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her change. That is the
trouble; - love-sick-ness blinds her to the truth. When she wakes up by
experience of the truth, she wishes she hadn't. The only safe
thing for a woman to do who finds herself married to one man and in
love with another is to wait, a year, or two or three years, until
time proves her love and she knows in her heart that she can make the
change and never regret it, no matter what happens. You see, she can
NEVER be happy with the new love as long as CONSCIENCE OR HEART
reproaches her for her treatment of the old love. It behooves her to
consider well. Time will
prove the new love. In many such cases times reveals the idol's feet of
clay. He shows that his love is for himself, not for her. He pouts
and kicks and teases like a petulant child. He wants her NOW, no matter
how she may suffer in consequence of his haste. In spite of
herself, in spite of her love for the new love, she finds he is not panning
out as she supposed. She begins to see his other, his everyday side
- the side she will have to live with if she goes to him. Now is the
husband's chance. She knows his every-day side, from experience;
she has tried it in weal and woe. If he rises to this occasion the
Ideal Man, he stands a fair chance of winning from his wife a deeper love
than she has yet given any man. He may catch her whole heart in its
rebound from the idol with feet of clay. To a husband
in such a position I would say, Be kind. "There is nothing so
kingly as kindness!" - and true kindness under this most trying
condition will in time win even a recalcitrant wife's admiration and love - IF
the two are really mates. If they are not real mates; if they have
outgrown their usefulness to each other; the sooner they part the better. To
hold them together would only be another "mistake." Because a man
and wife were mates five or ten years ago is no proof that they are mates
today. We are all growing, and it is often literally true that we
"grow away" from people. Every loved
one who goes out of our lives makes room for a better, fuller love -
unless we shut ourselves in with our "grief." It is said
that Robert Louis Stevenson fell in love with the wife of his best friend.
He told his friend frankly, intending to leave the city. His friend
questioned the wife and found she reciprocated Stevenson's love.
Stevenson stayed with his friend in her father's
home in his wife and
Stevenson still remaining, the friend applied for a
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