Chapter XLIX: Fanny Fern on Widowers

"'Is this the _heart_ that beat so tenderly for Sarah; yea,
and for Anna afterwards, and then for Maria, and in the
course of time for Margaret Jane!'"--_True Flag._

As Cupid is your witness, the very same! Why not? No computing the times a _masculine_ heart can be damaged, repaired, cracked, broken, mended, and be just as good as new! How often it can be tossed, like a shuttlecock, from one fair hand to another, and lose none of its freshness or intrinsic value. How _fervently_ it can adore _every_ daughter of Eve the sun shines upon! How instantaneous may be the transition from the dirge note of sorrow to 'Love's Quickstep!' How unnecessary it is, to be off with the _old_ love, before it is on with the _new_.

"Oh! it is an exhaustless fountain, that heart! No bounds to its capacities! A widower, whose wives had been 'legion,' was once heard to say:--'The more I loved my Elenore, the more I loved my Mary; the more I loved my Mary, the more I loved my Anna;' &c. Imagination fails me to picture, at this rate of progression, the _'unwritten' felicity_ of the LAST feminine, on the marital list! Venus! the very thought paralyzes my pen!"