The Milan exchange. (Milan, Gibson County, Tenn.) 1874-1978, 1876-11-23
NOEL HAUSSER.

4
to accept your kind invitation to spend
afew days at your place if it were con-
sistent with my honor. A strong
phrase, you will say; but hear my story
and then judge for yourself. .....
You say that you wish me to meet
your charming and accomplished cous-
in, and hope / may so like her that l
within short, you are DESTROYS that we
fall in love with each other.
1t would be a moral catastrophe.
WhyP / am already married, or rather
have been so unfortunate; am di-
vorced.
$50 young and so unlucky," l ina
CINE you to be saying. Yes, very I'M
lucky and unhappy. did not intend
TO tell you my story, but as you invite
me TO the home of your mother and
sisters | must do so. AS long as we
were bachelors together it was not i'm
perative. 1t is quite a sad story, yet
not absolutely shocking save to my
self.
When j married Belle Eastman my
friends said had made a mistake, in
short zneSdLlida1ce. did not think so,
for | was hopelessly Eyes, that is the
word for it) in love. Were you ever
SOP Then you can understand the
cause of all my misfortunes. 1t is the
universal fate or malady, but don't let
us moralize. She was a young girl
who had about half an education, and
in no respect compared favorably with
the gentle and accomplished ladies who
have made part of my family and sur
rounded me from my babyhood up.
"Don't wish were back in my ba-
byhood with rattlebox and coral and
hobby-horseP" Sometimes l do, as
sure you. "Why did | fall in love and
how?" Oh, "she had Roman nose
and her cheek was like rose on the
snow" "Don't like petticoat gov
ernment?" Oh, yes; trailing skirts,
looped overskirts, chignons, perfume of
white moss roses. Certainly, with
sweet and gracious manners. But Belle
was an Amazon, and her ways were
too strong minded for me.
How became acquainted, infatuated,
engaged, married as soon as foolish
youth possibly could, is such an every
day affair that / will spare you the de-
tails. Imagine me after six months of
married life coming out of loves young
dream and the atmosphere of roses to
find myself united to a woman so I'M
suited to me that there seemed per-
petual antagonism between US. The
things liked did not please madam.
! liked the quiet pleasures of home; my
wife was unhappy unless surrounded
by crowd. A woman bent on having
her way generally manages affairs of
society to suit her own tastes. My
house was filed with people that | alb
horred. / stole out to the club for the
sake of quiet evening with my book
or paper. Then madam became
Jealous. Some one has limited
that women are apt to be
so-all of them. l do not know how
that is; but madam had no reason; L
was at that time too much dis
enchanted of all womankind to be
tempted Of Eve herself. However, my
principal cause of complaint sprang
from the resolution of madam to be
strong minded. She bent all her en-
ergies with finished determination to
the improvement of her mind. She had
many teachers in those days; signors
and signoras, musicians and drawing
and dancing masters; yet all these l
endured. She was very lavish with
money, but, never having been very
anxious to hoard it, l could have borne
even this. She next turned her atten-
ton to moral distractions, and temper
ance, religious societies, women's rights
meetings, dress reforms, in turn, en-
gagged her mind. Her busy brain was
never still; what wife she would have
made for some bishop of the Sioux!
Now came her last Instantaneous
than all the others combined, and one
that positively l could not endure.
Belle entered with eagerness into the
study of medicine, announcing to her
acquaintance her determination to be-
come a practising member of that
benevolent branch of the human race
who make the ills of flesh their study.
She was ambitious, and very likely
some vague notions of the distinction
which she should achieve as an honor
airy member of eye and ear societies
haunted her Imagination. She now
saved all her pin-money to buy surgi-
cal implements, and lancets, silver or
golden wire, walls, bottles, pots, pes
ties, mortars, became the favorite fur
niture with which she surrounded her
self. She Immediately turned my par
Iors, library, and best rooms into muse
ums, exhibiting to my astonished visit
ors various bones of the human skele-
ION as if they were the lost wonders of
the world. She had a mess of most IN
comfortable andunhappy looking bones
belonging to some decrepit mummy or
Bohemian of the past. These accom-
panied her on all her excursions to and
from her college. She talked of the
plasma of the blood, of spectral inter-
mind globules, of spirit, of nerve aura
and life scintillations, till the veriest
old bsld-pate Of doctors TO hear her