Sometimes it almost seems as if
complaints and antagonism were better than such stagnant quiet. But there
need not be complaint and antagonism; there is no home so poor, so remote
from affairs, that each day does not bring and set ready, for family
welcome and discussion, beautiful sights and sounds, occasions for
helpfulness and gratitude, questions for decision, hopes, fears, regrets!
The elements of human life are the same for ever; any one heart holds in
itself the whole, can give all things to another, can bear all things for
another; but no giving, no bearing, no, not even if it is the giving up of
a life, if it is done without free, full, loving interchange of speech, is
half the blessing it might be.
Many a wife goes down to her grave a dulled and dispirited woman simply
because her good and faithful husband has lived by her side without
talking to her! There have been days when one word of praise, or one word
even of simple good cheer, would have girded her up with new strength. She
did not know, very likely, what she needed, or that she needed any thing;
but she drooped.
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