The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1890-11-02

mental, and her effort ends, as do al
efforts to be what God does not intend
us to be, in WEAKNESS, encouragement
and occasional protests of outraged nat
ure.
Falling into one of these lapses the
woman friend is ripe for quarrel, anc
the occasion is never hard to find. Some
thing that is said or not said, done OF
left undone, or even some fantasy of hel
own brain, is sufficient She generally
begins with a very cool and elaborately
sensible expostulation, basing her re
proaches upon jealous care for he,
friends reputation with other people, as
"Of course can understand and make
allowances, but do hate to have you
give other people such handle for Cos
sip or ridicule-I hate to see you appear
stupid or rude" or whatever the peg
may be called upon which the quarrel is
to be hung. If at this stage the male
friend had the intuition that male friends
never do have, and said, "Oh, well, you
understand me, and it really don't mat
ter what other people think, the quar-
rel would be nipped in the bud, the
craving woman heart, never altogether
subjected to the brain, would be salts
fed and the cloud on the horizon would
turn pink and sail away out of sight.
But instead Of this the man will either
stare and say, what nonsense! What
do / care for the opinion of pack of
foolsy" or he will defend himself, in
trenching a position he really never
meant to hold, simply because it is at
tackled, and if he is very mannish kind
of man will end in obstinately persist
ing in opinions which an hour before he
never dreamed Of
The woman, preserving the finely jul
dicial and sensible tone she has adopted,
generally falls into irony at this point,
and reminds her friend Of sundry mis-
takes he may have made in times past,
and often commits the terrible error of
wounding the self love and self esteem
which are to most men good deal more
valuable than any friend who ever lived.
She is made aware of her error by an
! ominous change in her companions man.
ner. From being careless, little
brusque and rather patronizing, he sud-
denly becomes cold, very polite, and
meets the woman's needle points of
irony with the bludgeon blows of a
mans sarcasm.
The quarrel is now handsomely estab-
Hshed, even if the woman is wise enough
to close the conversation at this point
and trust to Time to bring all things
back to their previous condition. But
Time is, after all, only a time server. He
throws some hasty drapery over wounds
committed to him for cure and calls the
work done. The wound does heal after
a good while, but it leaves a scar and
sometimes callous place that never has
any feeling again, and sometimes there
! is the actual loss Of substance, leaving a
cavity where once has throbbed the liv-
/ ing flesh. No, it is a poor plan to call
/ il Time as surgeon to wounds Of the
affections, but a man always does it be-
/ cause he hates a scene; he can't express
/ himself easily upon unalgebraic matters,
/ and most men don't really know much
/ about either their own or a woman's feel
ings.
The woman often tries the same RENE
dy for a while, partly because she knows
that she was the person to blame and
doesn't like to confess it, partly in the
vague hope that something will happen
to put things straight. But during the
/ period of suspense the world does not go
well with her. Outwardly if she meets
| her friend it is with painfully careless
assumption of nothing being the matter,
a more than usual interest in outside
matters, and sensible, fort esprit sort
/ of manner rs of one far above the folly
( Of che-ishiaE wounded feelings.
The man. If he has not really forgotten
the whole affair. wishes nothing more
than to bury it, halls this demeanor with
delight. is completely deceived by the
assumption of renewed friendliness and
is not aware that a certain GOODNESS and
constraint fingers in his own manner,
the bitter flavor Of the draught forced
upon him by his friend in the quarrel,
whose motive he has never understood.
Meantime the woman, who does IN
derstand perfectly the hollowness of the
truce, performs that strange feat known
as feeding upon her own heart. She
tells herself that all real friendship and
sympathy are over and past; perhaps
bitterly accuses herself of growing old
and unattractive, and considers for a
few moments what bright beauty has
probably supplanted her in her friends
esteem; but common sense soon comes
to her aid upon this point, and reminds
her that youth and beauty are rather
detrimental than attractive IN a matter
of friendship, and that it is not likely
any one should supplant her in a posi-
ton she is pleasantly conscious Of de-
serving thoroughly. Then she begins to
satirize society. TO find the world poor,
worn out, stupid place, and settles the
question, Is life worth living: by con-
temptuous negative. Very likely she
suffers somewhat in health. and when
her acquaintance say, You are little
pale today; aren't you well:' replies,
"Oh, don't know; fancy it is the re-
mains of In grippe, or perhaps l have
malaria hanging about me.
So she mopes and grows misanthropic,
and makes herself disagreeable to harm
less people who bore her, and swears to
herself that she don't care a bit, and
isn't such a fool as TO brood over what
her friend has evidently forgotten, and
if she meets him is so deliberately civil
and sneers so very politely at theories
and people whom she knows he cher
ishes that he begins 10 feel that she
isn't half so agreeable as she used to be,