Only one of the engaged persons may be widow or widower, and it is greatly to the honour of women that more men marry a second time than women. Man often finds more happiness in marriage than she does, while she is more faithful to the memory of the departed, and thinks more of her children than herself. How many women I have known who, being left widows quite young, have sacrificed themselves, together with the need of loving and being loved, to their children, often to one alone; proud of their sacrifice, unconquerable against all temptations and against all the power of the most legitimate passions. Do children know how to value this heroism hidden in the bosom of so many families? Do they understand that there is more courage required in this struggle of months and years than one day’s assault of a battery in battle? Very rarely do they know it, for even the best of children do not return a hundredth part of the love they have received from their parents, and especially from their mother. ⁂ Is happiness more easily to be found in the union of a widower and a young woman, or in that of a widow and a celibate? The answer is difficult, for the problem is too vague, and individual qualities weigh too heavily in the balance, gradually modifying the surroundings, the affections now warding off dangers, now increasing them infinitely. If other conditions be favourable the widow is generally an excellent wife for many reasons: She has lost many illusions, but has learned to know and excuse the egotism of man. Sometimes she will have been obliged to beg her first husband’s pardon for some accession of jealousy or caprice; and as a woman always occupies herself in everything more with other people’s happiness than her own, she wishes to give her second husband perfect bliss, and often and willingly succeeds. If she cannot offer her companion the virginal flower (which after all is more a myth than a real jewel) she can give him all the treasures of amorous experience, that is often worth more than a hundred virginities. On the other hand the widower who marries a young woman has the great advantage of her not being able to make any odious comparisons, and he also brings precious gems to the new home which an unmarried man does not know or possess. He has learned to know all the little weaknesses and great virtues of woman, he has learned to become less egotistical, to think of others more than himself, and as separate from himself, and he generally is an excellent husband. ⁂