The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 100, February, 1866, page 99 by Various Authors
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as living death,--had you not then a partner, a kind, tender, sympathizing partner, who took you to his heart, and bowed his head with you, and knit you closer to him by a bond the strongest life can weave, the bond of sorrow shared? And look farther back into the past, before sorrow came, and when light-hearted, beaming, hoping joy dwelt within you. When you used to catch Frank's eye with those tiny boots and flowing skirts, as you gracefully swept by him, had you not a partner to share those throbbing emotions? Were not all the hopes, dreams, and doubts, which then awoke, new-born within you, reëchoed and fondly shared? Did he not bear away, for days and nights, the brightness of your smile, the bend of your angelic head, and the trip of the tiny boots? And when the Heaven-sent moment came for the tongue to tell what the heart had so long cherished in silence, was there not a partner before you who dealt out words which filled your soul with rapture, and helped you to win the dearest prize that earth affords,--a mutual love? And look farther on into the distant future, when the tiny boots shall have long been cast aside, and the flowing silks shall have sunken into inexpansive, sober gray,--when the early joys and the early sorrows shall fade into the dim, half-remembered past,--when time shall have blanched the curly locks which first caught your girlish fancy, and lined the fair brow you once kissed in its manly beauty,--when the bloom of your own youth shall have passed away, and, in its stead, you see the faded remnants of your queenly prime,--when round you gather the fair youths and maidens who are living over the joys and sorrows which once moved your tired heart, and which you then shall look upon with that sad philosophy which tells you that the day has come when earthly interests can never sway you more,--will you not then have a partner who will share the memories of the past, and, heart to heart, will tread with you the slow decline, and win the prize outranking all,--eternal peace?
Yes