Western Reserve chronicle. [volume] (Warren, Ohio) 1855-1921, 1869-06-30
Can a Woman Keen 4 Secret ?

!
favorite saying among those who
think they know; but as have op-
pOrtunitieS for knowing something
/ about this matter, l mean to do some
/ thing at least towards setting the
world to right. My dear gentlemen
friends, this delusion is on the other
side, and all comes, as the popular
sayings about women always do, rom
mistaking for revelation what is sim
ply conjecture. Because q woman
buZZes and tiutters around you, and
talks on all sorts of subjects, and
takes you one side, and, with an air
of most profound confidence, tells you
about some matter you would never
have thought of mentioning, you go
about supposing she has "communad
with you of all that was in her heart"
You blind bat, she has done all that,
depend upon it, only to make you the
binder. The most tenacious and
utterly secretive of all secret-keepers
is a woman. Give her a secret worth
keeping, or one she wishes, either for
your sake or her own, and all the
powers of earth and air cannot wrest
it from her. Leave it in her own
hands entirely, and the trial will
never come-for no living creature
will then suspect she has it.
OF all the men / know full half go
through the world Darading, by face
and act, the very secret they are
fondly supposing is hidden in the
deepest recesses of the heart. When
a man has a secret it looks out of his
eyes, it sits upon his lips, and, by
strong compression, must be held
there; it dances before him when he
walks, and, if he sleeps, it breaks
from him in unconscious calculations.
He goes so wide of it in his conversa-
ton that Que may constantly cry
warm, warm" knowing that the
place to look for it is at the point most
distant. Now, if he has a female
friend of ordinary feminine wit, she
knows at first sight that he has such
a secret, and either of set purpose, or
instinctively and unconsciously, she
will set to work to guess it; and,
whether she means it or not, she will !
guess it. She can't help it. He will !
be forever holding it up before her |
eyes, and sternly crying "hands off,"
He will talk round and round it until !
she knows the exact size of the circle |
of which it is the centre. She can
not help knowing it is hidden in the
very word he will not speak. After
he has tantalized her with it until she
knows it as she knows his face, very
likely it will seem to her not worth
the trouble of hiding. 1t is a mark
Of her penetration to have discovered,
and she knows how you will relish
hearing Hall about it." and she will
whisper it in your ear at the first
opportunity.
Swallow the nice bit and wipe your
lips, then shake your head and pro-
pound that original saying, "a wo-
man cannot keep a secret" and half
the world will echo it as if it were
both new and wise. Can't, forsooth !
Give her one worth keeping, and see.
Let me tell you: sit down some even
ing with a woman whose heart is
ready to break with a sorrowful story
she would as soon die as let you guess.
(You have done it, no doubt, many a
time without knowing it, and, until
the day of your death you never will
know it, She will meet you with
her lightest, merriest laugh; she will
walk straight up to her secret; she
will put her foot upon il under your
very nose; she will flirt it in your
face; she will dance and fiutter around
it as a moth around candle; she will
chatter away about thousand things
you are astonished that she should
dare TO mention; she viii, with the
greatest apparent diffidence, confide
to you what you suppose she would
only mention TO her bosom friend,
and she will swear you 10 eternal
secresy about some matter which,
undoubtedly, you will hear her COM
mitting in the same way to every
friend she meets for a week to come,
and be sure she is Laughing in her
sleeve at you" when you sighingly
murmur, "Ah, 2 woman can never
keep a secret!"
Historical instances are abundant
in which women have suffered i'm
prisOnment, tortures, death. rather
than reveal lhe secret which would
involve another in their own disaster.
Remember our War. Did the South
ern and frontier women prove then
that they could or could not keep a
secret? If you have a wife, and do
not contide your secrets to her, be
sure she will find them out. But tell
her, fearlessly and confidingly, all
your heart, and if, by word or sign,
she betrays you, go at once TO Chicago
and get a divorce. You have a wife
not worth keeping.-EMILY L. Bis
SELL, an Pdckdrd'S Monthly, for July.
4OS
A Minnesota gardener has tried the
Paris green and ash rapoadx- for ,oo+o