire;
“The Widow Jones” to come from Italy!
[Goes out.]
Wild. Confound the Widow Jones! ’Tis true! ”

“ KARI WOODENGOWN
THERE was once upon a time a King who had become a widower. His Queen had left one daughter behind her, and she was so wise and so pretty that it was impossible for any one to be wiser or prettier. For a long time the King went sorrowing for his wife, for he had loved her exceedingly; but at last he grew tired of living alone, and married a Queen who was a widow, and she also had a daughter, who was just as ill-favoured and wicked as the other was good and beautiful. ”

“ Widow I tremble with fear that he suspects me. Perhaps, in my mourning, I innocently called on Desmond.
Lucy Innocently, of course. But now virtue and propriety insist, that in the batting of an eye, change your love into esteem. And, if your husband should eventually die, you may, in another bat of an eye, change your esteem into love.
Widow Your advice is so wise. I will follow it. And send Arabella a hundred leagues from here.
Lucy
So. Let's go, embrace your husband as if nothing happened.
Widow
It will be very hard to hide my anger.
(Enter Tuneless and Bramble.) ”

“ But when I came there, a Beautiful Creature in a Widow's Habit sat in Court to hear the Event of a Cause concerning her Dower. This commanding Creature (who was born for Destruction of all who behold her) put on such a Resignation in her Countenance, and bore the Whispers of all around the Court with such a pretty Uneasiness, I warrant you, and then recovered her self from one Eye to another, 'till she was perjectly confused by meeting something so wistful in all she encountered, that at last, with a Murrain to her, she cast her bewitching Eye upon me. ”

“ Hence the significance of the term Wife, derived from the Anglo-Saxon wif, by virtue of the verb wyfan, to weave. The designation Widow is an Indo-European importation, derived from the Sanskrit vid-hava, without husband. Grass Widow, denoting a woman temporarily separated from her husband, is a corruption of “Grace Widow”—in other words, a widow by grace, or courtesy. The word Chaperon is French, derived from the chapeau, or cap, worn by the duennas of Spain. Duenna, signifying a guardian, is Spanish, founded upon the Latin domina, a mistress. ”

“ I speak of the loss of my husband.”
Sir Francis was a little puzzled. Was this lady more or less of a woman of the world than he had imagined? Was there not after all something of the ingenue about her? To be sure, a widow cannot, as a general thing, be accurately described as an ingenue; but, practically, this widow might be so. For all her polished self-possession of voice and bearing—which might as well be the result of early education as of the training of worldly experience—for all this her mind and heart might be fresh and unsophisticated. ”

“ As soon as we came into it, "It is, quoth the good Old Man, looking round him with a Smile, very hard, that any Part of my Land should be settled upon one who has used me so ill as the perverse Widow did; and yet I am sure I could not see a Sprig of any Bough of this whole Walk of Trees, but I should reflect upon her and her Severity. She has certainly the finest Hand of any Woman in the World. ”

“ Upon a Widow's Jointure Land2,
is daily employed in throwing Darts, and kindling Flames. But as for Widows, they are such a Subtle Generation of People, that they may be left to their own Conduct; or if they make a false Step in it, they are answerable for it to no Body but themselves. The young innocent Creatures who have no Knowledge and Experience of the World, are those whose Safety I would principally consult in this Speculation. ”

“ SIR GODFREY.
O Villain! one of our society,
Deemd always holy, pure, religious.
A Puritan a thief, when wast ever heard?
Sooner we’ll kill a man then Steal, thou knowst.
Out, slave! I’ll rend my lion from thy back
With mine own hands.
NICHOLAS.
Dear Master, oh.
NOBLE. Nay, Knight, dwell in patience. And now, widdow, being so near the Church, twer great pity, nay uncharity, to send you home again without a husband: draw nearer you of true worship, state and credit, that should not stand so far off from a widdow, and suffer forged shapes to come between you. ”

“ There was once a poor widow, so poor that even the flies would not stay in her house, and this widow had two children, a boy and a girl. The boy was such a brave fellow that he would have torn the snakes' tongues out of their mouths, and the girl was so beautiful that the emperor's sons and handsome princes of every land were waiting impatiently for her to grow up, that they might go and court her. ”

“ NOBLE. Madam, tho I came now from court, I come now from court, I come not to flatter you: upon whom can I justly cast this blot, but upon your own forehead, that know not ink from milk? such is the blind besotting in the state of an unheaded woman that’s a widdow. For it is the property of all you that are widdowes (a hand full excepted) to hate those that honestly and carefully love you, to the maintenance of credit, state, and posterity, and strongly to dote on those, that only love you to undo you: who regard you least are best regarded, who hate you most are best beloved. ”

“ Drabdump was a widow. Widows are not born, but made, else you might have fancied Mrs. Drabdump had always been a widow. Nature had given her that tall, spare form, and that pale, thin-lipped, elongated, hard-eyed visage, and that painfully precise hair, which are always associated with widowhood in low life. ”

“ Have you no pity for the disconsolate Widow?"
Philip answered very politely: "Beautiful widows find no lack of comforters. May I venture to include myself amongst them?"
"Why are you so disobedient? and why have you not changed your mask?" said the Widow, while she led him aside that they might speak more freely. "Do you really fancy, Prince, that every one here does not know who you are?" ”

“ Fuller says, in his 'Holy State,' that 'the good widow's grief for her husband, though real is moderate;' and it is our object to illustrate the old divine's text by two famous and most ancient stories; but we would in the first place offer a few remarks upon the species widow.
If widow be derived from the Latin viduus, void, then Mr. Weller the elder's pronunciation, vidder, is the most etymological. We are, however, far from sharing that gentleman's feelings toward those ladies, cleverest of their class. We love widows. We gain by their loss. ”

“ As she did this, the widow, who was looking on rather anxiously, for she recoiled from the sight of those hooked finger-nails so close to the snowy forehead of her child, saw for the first time what looked like the shadow of a ruby cross upon the boy’s temple, the top running up among the curls, which, strangely enough, did not grow upon the spot, but only sheltered it from casual scrutiny.
“It is the mark of his fingers. He always sleeps with his hand under his head,” observed the widow, with a vague feeling of awe. “His skin is so delicate, the touch of a rose-leaf makes it flush.” ”

“ Lady Ongar felt that it would be better for all parties that it should be over, and that it would not be over soon unless she could help him. "Very lonely indeed," she said; "but then I suppose that it is the fate of widows to be lonely."
"I don't see that at all," said Archie, briskly; "—unless they are old and ugly, and that kind of thing. When a widow has become a widow after she has been married ever so many years, why then I suppose she looks to be left alone; and I suppose they like it." ”

“ The slaughtered knight, the widow, and the dog, tell the tale, and tell it well too. The widow is the best figure. We have had enough of battle and all its horrors; let us turn to tranquillizing nature, where the undisturbed lichen may grow upon the rocks, and the branches of unpruned trees throw out their sheltering leafage, and the innocent insects know it is their home; and even in the seeming silence, if you listen, may you hear the still voice of a busy creation, a world of a few summer hours—yet seemeth it to them an eternity of enjoyment. ”

“ Let matrimony give me everything that it can possibly give, but a marriage with a widow will not give me all that. A widow!--To think that every word which the maiden blushingly and with palpitating heart whispers, the widow has already told to some one else: and that which in a maid is, as it were, a sacrifice to love, in a widow is but a repetition. ”

“ And now the widow, like the three fates rolled into one, is weaving the woof, and, in good Dutch, is pouring into the attentive ear of the corporal her hopes and fears, her surmises, her wishes, her anticipations, and her desires--and he imbibes them all greedily, washing them down with the beer of the widow's own brewing. ”

“ That evening the Widow and her family were without bite or sup and they were hoping for Grania Oï and the two young women. But when the darkness of the night was falling a tall thin man walked in. He was dressed in a gentleman's garb. The Widow gave him a chair, and asked him to sit down and take a rest.
"I have no time to sit down," said he, "I have lots of business to do. You yourself and your family are without bite or sup."
"We are," said she, "but I hope for succour soon."
"Have no hope in the promise of a woman of beauty or you will be deceived. ”

“ The widow had a boy, to whom the stepfather was good— (really a very decent person according to his lights!) and kept on making pills and millions, until last year he lost his first wife and got a knighthood. The old love was a widow by this time, taking in lodgers in some neighbourhood where you do take lodgers, and Sir Samuel found and gathered her like a late rose. Naturally she puts on all the airs in the world, and diamonds in the morning. She 'll treat you like the dirt under her feet, because that 's her conception of her part—and yours. ”

“ August Fifteenth
“There never was a nicer woman as a widder, than that ’ere second wentur o’ mine,—a sweet cretur she was, Sammy; and all I can say on her now, is, that as she was such an uncommon pleasant widder, it’s a great pity she ever changed her condition.”
—Dickens.
August Sixteenth
Alas! you see of how slight metal widows’ vows are made.
—Chapman.
Widows are held in such esteem, that an artificial species is cultivated, called straw, or grass widows, from their habit of making hay while the sun shines. ”

“ You philandered with the pretty pale-skinned Widow Toppys. She responded to your advances. It is of no use for you to shake your head. I know men, men of your susceptible age, and I know widows. I am one myself. Am I not always sweetly responsive to your fascinating middle-aged sex? You aroused the jealousy of Willatopy, and he, a wise and dutiful son—who also appears to understand, widows—put you to rout with his spear. Never again dare you appear on the Island of Willatopy. ”

“ Never has any woman fascinated her as the lovely widow she is asked not to know. What sparkling conversation! and, oh, what a dainty tea service and piping hot cakes the footman places between them as they talk.
The room is far prettier than Eleanor's boudoir which she has hitherto considered such a dream of beauty. More than once Mrs. Roche suggests going, but the widow intreats her to remain.
"It is so delightful to have you!" she declares, with exuberant cordiality. "I have done nothing all the afternoon but lie on this sofa and yawn over a novel. ”

“ I come to the house of the good widow, for such, say the men of the world, is the widow Bell. I design to eat and refresh me with sleep; and then crossing over the river that lies in my path, wend my way to the scorners of truth, that are thick among the men of blood in the army; for among them, Death on the pale horse is ever ramping and roaring. ”