The obligations of gentleness and kindness are extensive as the
claims to manliness; these three qualities must go together. There
are some cases, however, in which such obligations are of special
force. Perhaps a precept here will be presented most appropriately
under the guise of an example. We have now before our mind's eye a
couple, whose marriage tie was, a few months since, severed by
death. The husband was a strong, hale, robust sort of a man, who
probably never knew a day's illness in the course of his life, and
whose sympathy on behalf of weakness or suffering in others it was
exceedingly difficult to evoke; while his partner was the very
reverse, by constitution weak and ailing, but withal a woman of whom
any man might and ought to have been proud. Her elegant form, her
fair transparent skin, the classical contour of her refined and
expressive face, might have led a Canova to have selected her as a
model of feminine beauty. But alas! she was weak; she could not work
like other women; her husband could not _boast_ among his shopmates
how much she contributed to the maintenance of the family, and how
largely she could afford to dispense with the fruit of his labours.
Indeed, with a noble infant in her bosom, and the cares of a
household resting entirely upon her, she required help herself, and
at least she needed, what no wife can dispense with, but she least
of all--_sympathy_, forbearance, and all those tranquilizing virtues
which flow from a heart of kindness.
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