, 1890-07-12

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friend Of my own did. He married a
beauty, asweet little Dresden shepherdess
sort C. thing, who one day came TO me
with a puckered brow to ask:
What could Tom mean, do you sup
pose? Last night he looked and looked
into my eyes, and at Last he said, Moth
ing but blue eyes-nothing more What
should there be more-do tell meg'
why, nothing, dear, replied 1 truth
fully. They are very pretty blue eyes,
and just as pretty now a when Tom
first fell in love with them"
But besides beauty, which is an obvi-
Gus temptation to choose the wrong
woman, there are at least a dozen other
false lights woOing this poor, short
sighted creature man to his destruc-
lion.
There is the style of woman which I
AVE studied a good deal, but thus far
with no satisfactory results. She is not
pretty; she need not be very young; she
may be maid, wife or widow, although
rather apt to be the last. She is not very
striking in any way and seldom allows
herself to be conspicuous, but in some
inscrutable way she always gets there"
IL / may be allowed a bit of slang, and
will never appear at any place where
men do congregate without attracting
them, as surely as the candle does the
moths. She Is not too brilliant a con-
versationalist-a quality which gener-
ally ~frightens men-but she makes pretty
speeches in a soft, low voice: she has a
way Of lighting up her face at the ap-
proach OF some favorite cavalier; she
nOqaaaGaa mimi tarf IN har~prtiro
conflicting tempers and smoothing over
rough places; she is chameleon like in
her power of adaptation to the moods or
prejudices of her companion Of the mo-
ment. She is, In fact, charming, IL one
can get rid of a certain uncomfortable
sense of the machinery. 1t is a little too
much like admiring Juliet, when you
happen to know all about the actress
domestic and financial troubles, and,
although you cordially exclaim, How
well she does It'll" you never for a mo-
ment fancy that she means what she
iays or is what she appears.
Now this kind Of woman Is not what
1 call the best for a man to choose as
wife. and 1 am always sorry when 1 see
1t done. There is, however, one safe
guard for the so-easily-deceived sex; the
charming woman is generally quite as
practical as b is charming, and doesn't
resign her power over all to take up with
one unless 1t is very much to her ad-.
vantage to do SO; and IL she does marry
she is apt to become inuoxious to other
women, for great prosperity has a stulti-
flying effect, and your very wealthy
woman seldom takes the trouble to
charm.
Another style of women apt to attract
men, and not at all the best women for
them to choose as wives, are the women
who pay the coarser sex the compliment
OF initiating it. Happily this style is
rather exotic with us, coming in with
the Anglomania 30 prevalent of late, and
as 1t is by no means adapted to the eli
mate or to the delicate type of American
femininity it has never thriven here as
abroad.
These are the women who boast OF
never being tired; they rise at unearthly
hours and drag their reluctant admirers
with them to see sunrises and catch
morning effects" n euphemism for in
~huenza; put IN short skirts and thick
boots and taking alpenstocks In hand
climb Mont Blanc as a mornings recrea-
tor Gf that inaccessible top peak is aver
reached 1t will be by one of these wo-
men); they ride at "big fences" and are
sin at the DEATH" and slash their riding
habits with their whips as they loudly
proclaim their own prowess in the chase;
they take a weed" more or less surrep-
%titiously; they demand liquid refresh
ments of the most heroic natures; they
falk alunu md uapt1ra r,rOp a-,1at..1.
as near profanity a. they dare, for after
all they are generally thoroughly good
women and would shrink from immor.
atty with an angry kind of virtue all
their own.
One cannot after all say that these
attract men to their society, for they
give the men no choice; they force their
companionship upon them in all those
sports which men nave chosen to con
slider especially their OWL, and conse-
quently in the conversation resulting,
from those sports. They have thus the
pull over their gentler sisters Of a com
mon topic and common occupation, and
it not infrequently happens that a man
marries such q woman just because he
sees her all the time; simply a case of
propinquity. They make undesirable
wives, however, especially If poor, for
they are as impatient of woman's self
sacrifices and quiet drudgery as a man is.
l knew n such girl, and when her
baby was three months old she took it
upon a yachting excursion and had q
hammock slung On deck for it.
But after all, the kind of woman that
men generally marry belongs to none Of
these classes, but is simply a nonsntity.
There is no faultt to be found with her; she
Is tolerably good looking, tolerably edu-
Gated, tolerably good hammered and re-
fined, negatively moral, but quite un-
tried by temptation; her ideas of mar
rage limited to new clothes, wedding
presents and cards with Mrs. instead of
Miss upon them. She has never considered
the question of whether Charlie and she
are adapted by habits, temperament and
mutual intentions to make each other
happy; she has never even resolved to
do her best to make him happy; she has
never thought anything about 1t at all,
and plunges into matrimony as she
would into the ocean at a new bathing
place, without the least idea of what
may lie beneath that summer sea.
That is the average woman chosen as
his wife by the average man, and hence
the average marriage which forms the
topic of the ~satirist and the cynic.
What, then, is the description of ''the
best woman" who is 50 seldom chosen,
do you ask?
1 have not just now time to tell you,
but you may, if you like, re-read the
quotation from the Vicar of Wakefield
and draw your own differences.
MRS FRANK LESLIE