Fort Worth daily gazette. (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1890-04-06

write advisedly in both words, for little
regard. only little, would change life
for us often. You must hear more his
tory 80 comprehend the case. l was the
breadwinner of the family for ali my
youth, and too busy to think of loving or
marrying, and now / find myself with q
strong feeling for my art and none at all
for marriage. l suppose l must say, to
avoid misunderstanding, that coarser ties
are utterly out of my world OF thought
as much as theft and murder. 1 should
as soon feel like cutting my throat. In
the first place, l never see man who
comes near my ideal of lover or hus-
band. The honest, shrewd intelligent
men of good tastes and warm feelings,
who would attract most women, are
all mortgaged, /. e., married, and
the idea of 'marrying and settling
down. creates in me an invincible re-
pugnance. To have life, so full Of
rich possibilities, resolve itself, as it
does for most married couples, into
mere questions of ways and means,
giving teas and lunches, and en-
gaging nurservmaids and cooks, is to
discrown it entirely. You know how
Mr.. March, in GA Hazard of New For
tunes, has to hold all his generous ideas
in allegiance, while his wife settles how
she is going to like her new range, and
whether the second girl and the cook Will
get on together. l could not endure such
sacrafioing to the Moloch of common
place. l could go to the widest ranch
with husband who suited me, and work
for him; but it would be intelli-
gent working, fitting my strength to
it, and making the best and brightest of
all conditions, putting the necessary vul
garltics of life underneath, ont OF sight
as far as possible. My house should
never carry the odor of cooking, dinners,
let me assure you. Dinners there should
be, and savory ones; but [ would con-
trive 10 keep them civil to fine senses,
and 1 could do it, too. Still, it would
cost the sacrifice OF all that have given
my life to learn, 10 marry now; and at
thirty five, with weakened strength, one
does not crave TO take up the heavy
duties of marriage. I am very COM
Portable in home and income as I am,
and sure that is best to stay so. But the
absolute friendlessness and loneliness
of my lot weighs like q sentence of ST.
berian exile.
My landlady gives unexceptional din
ners and keeps the rooms carefully, but
my dealings with her are limited to pay
ment and civility now and then, dis
tant as only an Englishwoman knows
how TO make it. I go TO large church
where an eloquent, warm-hearted rector
dispeuses such regard as he may to 1900
parishioners; and the ladies of the inner
circle are kindly. That is, they shake
hands, smile pleasantly when we meet,
and call once or twice year-time
strictly limited to ten minutes, as they
have twenty others to dispatch the same
afternoon. l have none of the
vanity which feels battered by
the notice of women higher in the
social scale than myself. The ladies
clubs and gatherings have very little of
that friendliness the heart Graves. They
are eaten up with rivalries and ambi-
tons, literary and social. 1 found my
self in danger of being called a senti-
mental thing before l shut myself up in
an aTmor of reserve and cultivated sar-
casm in a delicare way. But l hate that;
II Is such boy and girl spirit, like the
picking back and forth of young folks at
home. If anything, years have brought
a serener outlook, q perception of mo-
tives which, often petty aud mean, are
not always as blamable as we think, or
as treacherous as they seem. If il were
not for the chance generosities one comes
across like the moss in the desert, fail
TO see how we could endure life Il does
not look brighter or easier after a two
hours spent in a woman s circle, where
the undlsguised spite is more tolerable
than the cordiality half put on, with
criticism lurking behind it. / thank
Mr.. Howells especially for his Inimitable
character of Mrs. March, which shows
accurately how odions woman, socially