Walker Lake bulletin. (Hawthorne, Nev.) 1883-1926, 1894-05-09
SUMNER INTIMACY.
Strange Mistaken Friendships That Many
Women Annually Make.

Strange Mistaken Friendships That Many
Women Annually Make.
The summer boarding house is each
year the scene of comedy, a comedy in
the larger sense of the word, for if farce
enters tragedy is not, therefore, absent.
The tragedy is not red it is green; and
yet hidden jealousy, envy, backbiting
kill by slow degrees. If tho temporary
dwellers on the farm or by the sea live
together by previous arrangement, as
students at college are "packed" for a
secret society, the daily routine of
amnsements may go till the end of sum-
mer, undisturbed by slight jars or open
and prolonged dissensions. But the
average boarding house is like the bar
ber's chair, which receives impartially
all that seem able to pay for the accom-
mediation. Men and women of widely
different temperaments and opinions are
thrown into close and enforced prox-
unity. They see each other at all hours,
seasonable and unreasonable. In dis
agreeable weather they are obliged to
huddle together like sheep against the
warning elements. They are obliged to
undergo the severe test of eating in COM
mon.
Propinquity is powerful aid to mar
riage. 1t also greases the way to strife.
The men at these boarding houses often
take an early train for the city and they
are no more seen until after the heat
and tho burden of the day. They as
rule get along together comfortably, for
man is naturally u gregarious animal
The women see each other continually.
They come from various parts of the
country; they have local views concern
ing department. and dress; they have in
diyidual opinions concerning the rear
ing of children. There are sudden and
violent friendships founded on the men,
ton of a common friend or the secret
consciousness of personal or social supe-
riority. These friendships stand the
test of a month or two months, and the
parting compels mutual and loud pro-
testations of intense interest in the fu-
ture lives of the separated.
Two women may, for instance, be
townsfollk and strangers. The approach
of intimacy is then more gradual; refer
ences are interchanged in well bred
manner, and for reasonable time they
wonder why they never met before.
They discuss together their neighbors
and their husbands; they deplore the ex-
istence of the servant problem; they lay
plans for the winter; they agree to go to
the same gymnasium; one urges the ad-
vantages of Turkish baths, and the
other in gratitude recommends favor
ite medicine.
This intimacy is thing of summer.
After the return to the city there are
chance meetings in street or in shop and
VOWS of immediate calls are registered
Perhaps there is an interchange, but the
women are not the same, and the init
macy sinks quickly to acquaintance
The discovery is made that the laugh
that was jolly on the piazza is coarse in
the parlor, or lurid wall paper exposes a
lack of taste, or it leaks out that one
has singular relatives in cheap quarter
of the city, and that the other one never
read Browning. Each woman declares
to herself that she has been taught
lesson. She resents the condolences that
were exchanged. She feels a sense of
personal injury.
The discarded friend is reflection on
her judgment. If her name is men,
toned and the remark is made, "Oh,
yes; lived in a house with her last sum-
mer," there is a smile more terrible than
any epigram or sneer, and yet each wom-
an the next summer, though in differ
ent place, plays in the same comedy.
The intimacy was never sincere. Com
panionship was sought as relief from
boredom. To keep this companionship
alive concessions were made; there was
an abandonment of opinion; there was
unreasonable admiration.
Or there is an explosion during the
temporary exile. An i'll timed criticism
of the manners of spoiled child, a disa-
greement III which question of pro-
priety is tho bone of strife, or undue at
tention to the business of another serves
as lighted match. The husbands are
chivalry chokes common sense. There
is commotion. There is sudden de-
parture or a gloomy stay Fortunately
such scenes are rare; but the violent in
timacy and the consequential decay of
interest and faith are social phenomena
that may be observed each season. The
sight of woman thus hunting friend
ship saddens the student of sociology
A friend is not caught in a lucky mo-
ment with a scoopnet.-Boston Journal.
What the Preacher Learned.
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