on as well which might have helped to distract her, because her
whole life had been entirely devoted to her husband; and even the hours
when he was absent from her had been given to doing anything and
everything that might save him trouble or vexation. She lived on,
though she would willingly have died at any moment, and the whole
fabric of her life was shattered. Again, I think of a devoted daughter
who had done the same office for an old and not very robust father. I
heard her once say that the sorrow of her mother's death had been
almost nullified for her by finding that she could do everything for
and be everything to her father, whom she almost adored. She had
refused an offer of marriage from a man whom she sincerely loved, that
she might not leave her father, and she never even told her father of
the incident, for fear that he might have felt that he had stood in the
way of her happiness. When he died, she too found herself utterly
desolate, without ties and without occupation, an elderly woman almost
without friends or companions.

Ought one to feel that this kind of jealous absorption in a single
individual affection is a mistake? It certainly brought both the wife
and daughter an intense happiness, but in both cases the relation was
so close and so intimate that it tended gradually to seclude them from
all other relations. The husband and the father were both reserved and
shy men, and desired no other companionship. One can see so easily how
it all came about, and what the inevitable result was bound to be, and
yet it would have been difficult at any point to say what could have
been done. Of course these great absorbed emotions involve large risks;
and it may be doubted whether life can be safely lived on these
intensive lines. These are of course extreme instances, but there are
many cases in the world, and especially in the case of women whose life
is entirely built up on certain emotions like the love and care of
children; and when that is so, a nature becomes liable to the sharpest
incursions of fear. It is of little use arguing such cases
theoretically, because, as the proverb says, as the land lies the water
flows,--and love makes very light of all prudential considerations.

The difficulty does not arise with large and generous natures which
give love prodigally in many directions, because if one such relation
is broken by death, love can still exercise itself upon those that
remain. It is the fierce