St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1893-03-27

How Wives Can Maintain
Their Influence Over HuS-
bands.
Interest, Tact and Magma
nimity the. Three Great
Essentials.
She Should Have Thorough
knowledge Of House
wifely Arts.
Sense Of HumOr Is Often a
More Enduring Charm
Than Beauty.

man to reform him generally discovers.
1t is a vitality important question that
women have pondered with tears and
prayers: How shall wife keep her in
fluence over the man who has won her?
Every bride knows her power; every
wife comes To know her weakness, says
Octave Thanet in the Ladies' Home
journal. A good proportion of the
heartbreak of early married life is due
to the ferment of this knowledge, The
poor child whose lover gave up his
cigars and his club with such angelic
meekness finds that her husband can
smoke like chimney, and leaves her
alone nights IN order TO spend the even
ing with his men friends. She imagines
that he cares less for her than he did,
which is mistake in most cases. Seven
out of ten men love their wives better
than their sweethearts. 1t is simply
that her presence is not the absorb
ing excitement that it was when
love was new. The chances are
times more necessary to the man than
ever the sweetheart could have been.
He would feel her death far more
keenly. but he does not need to adjure
his heart to ''sit still' whenever his
fancy summons her immage. In short,
she is become the bread of existence i'll
place Of the elixir. Now, most Of us
who have sense would prefer to be
bread rather than elixir; but there Is no
question that more fuss is made over the
elixir. The heart Of woman turns with
homesick yearning to the delicate
courtesy. the tenderness, the thousand
endearments of that enchanted time
whenRher husband was her lover. How
keep him her lover?
Friendship Aids Love.
There Is only one halfway house
where love, on his swift progress from
intoXlcation to Indifference, may be ar
rested and so happily entertained that
he will rest cOntented until death come
to summon him; that resting place for
love is friendship.
You remember Chateaubriand's
dreary description of alover's letters
so dreary because so real? 10! one
morning, something almost impercepti-
bic steals on the beauty of this passion,
like the first wrinkle on the front Of an
adored woman" | will not 90 on with
the bitter sentences. you know how
they end: ~ love you is merely all
expression of habit, necessary form,
the i have the honor to be- of the love
letter. The post day, no
longer anticipated. is rather dreaded;
writing has become a fatigue. "
What has happened? Is it a new
attachment that begins when an
old one ends? No; 1t Is love
dying in advance of the object beloved.
We are forced to own that the seutl-
ments of man are subjected to the effects
of a hidden process; the fever Of time
that creates laS5itude also dissipateS
illusion, undermineS our passions,
wlthers our love and changes our hearts
even as it changes our locks and our
years. There is but one exception to
this human infrmity. Sometimes in a
strong soul there occurs a love firm
enough to transform itself into an i'm
FASHIONED friendship. Then
neutralizing the weakness Of nature it
acquires the Immortality of princi-
ple!"
Chateaubriand, whose absorbing
friendship for one woman lasted all his
life, may be called competent witness.
He was over seventy years old when he
wrote to Nine. Recamier as complete a
sentiment as ever lover Of twenty
penned: "All Other things are old sto-
rieS; you are all want to see."
Interest, Fact and MagnanImity.
But how shall woman make her hus-
band her friend?
There is one indispensable quality of
happy frindship that many women
neglect-interest. Assume that the
wife has her husbands respect; assume,
further, that she makes him comfort
able-a matter of vast portance-all
the same the poor fellow when home
may be bored to death.
Were she as wise a woman as she
often is good she would look about her
to discover among her friends what
women most successfully hold their WI
against the outside tempters of their
husbands. She would throw her theo-
| ries into the waste basket. and make a
fresh set of facts seen by her own eyes.
| | think she would discover-this, at
| beast, is what one humble observer has
| discovered-that unless a woman is in
| teresting to man she cannot perma.
| nently hold him.
But wise woman, again, has another
| quality, quite as necessary In friendship
as interest: the quality that some one
has called the oil of the machinery of
| life-tact. Such woman is aware that
absence makes the heart grow fonder,"
and that her husband will love her
and value her all the more for oc-
casional losses of her society.
Let him 20 to his club. now
and them" said the wife of the most
devoted husband | know: "he always
hears something amusing, and he likes
to tell it to me as much as | like to
| hearw When we have said everything,
is not tact nine parts sympathy and
one part shreWdneS6? A woman who
has a sensitive sympathy is not likely
to biunder over her husbands weak
points any more that shrewd woman
is likely to be blind to them.
In the successful friends of their hus-
| bands this same Undetermined observ.
| er has sometimes discovered a third
valuable quality, formerly not conSid-
cred property of the feminine mind
that is, magnanimity, by which the
aforesaid observer understands large
minded and tranquil habit of viewing
things and a generosity that is no re
specter of persons. The larger life of
the women of today has fUStered this
| quality. A modern woman, for instance,
| has keener notion of honor than her
equally virtuous grandmother. She has
| no less principle, but much fewer pref
udices. In a Wcrd, she has more self
control about her moralitieS. And to
borrow the painters phrase. she knows
how to appreciate values.
Value of HOusesvifely Arts.
Besides these essential qualities the
observer, from experience, has learned
to value few of lighter cast A
sense of humor in woman is more ell
during than beauty, and when 1T is
kindly, as charming as grace. 1t is also
the observers firm belief that it is the
duty of every woman contemplating
marriage to learn how TO cook. She has,
i'm the observers opinion, 10 right to
marry unless she either has the money
to hire skilled h0usekeeper or under
stands free-hand cooking herself. BY
free-hand cooking is meant cooking
without recipe book III one hand.
The observer earnestly advises all
wives who desire to influence their hun-
hands for good to give those husbands
daintily cooked and daintily served
meals and to let them show their friends
how we'll their wives eater for them.
They will be grateful. There are naay
things forwhich Il man IS not grateful;
but the man that is allowed to BRING MS
friends home to dinuer without warning