The morning call., 1893-02-13
WHEN A WOMAN LOVES.
What One Man Thinks He Knows
About the Infinite and Unknowable.

When a woman loves severely she begins
to be ENJOYABLE. For she begins to be I'M
reasonable, and, fer her great loves sake,
to do her best to make miserable the all too
fortunate winner Of her affections. She
insists upon accusing him OF virtues which
he knows are not included in his character,
and taxing him with failings of which he is
just as completely innocent, and with that
intolerahle iteration which is supposed by
women to be Some sort of argument
The result is that the man begins in time
to believe that he Is good where he is not,
and to turn bad simply because she says he
is so already. He may be as faithful as
mullet (''for chaSte love the mullet hath no
pser''), but s. will worry him by the as
sidnity Of her suspicious, and her cODse-
Quent lamentations, out of the secure
highway Of connubial affection into the haz-
aTdUus bypaths that lead past other mems
orchards TO the Tom Ttddler'S ground of the
divorce court Simply because she loves
him so-and she pleads no other excuse
when on occasion he attempts q reasonable
discussion of their misunderstandings-sh
will make his bad seem good to him and
make his good become bad, till the seven
take possession Of him, and, like one of the
bedeviled swine of GadaTa he rushes vio-
lently down q steep place into the sea. She
has no wicked intentions whatever. On the
contrary, DeI intentions are ali QeI6SlaUIy
good. And when the man rakes his mind
for some reason for his own misdemeanors
he can remember nothing better than that
she drove him to IL, which is poor eX-
euse, yet true enough. So gardeners by
frequent little pinciing5 abort the upright
growth Of trees into lateral 0bliquities.
There are very many men so deplOrably
human that to keep on accusing them of an
offense is sufficient TO make them commit
ii. They will in time live down to any
moral standard that may be fixed for them
by women, the women who love them, and,
like the oysters, alternately iickled and irri-
tated by The grains of sand which the
Chinese drop into them. will grow TO forget
their natures altogether.
No woman can be quite so miserable as
she who loves only enc man at time, for
the time she loves him. and being unable to
absorb all her own unhappiness, she per-
sists IN Offering him half of it. Because she
is so insanely jealous of his time and his
society, she will, "for the sweet love she had
of him." waste the one and try to engross
the other. until she tOrmentS him from in
necence into artifice. and from artifiee into
revolt; and so in the sad end of it she can
say, Il knew | was right all the time"
Does the discovery break her heart? Not
a bit OF it. Women who love at this
high pressure do not break their hearts.
They start-after pause to repair dam
ages, and TO make collection. as Ii were,
of neghborly sympathies-loying again,
somebody else. Such women, in the ex-
tremity of their affection for him, will
throw vitriol in mans face; will poison
him with flypapers-murder him. So it is
not good for a woman to love severely;
neither good for him nor for her. The SEM
sble man, when he sees it coming. will put
up the hurricane shutters, back engines,
skid the wheels. throw salt IN the fire-do
anything, in fact, that will meet the emer-
eli alyaD nv oil fba ION
ture. Unless he be a salamander. AS TO
which. by the way, the ancients were di-
vided in opinion, some averring that he ate
the fire up, the rest that he was so cold
that he put the IRE out. Either of which
procedures was sufficient to meet the cir
cumstanees.
The moral of all which Is, that If you
think a woman Is going TO love you too
much, break it off at once and exchange
into a West India regiment. If you wish to
love and be loved, in perfect happiness,
never question each others fidelity. SO
mutual honor will become a sacrament in
your heart of hearts.