Cobwebs and Cables. By Hesba Stretton

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1881 edition. Excerpt: ...what Bacon saith: 'To love and to be wise is not granted unto man'?" "I dare not say I am wise," answered Felix, "but surely such love as I bear to Alice will bring wisdom." "And does Alice love you?" asked Canon Pascal. "I did not think it right to ask her," he replied. "Then there's some hope still," said the Canon, more joyously; "the child is scarcely twenty yet. Do not you be in a hurry, my boy. You do not know what woman is yet; how delicately and tenderly organised; how full of seeming contradictions and uncertainties, often with a blessed meaning in them, ah, a heavenly meaning, but hard to be understood and apprehended by the rougher portion of humanity. Study them a little longer, Felix; take another year or two before you fix on your life-mistress." "You forget how many years I have lived under the same roof as Alice," replied Felix eagerly, " and how many women I have lived with; my mother, my grandmother, Phebe, and Hilda. Surely I know more about them than most men." "All good women," he answered, "happy lad! blessed lad, I should rather say. They have been better to thee than angels. Phebe has been more than a guardian angel to thcc, though thou knowest not all thou owest to her yet. But a wife, Felix, is different, God knows, from mother, or sister, or friend. God chooses our kinsfolk for us; but man chooses his own wife; having free will in that choice on which hangs his own life, and the lives of others. Yet the wisest of men said, 'Whoso findeth a wife findeth a good thing, and obtaineth favour of the Lord.' Ay, a good wife is the token of such loving favour as we know not yet in this world." The Canon's voice had...