WIDOWS GRAVE AND OTHERWISE

“Widders are ’ceptions to ev’ry rule.”

—Dickens.

PURLOINED BY AN EX-WIDOW AND PICTURED BY A VICTIM

PUBLISHED BY AN IMMUNE

WIDOWS GRAVE AND OTHERWISE

COMPILED BY CORA D. WILLMARTH ILLUSTRATED BY A. F. WILLMARTH

COPYRIGHT, 1903 BY PAUL ELDER AND COMPANY

PAUL ELDER AND COMPANY PUBLISHERS, SAN FRANCISCO

January First

Widows, like ripe fruit, drop easily from their perch.

—Bruyere.

January Second

Wedlock’s like wine,—not properly judged of till the second glass.

—Douglas Jerrold.

January Third

The Spaniards have it that a buxom widow must be either married, buried, or shut up in a convent.

—Haliburton.

January Fourth

Frailty, thy name is woman! a little month, or ere those shoes were old with which she followed my poor father’s body, like Niobe, all tears:—why she, even she, married with my uncle.

—Shakespeare.

January Fifth

To marry once is a duty, twice a folly, thrice is madness.

—Dutch Proverb.

January Sixth

Mrs. President has disposed of six husbands and is to take a seventh: being of the opinion that there is as much virtue in the touch of a seventh husband as of a seventh son.

—Addison.

January Seventh

I praise th’ saints I niver was married, though I had opportunities enough when I was a young man, an’ even now I have to wear me hat low whin I go down be Cologne Street, on account iv the widow Grogan.

—Mr. Dooley.

January Eighth

Tush! herself knows not what she shall do when she is transformed into a widow.

—Chapman.

January Ninth

Widows are such a subtle generation of people they may be left to their own conduct; if they make a false step, they are answerable for it to nobody but themselves.

—Addison.

January Tenth

I have seen a widow that just before was seen pleasant enough, follow an empty hearse and weep devoutly.

—Chapman.

January Eleventh

January Twelfth

Here’s a small trifle of wives: alas,—eleven widows and nine maids, is a simple coming in for one man.

—Shakespeare.

January Thirteenth

January Fourteenth

The widow Quick married within a fortnight after the death of her last husband. Her weeds have served her twice and are still as good as new.

—Addison.

January Fifteenth

She was clever, witty, brilliant, and sparkling; but possessed of many devils of malice and mischievousness; she could be nice, though, even to her own sex.

—Kipling.

January Sixteenth

January Seventeenth

“Yes, he’s going to marry that rich widow. His debts were looming up dreadfully, and—”

“I see. His marriage will be the finished product of the loom.”

—San Francisco News Letter.

January Eighteenth

“Dear Joseph is dead. Loss fully covered by insurance.”

—(Telegram) Tit Bits.

January Nineteenth

January Twentieth

Take my word for it, the silliest woman can manage a clever man, but it needs a very clever woman to manage a fool.

—Kipling.

January Twenty-first

But if the priest’s daughter be a widow, or divorced, and have no child, and is returned unto her father’s house, as in her youth, she shall eat of her father’s meat.

—Bible.

January Twenty-second

But every vow of a widow and of her that is divorced shall stand against her.

—Numbers xx:11.

January Twenty-third

Le Fiance. “Why have you not introduced me to your mother, darling?”

La Fiancee. “Gerald, my mother is a widow, and I have lost two fiances to widows already.”

—Life.

January Twenty-fourth

With all the experience of married life she has the sense of perfect freedom and irresponsibility; consequently her flights in flirtation are as daring as they are without fear or reproach.

—Malcolm C. Salomon.

January Twenty-fifth

“So DeWolff Hopper is divorced and married again?”

“Yes.”

“Well, now I suppose the question is, is his former wife a grass widow or a grass Hopper?”

—Life.

January Twenty-sixth

’Tis safest in matrimony to begin with a little aversion.

—Sheridan.

January Twenty-seventh

It sometimes happens that when a man fails in doing anything else well, he marries well.

—Atchison Globe.

January Twenty-eighth

January Twenty-ninth

Lady Catherine Swallow was a widow at eighteen, and has since buried a second husband and two coachmen.

—Addison.

January Thirtieth

January Thirty-first

The wives of hen-peck’d husbands most alwus outliv ther victims, and I hev known them to git marrid agin and git hold ov a man that time (thank the Lord!) who understood all the hen-peck dodges.

—Josh Billings.

February First

February Second

The Lord will destroy the house of the proud: but he will establish the border of the widow.

—Proverbs xv:25.

February Third

One said a rich widow was like the rubbish of the world, that helps only to stop the breaches of decayed houses.

—Hazlitt.

February Fourth

Of course not every man who has been pursued by a widow was caught, and there are a number of thrilling, if slightly apochryphal, narratives of daring adventurers who have escaped the clutches of the dangerous creatures at the last minute.

—Dorothy Dix.

February Fifth

Mrs. Pepperday. “My first husband had a great deal more sense than you have.”

Mr. Pepperday. “True enough, he died.”

—Harper’s Magazine.

February Sixth

“Take example by your father, my boy, and be wery careful o’ the widders all your life.”

—Dickens.

February Seventh

Keep yourself from the tumult of the mob, from fools in a narrow way, from a man that is marked, and from a widow that has been thrice married.

—Proverb.

February Eighth

Lawyer. “I can get a divorce without publicity for two hundred and fifty dollars.”

Actress. “How much more will it cost with publicity?”

—Judge.

February Ninth

A man that marries a widow is bound to give up smoking and chewing. If she gives up her weeds for him he should give up his weed for her.

—Louisville Journal.

February Tenth

There is but one good excuse for a marriage late in life, and that is a second marriage.

—Josh Billings.

February Eleventh

For it is better to marry than to burn.

—I Cor. vii:9.

February Twelfth

“Ven you’re a married man, Samival, you’ll understand a good many things as you don’t understand now: but vether it’s worth while goin’ through so much to learn so little, as the charity boy said ven he got to the end of the alphabet, is a matter o’ taste.”

—Dickens.

February Thirteenth

February Fourteenth

February Fifteenth

February Sixteenth

A rich widow is the only kind of second-hand goods that will always sell at prime cost.

—Franklin.

February Seventeenth

February Eighteenth

She. “I think I should like a widower after all.”

He. “Very well; whom shall I marry first?”

—Life.

February Nineteenth

February Twentieth

February Twenty-first

A widow is more sought after than an old maid of the same age.

—Addison.

February Twenty-second

The widow is indigenous to all climes and wherever found is a source of aggravation to women and of danger to men.

—Dorothy Dix.

February Twenty-third

Widows are indeed the great game of your fortune hunters.

—Addison.

February Twenty-fourth

“Some day I’m goin’ to let me temper r-run away with me, and get a comity together, and go out an’ hang ivry dam widdy and orphan between the rollin’ mills an’ th’ foundlin’s home. If it wasn’t for thim raypachious crathers, they’d be no boodle annywheres.”

—Mr. Dooley.

February Twenty-fifth

February Twenty-sixth

“She knows how to look out for number one.”

“That is quite evident from the way she is looking out for number two.”

—Smart Set.

February Twenty-seventh

Sum marry the second time to get even and find it a gambling game: the more they put down the less they take up.

—Josh Billings.

February Twenty-eighth

The wife is bound by the law as long as the husband liveth.

—I Cor. vii:39.

February Twenty-ninth

Remove thy way far from her and come not nigh the door of her house.

—Proverbs.

March First

Woo the widow while she is in weeds.

—Proverb.

March Second

Indeed, we were once in great hopes of his recovery, upon a kind message that was sent him from the widow lady whom he had made love to the last forty years of his life: but this only proved a lightning before death.

—Addison.

March Third

March Fourth

“You are a marrid man, Mr. Young, I believe?” sed I.

“I hev eighty wives, Mr. Ward. I certainly am marrid.”

—Artemus Ward.

March Fifth

’Tis dangerous marrying a widow because she has cast her rider.

—Spanish Proverb.

March Sixth

“I have heerd how many ord’nary women one widder’s equal to, in pint of comin’ over you. I think it’s five-and-twenty, but I don’t rightly know whether it an’t more.”

—Dickens.

March Seventh

“As for the widders, anny healthy widdy with street car stock ought to be ashamed of hersilf if she’s a widdy long.”

—Mr. Dooley.

March Eighth

That is why little widows are so dangerous: they not only know their own sex, but they know ours, too, and knowledge is power.

—Malcolm C. Salomon.

March Ninth

The basis of the contemporary matrimonial decline, as most writers interpret it, is man. Man cannot very well be left out of marriage altogether without defeating some of its more important ends and impairing its results.

—Edward Stanton Martin.

March Tenth

Easy or frivolous divorce is condemned and deplored, but the easily divorced are not excluded from the politest society.

—Edward Stanton Martin.

March Eleventh

Onions can make heirs and widows weep.

—Proverb.

March Twelfth

He who marries a widow will often have a dead man’s head thrown in his dish.

—Proverb.

March Thirteenth

Divorce, with all its privileges and possibilities, must continue to be a second-rate bliss by no means comparable to true marriage.

—Edward Stanton Martin.

March Fourteenth

“Mind that no widder gets a inklin’ of your fortun, or you’re done.”

—Dickens.

March Fifteenth

Mrs. Biffery Biff. “You should be happy. You have such a kind husband.”

Mrs. Quittem. “Yes; we are getting along splendidly, since we don’t live together.”

—San Francisco Examiner.

March Sixteenth

A good occasion for courtship is when a widow returns from the funeral.

—Proverb.

March Seventeenth

Second marriages receive much less universal consideration because comparatively few persons find themselves in a position where they have to reach a decision as to their expediency.

—Edward Stanton Martin.

March Eighteenth

She was a little widow and was consequently a complete compendium of the art of love.

—Malcolm C. Salomon.

March Nineteenth

She was a good lookin’ woman and had seen trouble. It stands to reason she had, with four husbands. Good land!

—Josiah Allen’s Wife.

March Twentieth

Wooers and widows are never poor.

—Ralph Roister Doister (1566).

March Twenty-first

Do, but dally not: that’s the widow’s phrase.

—Barry.

March Twenty-second

“You know what counsel said, Sammy, as defended the gen’lem’n as beat his wife, with the poker, venever he got jolly: ‘And arter all, my Lord,’ says he, ‘it’s a amiable weakness.’ So I says respectin’ widders.”

—Dickens.

March Twenty-third

Of course I wanted to marry the widow because she declared she would never marry again.

—Malcolm C. Salomon.

March Twenty-fourth

The multi-widow. “A woman seldom finds that her husband is the same man she married.”

—Brooklyn Eagle.

March Twenty-fifth

Why, if I had had two husbands, or even four, I should want to keep ’em apart sittin’ up in high chairs on different sides of my heart.

—Josiah Allen’s Wife.

March Twenty-sixth

Disagreeable suspicions are usually the fruits of a second marriage.

—Racine.

March Twenty-seventh

“Have you made your will?” asked the lawyer of the old colored citizen.

“No, suh. I ain’ got nothin’ to leave ’cept one wife and de rheumatism.”

—Atlanta Constitution.

March Twenty-eighth

It is only a widow who is wise enough to know that a jolly laugh in a woman is a bait to which a man will invariably rise as a trout to a fly.

—Dorothy Dix.

March Twenty-ninth

Get a wife who has learned how to keep house on your predecessor, and is in no danger of giving you dyspepsia while she experiments with cooking school recipes.

—Dorothy Dix.

March Thirtieth

“So they were divorced for incompatibility of temper?”

“Yes; you see he had the incompatibility and she had the temper.”

—Judge.

March Thirty-first

The shameless Chloe placed on the tombs of her seven husbands the inscription, “The work of Chloe.”

—Martial.

April First

Few persons turn grey because their husbands die.

—Proverb.

April Second

April Third

Oh! a maid is sometimes charming, but a widow all the while.

—Anonymous.

April Fourth

April Fifth

One husband is worth two good wives: for the scarcer things are, the more they’re valued.

—Benjamin Franklin.

April Sixth

I, Dionysius of Tarsus, lie here at sixty, having never married; and would that my father had not.

—Greek Epitaph.

April Seventh

Once you are married there is nothing left for you, not even suicide, but to be good.

—Robert Louis Stevenson.

April Eighth

“Didn’t you do well by your second marriage?”

“Oh, yes indeed; the clothes of my wife’s first husband just fit me!”

—Danbury News Man.

April Ninth

The lachrymose widow is one of those clinging vines that always gets there.

—Dorothy Dix.

April Tenth

“Of course I am a widow. Sure, that poor little insignificant crayther of a husband is not worth mentioning.”

—Irish Life.

April Eleventh

Old friend—“Was your daughter’s marriage a success?”

Hostess—“Oh, a great success! She’s traveling in Europe on the alimony.”

—New York Weekly.

April Twelfth

“No other man can ever fill poor John’s place. I loved him from the bottom of my heart.”

“Of course; but you know there is always room at the top.”

—Chicago Daily News.

April Thirteenth

April Fourteenth

“There is more to be learned from one widow than from a whole Smithsonian museum of anthropology.”

April Fifteenth

Fijjit—“The widow says that her marriage to Gobang was secret.”

Ijjit—“It must have been. Gobang himself did not mention a widow in his will, so he could not have known of the wedding.”

—Life.

April Sixteenth

“Widows, gentlemen, are not usually timorous, as my uncle used to say.”

—Dickens.

April Seventeenth

The good widow’s sorrow is no storm, but a still rain.

—Fuller.

April Eighteenth

A woman deserted by one man has no remedy but to appeal to twelve.

—Jerrold.

April Nineteenth

At the prospect of a cosy separation society would reach at last the condition of Rome as described by Seneca, when women computed their ages by the number of their husbands instead of by the years they had lived.

—Matthews.

April Twentieth

“Jerome speaks of witnessing the funeral of a woman who was followed by her twenty-second husband to the grave, she having been his twenty-first wife.”

April Twenty-first

If you want a neat wife, choose her on a Saturday.

—Poor Richard’s Almanac.

April Twenty-second

She—“They are the most wonderful compositions in the language.”

He—“They don’t compare with Jack Harvey’s. Why, he wrote a letter of condolence to a widow and she took off her mourning immediately.”

—Life.

April Twenty-third

Drying a widow’s tears is one of the most dangerous occupations known to man.

—Dorothy Dix.

April Twenty-fourth

I told Martin when we’d first come to London, that I must see the Widder Albert whilst I was there.

—Josiah Allen’s Wife

April Twenty-fifth

“Doctor, do you think my wife will recover?”

“Oh, yes! I told her I already had a wife picked out for you in case she didn’t get well.”

—Life.

April Twenty-sixth

Keep your eyes open before marriage; half shut afterwards.

—Poor Richard’s Almanac.

April Twenty-seventh

Widow—“Yes, I have cremated three husbands.”

Old maid—“It seems unfair. Here I’ve lived all these years and never have been able to get married to one man and you’ve had husbands to burn.”

—Chauncey M. Depew’s Story.

April Twenty-eighth

“Better to have loved extensively than never to have loved at all.”

April Twenty-ninth

Agent—“Isn’t this stone a trifle small for a man of your husband’s prominence?”

Widow—“No, sir! If Thomas thought a stone like that was good enough for his first wife, I guess it’s plenty good enough for Thomas.”

—Life.

April Thirtieth

You can’t talk to a remarried woman at a dinner party about her first husband, especially if one of her subsequent husbands is present.

—Edward Stanton Martin.

May First

Divorce is the spice of life.

—Life.

May Second

“We hated to tell you, but your drowned husband’s body has been found and it is covered with eels.”

“Well,” sighed the widow, drying her eyes, “set him again.”

—Chauncey M. Depew’s Story.

May Third

St. Peter (to first applicant)—“Were you married while on earth?”

First Applicant—“I was; twice.”

St. Peter—“Walk in. You deserve it.”

—The Wasp.

May Fourth

May Fifth

Behold I have commanded a widow woman there to sustain thee.

—I Kings xvii:9.

May Sixth

She—“Should you die, are you opposed to my remarrying?”

He—“No. Why should I be solicitous about the welfare of a fellow I’ll never know?”

—Life.

May Seventh

“Why did he get a divorce from his wife?”

“She named the baby after the first husband.”

—Life.

May Eighth

I asked her (who had buried twelve husbands): “At what time of life do you think the married state ceases to be preferable?”

She replied: “You must ask somebody older than I am.”

—Josh Billings.

May Ninth

A widow is like a frigate of which the first captain has been shipwrecked.

—Alphonse Karr.

May Tenth

Widowhood is true freedom.

—Mme. des Jardins.

May Eleventh

“So Mrs. Gaylord insists on a separation?”

“Yes. She didn’t mind his neglect, but whenever he was a little good to her he was so very virtuous about it that she just couldn’t stand it.”

—Harper’s Bazar.

May Twelfth

Easy-crying widows take new husbands soonest; there is nothing like wet weather for transplanting.

—Oliver Wendell Holmes.

May Thirteenth

Mrs. Henpeck—“Now, suppose I should die.”

Mr. Henpeck—“Good heavens! Is there any doubt about it?”

—Life.

May Fourteenth

There are four hundred and fifty Revolutionary widows left. Here is a chance now for those men who pant for a wife of the good old days.

—Danbury News Man.

May Fifteenth

Never marry a widow unless her first husband was hanged.

—Proverb.

May Sixteenth

Widows secretly rejoice in the admiration of men, but indulge themselves in no further consequences.

—Addison.

Widows are a study you will never be proficient in.

—Fielding.

May Seventeenth

Women who have been happy in a first marriage are most apt to venture upon a second.

—Addison.

May Eighteenth

May Nineteenth

How blessings brighten as they take their flight!

—Young.

May Twentieth

From thousands of our undone widows, one may derive some wit.

—Thomas Middleton.

May Twenty-first

For I have buried three husbands beside this man; and now I am no’ sure of no nother husband; and therefore ye may be sure I have great cause to be sad and heavy.

—Hazlitt.

May Twenty-second

May Twenty-third

Her waist was ampler than her life, for life is but a span.

—O. W. Holmes.

May Twenty-fourth

May Twenty-fifth

A Brookfield woman was completely unmanned by the loss of her husband.

—Danbury News Man.

May Twenty-sixth

Women have a special antipathy to the blond widow, and when one crosses their path they sit down and throw up their hands and give up the game.

—Dorothy Dix.

May Twenty-seventh

May Twenty-eighth

May Twenty-ninth

“Suppose,” said a friend who had been reading Enoch Arden, “that you went away on a sea voyage and came back and found that your wife had married another man?”

“That’s an absurd proposition. Henrietta would never be so careless as to let me go away on a sea voyage.”

—Washington Star.

May Thirtieth

An Atchison girl will marry a widower with five hand-me-down children.

—Atchison Globe.

May Thirty-first

A widow is a woman who has buried her husband; a grass widow is one who has simply mislaid hers.

—Will M. Clemens.

June First

Yet because this widow troubleth me, I will avenge her, lest by her continual coming she weary me.

—Luke xviii:5.

June Second