What is there in the vale of life
Half so delightful as a wife,
When friendship, love, and peace combine
To stamp the marriage-bond divine?
Oh! 'tis a precious thing, when wives are dead,
To find such numbers who will serve instead:
And in whatever state a man be thrown,
'Tis that precisely they would wish their own.
The wife was pretty, trifling, childish, weak;
She could not think, but would not cease to speak.
Crabbe—Tales. Struggles of Conscience.
| note =
| topic = Wife
| page = 869
}}
{{Hoyt quote
| num = 4
| text = <poem>The wife of thy bosom.
Deuteronomy. XIII.
In every mess I find a friend,
In every port a wife.
Charles Dibdin—Jack in his Element.
| seealso = (See also {{sc|Gat)
{{Hoyt quote
| num = 6
| text = It's my old girl that advises. She has the head. But I never own to it before her. Discipline must be maintained.
| author = Dickens
| work = Bleak House.
| place = Ch. XXVII.
| topic = Wife
| page = 869
}}
{{Hoyt quote
| num =
| text = <poem>You know I met you,
Kist you, and prest you close within my arms,
With all the tenderness of wifely love.
Dryden—Amphitryon. Act III. Sc. 1.
Flesh of thy flesh, nor yet bone of thy bone.
Du Bartas—Divine Weekes and Workes.
Fourth Day. Bk. II.
An undutiful Daughter will prove an unmanageable Wife.
Benj. Franklin—Poor Richard. (1752)
| topic = Wife
| page = 869
}}
{{Hoyt quote
| num =
| text = <poem>He knows little who will tell his wife all he
knows.
Fuller—Holy and Profane State. Maxim VII.
The Good Husband.
She commandeth her husband, in any equal
matter, by constant obeying him.
Fuller—Holy and Profane State. The Good
Wife. Bk. I. Maxim I. 1 Ch. I.
One wife is too much for most husbands to bear,
But two at a time there's no mortal can bear.
Gay—Beggar's Opera. Act II. Sc. 2.
They'll tell thee, sailors, when away,
In every port a mistress find.
Gay—Sweet William's Farewell.
| seealso = (See also Dibdin)
| topic = Wife
| page = 869
}}
{{Hoyt quote
| num =
| text = <poem>Roy's wife of Aldivalloch,
Roy's wife of Aldivalloch,
Wat ye how she cheated me
As I cam o'er the braes of Balloch.
Attributed to Mrs. Grant, of Carron, but
claimed for a shoemaker in Cabrach. (About
1727)
| topic = Wife
| page = 869
}}
{{Hoyt quote
| num =
| text = <poem>Now die the dream, or come the wife,
The past is not in vain,
For wholly as it was your life
Can never be again, my dear,
Can never be again.
Henley—Echoes. XLX.
Andromache! my soul's far better part.
Homer—Iliad. Bk. VI. L. 624
| note = Pope's trans.
A wife, domestic, good, and pure,
Like snail, should keep within her door;
But not, like snail, with silver track,
Place all her wealth upon her back.
W. W. How—Good Wives.
| seealso = (See also Britaine under Woman)
| topic = Wife
| page = 869
}}
{{Hoyt quote
| num =
| text = <poem>Alas! another instance of the triumph of hope
over experience.
Samuel Johnson. Referring to the second
marriage of a friend who had been unfortunate in his first wife. Sir J. Hawkins's
Collective Ed. of Johnson, 1787.
Being married to those sleepy-souled women is just like playing at cards for nothing: no passion is excited and the time is filled up. I do not, however, envy a fellow one of those honeysuckle wives for my part, as they are but creepers at best and commonly destroy the tree they so tenderly cling about.
He knew whose gentle hand was at the latch,
Before the door had given her to his eyes.
Keats—Isabella. St. 3.
Sail forth into the sea of life,
O gentle, loving, trusting wife,
And safe from all adversity
Upon the bosom of that sea
Thy comings and thy goings be!
For gentleness and love and trust
Prevail o'er angry wave and gust;
And in the wreck of noble lives
Something immortal still survives.
| author = Longfellow
| work = Building of the Ship. L. 368.
But thou dost make the very night itself
Brighter than day.
| author = Longfellow
| work = Christus. The Divine Tragedy. The First Passover. Pt. III. L. 133.
Le ciel me prive d'une epouse qui ne m'a jamais donn6 d'autre chagrin que celui de sa mort.
Heaven deprives me of a wife who never caused me any other grief than that of her death.
Louis XIV.
How much the wife is dearer than the bride.
Lord Lyttleton—An Irregular Ode.
O wretched is the dame, to whom the sound,
"Your lord will soon return," no pleasure brings.
