The Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1885-1886, 1886-02-04
FEMALE ADVENTURES,
AN INDEScRiBABLE MIXTURE or
NoBLENEsS AND TURPlTuDE.
Various Traits of the Eccentric Sister.
hood-fhe Miracles They Work
Through Their Emotions-Ho.r
Magnetism Wins Victories.


1t is a noticeable fact that the mass OF
female adventures have been married,
legally married, at least once independent
Of any doubtful unions they may have con-
traeted afterward, and that they seldom
have children. They may have been, they
frequently are, mothers, but their offspring
are kept out OF sight and rarely mentioned
except for purpose. They want and need
to be free; they can not afford to be hamp-
cred with little folks, who would be trouble
some in many ways 1t may be conscience
as well as convenience that prompts their
ISOLATION. There is no doubt that children
exercise conservative influence especially
ON women, and thus their presence is gener-
ally restraint Unwilling to be restrained,
they naturally sever the visible connection
between themselves and their progeny,
though they may provide for them carefully,
They are often good mothers, so far as fond
ness and material comfort 60, and yet very
bad women. They are full of glaring in
consistencies. They will do the kindest acts
one hour, and the meanest acts the next;
they will provoke admiration and disgust at
the same moment; they are an indescribable
mixture of nobleness and turpitude. They
are governed by impulse, and their impulses
are so many and varied as to continually
conflict. Often with the best intents their
performances are pitiable. Aiming at the
stars, they tumble into the ditch.
NEVER oLD-ALwAYs EMOTIONAL.
The representative adventurer is almost
never old; age would be Incompatible with
her calling. Nor is she usually very young,
though she is apt to be youngish. Indeed.
her years are uncertain, and she designs that
they shall be, She understa2ds how to con-
ceal the ravages of time ant the fading of
her charms, and she frequently possesses the
cunning of an artist. She comprehends the
Importance Of her person and her person
aiity in her relations to the world, and she
tricks herself out superbly-too superbly in
the main Meretriciousness is her zest-
meretriciousness of appearance, dress, and
manner, and it is the chief sign by which she
is detected She generally manages to dress
eXtravagantly, if not tastefully, without
any tangible income. Not one of the eccen-
tric sisterhood but displays diamonds and
laces of fine texture, and shines in garments
OF the mode. Where and how does she get
them3 Anyone may imagine or suspect;
but who would dare to tell} The revelation
would include the dark, tragic, terrible
boundary between the seen and the unseen
OF the actual world. Those to whom it is
made turn skeptics and cynics, and those to
whom it is not made declare such experience
incredible.
Emotional the adventurer must be- And
what miracles she works through her emo
tons! She may never have been on the
stage, but she is a more accomplished actress
than most professional players She owes
less to nature than to art and artiflce Her
acting is her fortune, and splendid
acting it is, though confined to SO
limited an audience-an audience gener-
ally of one. What attitudes what
joys, what sorrows, what caresses, what
tears! They are scarcely simulated, for
whit they last they are felt, as the actress
fees Camille OF Parthenia on the scene
How frequently deceived and outraged men
have gone to her, blasting words on their
lips and savagery in their hearts, to end with
pity, forgiveness and love, to find themselves,
not STRONG and stern as they fancied, but
overcome and weeping in her perfidious
arms. Such an angelic devil, such a devil
lsh angel as she can be, surpasses credence
Has there ever been man whom woman
could not dupe, could not make blind before
radiantly damning factst Think of Julias
Caesar the greatest and completest of his
kind, wholly subdued and wheedled by Cleo
patra, queen of the adventuresses- seven
more than Egypts queen
CoNsUMMATE KNOWLEDGE OF MAN
The adventurer is apt to be very intelli-
gent, albeit her education may be limited
Her daily life, her constant intercourse with
the worldliest phases of the world, her cease
less struggle for self preservation, render her
singularly shrewd and sharpen her instincts
to dangerous point. Her knowledge of
man is consunrate, and she uses her knowl-
edge mercilessly to her own selfish ends. She
thinks herself justified Perhaps she is; for
in the beginning she has generally been
wronged and she wreaks vengeance on many
for the wickedness of one She does not al
ways follow devious ways by any means.
Now and then she passes from sort of out
lawry and odious disrepute into a circle of
the elect. This she does by marriage-her
favorite game-re-establshing herself fully,
and slipping as if by magic out of her un-
wholesome antecedents. Her magnetism
wins victories for her against odds
She is ever moving; she goes from here to
Chicago, from Chicago to San Francisco,
from San Francisco to New Orleans, from
New Orleans to Cincinnati, from Cincin-
natl to Washington, from Washington to
Philadelphia, from Philadelphia to Boston,
from RnCfpp losly IN Na,p owl
she afford to travel so widelyi The directors
of the leading railways may be enamored of
her, and have granted her free passes, or she
may SO fascinate conductors that they can
not demand her tickets When she gains a
desirable husband after her regular and
irregular connections she gains him suddenly
and in fresh field having left hundreds of
miles behind her latest transgressions and
most unsavory scandals. Many worthy
men here and elsewhere have to-day quon-
dam adventures for wives and never dream
of the dreadful truth Happy is their
ignorance Who would disturb it? Per
nnanent prosperity has reformed the way
ward women and they dwell with evenness
in the odor OF sanctity
When the adventurer fails altogether to
make some lucky hit, at which she is always
aiming, when she keeps slipping back she
loses self-confidence and often seeks oblivion
n the grave. She knows better how to die
than to live. The courage of desperation is
readily summoned; and when all the sky in
her life grows dead she cuts the cable and
drifts out on the shoreless, mysterious sea-
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