Democratic Sentinel, Volume 10, Number 51, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 21 January 1887 — Loneliness. [ARTICLE]

Loneliness.

In “Aurora Leigh,” by Mrs. Browning, occur these passages: “My Father! Thou hast knowledge only Thou, How dreary tis for woman to sit still, On wiutei nights by solitary fires. Being present also in the unkissed lips, And eyes undried, because there's none to ask The reason they grew moist. To sit alone— While we sit loveless! is it hard, you think? At least 'tis mournful.” Thinking of these lines to-night by my “solitary fire,” I wondered how many women with “undried eyes” were, perhaps, within a few doors of my fireside. In my daily walks I find myself studying the faces of the women whom I meet, and weaving imaginary histories of their lives. Women, as a class, are presumed to wear their hearts on their sleeves, but I feel safe to assert the number is few, of those who really do this. Could we know the innermost feelings of our friends and acquaintances we should find how little we knew of their real selves.

Some years ago I knew a woman of whom it was said, “She is a happy wife, for she has a kind, devoted husband,” and not until the burden of her unloved, unloving, miserable life became too great for her to bear longer did the world learn that for years she nad borne uncomplaingly, and successfully concealed from even her own family, such treatment from this “devoted husband” as made her life a curse to her; and thus it is, on every side. While the few women do not become faithful helpmates, the many bear burdens of sorrow of which the world often remains in ignorance. “Into each heart some rain must fall,” and even the happiest lives have their little clouds, which the sunshine of love soon dispels. Do they ever think of the many who sit by “solitary fires” and “none |to ask why their eyes grow moist ?” How many women with hearts capable of loving and making happy homes for good men, sit “alone ?” Such loneliness can be better borne when the air is filled with the fragrance of flowers, and the sweet voices of birds, and all nature is alive with joy and loveliness, but in the time of frost, the flowers and birds gone, when one sits “alone” and sees the pictures in the fire, how sad, then, is the fate of the “solitary!”—Detroit Free Press.