Middletown transcript., 1894-08-18

tTS ;xaS together, while
s our intimacy has
been separated
by great gaps of time and space.
1 can often hear your heart beat
when my own is stirred. don't think
any woman alive, anu there are many
I believe, who are quite superior to US
in line intuitions and quick sympathies,
can understand the purely masculine
bond that has withstood the stress OF
years and the new affiliations of life.
Men keep some honest, rugged part OF
their natures for each other. They
cannot, even with the stimulus Of the
superior sex, quite get away at all times
from the awful destiny of being
masculine.
We found that out in the swamps,
lying upon fir boughs at night and
defying miasma and rheumatism and
exulting like young savages in over
coming nature.
Could you ever make woman under
stand what the joy of it was? No.
And you we're never disappointed that
you could not. You never wanted her
to enjoy it in your way.
Well, you have come up to ripe
paternity and have got some superb
olive branches decorating your menagf
The eldest have not seen in several
years, but they tell me she is gifted
aud wields pen, and is as beautiful a.
her mother was when l first saw he,
picking the June iris in the wet
stretches of a swamp, with her woolen
petticoat tucked up.
How does she treat you, old man?
Be frank with me-, AS you have allowed
her access to all knowledge. taken off
so to speak, every ligament that her
mother wove, winged her with the new
freedom and dispatched her with God
speed into the realms of the new life
has she turned any of the weapons you
have given her against your
Of course she loves you. Don't let
US waste any nonsense about those in
scrutable affiDities of kindred.
Don't you feel keenly at times that
she regards you askance, as belonging
to tainted sex; that there is mild
pity In her blue eyes (they used to be
blue, but. perhaps, they are gray now)
when she is looking at you, as if she
we're touched with the awful sense of
having had man for father?
OF course, you know that she is SUI
perior to everybody else on earth-but
what want to know is this: Is she su-
perior to you; has she found out in the
higher life that it is part of that life
to look down from pedestal of ether
on the superfluities of physical exist
ence, of which the greatest and most
superfuous is maDp ID you feel in her
presence sort of vicarious guilt in
being a man? Or have you adop ed
the new complaisance and tried to
convince her that you are notp
Go back, old fellow, a moment in
your memory. Do you remember the
old manor house where We were shut
in three days by cold June rain. just
such rs we have had this season? The
house was full of women, superior
women, and there were only three of
us men in the great. rambling, old
barracks, forced to listen to the women
in the big Colonial room, where there
was smoky suggestion of fire on the
old-fashioned hearth, or betake our
selves to the billiard-room and listen
to that spout drumming all day under
the caves.
Be pat lent with me. Let me tell 1t
nv way. You may be interested in
comparing my recollection of it with
YOURS. You remember big Anna and
her mother. Anna we had all called a
handsome girl Hebean, fit to pose for
Rrunbilde, and six weeks before, she
had gone off and married red faced
actor. Six weeks. how funny that was
at The timeP
Al the expiration of it she came
home to her mother with every feather
M her celestial covering sticking in a
different direction. l believe it took
the maternal part Of the home estab-
lishmept a week to straighten her ont.
Certainly it was quite that length OF
time before she got her breath and her
hair began to lay fat. Then she
opened crusade against marriage, and
began war to the knife against man.
Her mother said she had censecrated
her life to opening the eyes OF her de-
luded sisters. believe the VOW was
taken on typewriter. I never knew
nor did you, what had happened to her.
That was one of the Eleusinian mys-
teries that was spoken only when the
chamber doors were shut and we were
listening to that spout In the billiard.
room.
Bob Granger had theory that her
husband Knocked her down at the altar
hasore the ceremony was over and then
Jumped on her. But I think he got
that notion from his aunt, and that It
was mere working theory made for
the billiard.room. Little Miss Bussy'a