Oh! did we meet when brighter star I then might hope to call thee mine ; Or do!-but let it be the hour Callanan. Power of her Social Influence. Prior. As a Wife-Her Soothing Influence. Yes, a world of comfort Lies in that one word, wife--After a bickering day, To come with jaded spirit home at night, At which, in dress of happy cheeks and eyes, Knowles. We sit serenely 'neath the night, Upon my forehead rests thy palm, Warm fragrance like the soul o' the South, Such sensuous sadness fills the air, The harping hand hath dull'd the lyre We sit with silent glory crown'd, And Love's arms wound like heaven round: Or on rich clouds of fragrance swim The summer dusk so cool and dim. I only see that thou art near, I only feel I have thee, dear! I only hear thy throbbing heart, And know that we can never part. Massey. Her Influence universal. Oh, woman! whose form and whose soul Are the spell and the light of each path we pursue, Whether sunn'd in the tropics, or chill'd at the pole, If woman be there, there is happiness too. Moore. Her Primeval Innocence. When lovely woman, perfect at her birth, Nor shared my guidance nor required my aid. She tamed the savage, Man, who bless'd her sway. But youth was ecstasy, and age repose. Cowper. Invulnerable, if Chaste. She'll not be hit With Cupid's arrow, she hath Dian's wit; And, in strong proof of chastity, well arm'd, From Love's weak childish bow she lives unharm'd. Shakespeare. Virulence of her Jealousy. The venom clamours of a jealous woman Poison more deadly than a mad dog's tooth. Shakespeare. Innate Judgment of. In a conversation I once held with an eminent minister of our Church, he made this fine observation: "We will say nothing of the manner in which that sex usually conduct an argument; but the intuitive judgments of women are often more to be relied upon than the conclusions which we reach by an elaborate process of reasoning." No man that has an intelligent wife, or who is accustomed to the society of educated women, will dispute this. Times without number you must have known them decide questions on the instant, and with unerring accuracy, which you had been poring over for hours, perhaps, with no other result than to find yourself getting deeper and deeper into the tangled maze of doubts and difficulties. It were hardly generous to allege that they achieve these feats less by reasoning than by a sort of sagacity which approximates to the sure instinct of the animal races; and yet there seems to be some ground for the remark of a witty French writer, that, when a man has toiled, step by step, up a flight of stairs, he will be sure to find a woman at the top; but she will not be able to tell how she got there. How she got there, however, is of little moment. If the conclusions a woman has reached are sound, that is all that concerns us. And that they are very apt to be sound on the practical matters of domestic and secular life, nothing but |