Widow's cap

“ Something like a sob impeded her utterance, and the minister took her hand.
"Where is your husband? Are you widowed so early?"
"Husband—my husband? One to cherish and protect, to watch over, and love, and defend me;—if such be the duties and the tests of a husband,—oh! then indeed I have never had one! Widowed did you say? That means something holy,—sanctified by the shadow of death, and the yearning sympathy and pity of the world; a widow has the right to hug a coffin and a grave all the weary days of her lonely life, and people look tenderly on her sacred weeds. ”

“ The widow's veil raises the dignity of the Frenchwoman and confirms her piety so that she feels like a Madonna when her husband is dead, and loves to walk like one. Some wear this attire without being widowed—it conforms so well to a secret desire. The demure widow so dressed has much charm. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Here's a young widow Jointurewell lately come dashing,
But the Countess of Allwit's the woman for splashing,
Her bays in their coach are as constantly prancing,
As the widow's black eyes on the strangers are glancing. ”

“ 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. ”

“ She was a portly handsome dame, of the family of Esau, and seemed not to pine too much for the death of her husband. This widow is a person of lively and cheerful conversation with much less reserve than most of her country women. It becomes her very well and sets off her other agreeable qualities to advantage. ”

“ She suffers every obloquy in her husband's home, is deprived of her jewels, has her head shaven, and is clothed only with a coarse white cloth. Her fastings are long and severe, and she is not allowed to attend any festivity; for the presence of a widow would be deemed an evil omen and a curse. ”

“ Her hair is not cut, and she may wear patelas or flat metal bangles on the forearm and armlets above the elbow, but not other ornaments. A widow is under no obligation to marry her first husband’s younger brother; when she marries a stranger he usually pays a sum of about Rs. ”

“ The widow's daughter and chaperon appeared in the companionway, flushed and sleepy. "Mama, what is the matter?"
"Caroline, my precious lamb," and the widow motioned dramatically seaward. "Henry, you said—"
"I will," said Henry. "I will have the boat stopped."
"I will do that," cried the widow. "You jump overboard and save him."
Caroline yawned and raised her soft white hands to her tumbled hair. "Do save him, Bertie, I'm not equal to the task of comforting mama, just now."
Bertie looked at his immaculate yachting clothes and hesitated.
"Ah, you do not love me," cried the widow. ”

“ 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. ”

“ A little blue-eyed maiden, who was romping with her fifth Christmas doll, and listening to some conversation about unhappy marriages, incompatibilities of temper, and the Chicago recipe for unmarrying, turned to her mother and said, "Well, ma, I'm never going to marry. I'm going to be a widow." The dear little chatterbox! If she could only have kept her own counsel a few years longer. How many are there who would like being widows, without going through the form of marriage? but then, they'll never say so, for widows have their privileges, and privileges, too, that wives have not. ”

“ I appeal only to your sense of fair-play. You must have it, Standish, for all your virtuosity. Will you listen while I tell you the facts of the case?”
“Oh! I’ll listen,” he said,
“Very well. Now, I'll explain. That clock was the property of a wretched widow—a woman once in decent circumstances, but at last reduced to the hardest necessity. I’ve come across her in the way of my work on behalf of the Society; and a certain association of guess and inquiry has led me to the truth. Her husband was a Liverpool-Irish “patriot” of ’81. ”

“ 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?" ”

“ But the widow is as thoroughly emancipated from the conventional bonds which confine the free action of a maid as she is from those which fetter the wife; and only she herself knows what she has lost and gained. ”

“ But a rich widow is an estimable creature. Against widows, if rich, I have not a word to say; and to tell you the truth, there is a widow whom I suspect I have fascinated, and whose connection I have a particular private reason for deeming desirable! She has a whelp of a son, who is a spoke in my wheel: were I his father-in-law, would not I be a spoke in his? I’d teach the boy ‘life,’ Dolly.” Here all trace of beauty vanished from Jasper’s face, and Poole, staring at him, pushed away his chair. ”

“ A beautiful and most amiable woman had just been deprived, by an unforeseen event, of that husband, with whom but a little before she had entered into the most sacred engagements. The state of a widow is always an afflictive and unprotected one. ”

“ When he woke up—I beg your pardon—after they had broken off, he never could abide the smell of roses."
"I suppose," said the widow, holding her muff against her cheek sentimentally, "it reminded him of all the tender little tête-à-têtes and moonlight nights and the way her hair curled about her forehead and the way she used to smile at him, and of her gloves and her ruffles and the color of her eyes and——"
"It didn't!" said the bachelor emphatically. "It nauseated him. ”

“ Beginning with the assumption that the death of the husband was sent as a punishment for the wickedness of the wife, in some previous state of existence it may be, it is easy to conclude that the widow's life should be made as miserable as possible. She is therefore maltreated, neglected, and at times almost starved. When death takes away him in whom alone she had any reason for being respected, her head must be shaved, all jewels and wearing apparel are taken away, and instead the coarse weeds of the widow are put on. ”

“ 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. ”

“ When a native husband dies his brother’s or sister’s son, according to their custom, must marry the widow, but if there is no male relative of the husband’s living, the widow may then choose for herself. ”

“ It seems clear that until the mourning is over the widows cannot marry again, and the length of mourning is decided by the relatives of the deceased; it is closed with the beer-drinking. When it is over, the widows select their husbands from among the kindred of the deceased; he who marries the chief wife is the heir. A widow cannot marry outside this limited circle, unless she, or her new husband, be prepared to repay her bride-price, and often more. ”

“ Widow is a word of sorrow in the best of circumstances; but a widow left poor, destitute, friendless, surrounded with a number of small children, shivering with cold, pale with want, looking in her face with eyes pleading for bread which she has not to give, nor any probable prospect of procuring — her situation is neither to be described nor conceived. ”

“ Surely a widow would not be fit company for so gay a creature; and still, when she grew grave at the gate, when her smile faded, had not a wistful, sorrowful expression fallen across her face and into her exquisite eyes? Perhaps she, too, has suffered,—is in trouble, and, through sympathy, clings to her friend the widow. ”

“ A widow is generally disconsolate if she loses a little, wizen-faced, shrunken shanked, ugly, spiteful, distempered thing that scolded her and quarrelled with her, and beat her and made her hours bitter; whereas she will follow her husband to Ganges with exemplary fortitude if he was brave, handsome, generous——
“Either hold your tongue or go on with your story,” cried the warrior king, in whose mind these remarks awakened disagreeable family reflections.
“Hi! hi! hi!” laughed the demon; “I will obey your majesty, and make Madan-manjari, the misanthropical jay, proceed.” ”

“ The remarriage of a widow is, as we have seen, regarded in the best circles with disapproval. The model wife—the wife to whom a commemorative arch is erected on the roadside near her home and whose name is handed down to posterity in the official chronicle of her district as a pattern of virtue—is as scrupulously faithful to her husband after his death as during his life. ”

“ The indignation which we might naturally feel at the suggestion that a wife could forsake her unburied [307] dead, cools a little as the law goes on to state, that a husband can, of course, deprive a wife of all share in his personal estate. Very graciously, also, the widow is permitted to remain forty days in her husband's house, provided that she do not re-marry within that time! ”

“ 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. ”

“ Being of a handsome person, and of insinuating though frivolous manners, he attracted the notice of a young widow, who had been, soon after her marriage, bereaved of a very old and very wealthy husband, for whose death she was prevented from becoming utterly inconsolable by the acquisition of a very ample fortune. The chevalier perceived that to the fair widow he was not an indifferent object, and, without the slightest intention of ultimate matrimony, he professed the most boundless love. ”

“ Widow, wid′ō, n. a woman who has lost her husband by death.—v.t. to bereave of a husband: to strip of anything valued: (Shak.) to endow with a widow's right: to be widow to.—ns. Wid′ow-bench, a widow's share of her husband's estate besides her jointure; Wid′ow-bewitched′, a grass-widow; Wid′ow-bird, a corruption of Whydah-bird; Wid′ower, a man whose wife is dead; Wid′owerhood; Wid′owhood, state of being a widow, or (rarely) of being a widower: (Shak.) a widow's right; Wid′ow-hun′ter, one who seeks to marry a widow for her money; Wid′ow-mā′ker, one who bereaves women of their husbands ”

“ Most of the passengers came up on the poop after breakfast. Presently, with the assistance of the skipper’s arm, the widow began a promenade.
‘What an exhibition she’s making of herself! Her husband, if she ever had one, can’t be six months dead yet, by her mourning. She ought to be ashamed of herself—the sly thing!’
If the widow did not exactly hear all this, she felt it, and cast looks of triumphant defiance at her female friends, clustered in groups, most of them holding on to something unassisted. Elderly unmarried convalescents, and very spiteful, the majority. ”

“ The widow awaits the scirrata by the door of her house, and, as it draws near, the leader steps forward and throws a black veil over her head to symbolise her widowhood; the term of which must offer a dreary prospect to a woman who has the misfortune to lose her husband while she is still in the prime of life, for public opinion insists that she remain for years in almost total seclusion. ”

“ A long time has elapsed since the Widow was last married here, although the number of fellows who ought to have been married to her by force is legion. She is becoming tired of widowhood; and this is leap year. ”