The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1895-11-10


and you realize, after you have known her
a little while, that she bleeds her friends
as Systematically as if she were blackmail.
ing.
Some day you pay her a visit, taking
with you bunch of violets that you really
can hardly afford to buy, but you thought
she would like them; and you find her in
a charming apartment, well, indeed even
luxuriously, furnished. Once you are
seated, however, she gives you list of the
donors of your belongings, and you go
away wondering if you hadn't better buy
her the lace curtains she said she wanted
or else be talked of as stingy. Nobody
likes poverty. 1t is not beautiful and sell
dom ennobling. But from this kind of
poor we ought to pray daily for deliver
ance. / sometimes wonder how Mile.
Blue-Blood ever got SO; because there
must have been time when she
didn't indulge in this sort of picking and
stealing business-that is really what it
amounts to, for few OF her friends give
willingly; instead the gift is extracted
like an eyetooth and comes with as much
reluctance. ! often wonder if these women
think the world is fooled. 1t isn't, but we
Americans, generaliZing, create q great
deal of suffering for ourselves by our in
ability to say no. We are afraid Mile.
Blue Blood will be nasty unless we are
counted by her as among the generous
think whatever she wants and say what
ever she wants as long as we know that we
are doing right? Society demands of us
that we shall be civil, but surely not to the
individual who politely but certainly
robs US.
The other Objectionable people? Well,
there is the woman who says vile things
about you, and who, when she meets you,
asks you why you haven't been to see her.
and insists upon kissing you. Then there
is the elderly trump who feels that it is
her duty to talk religion to you, and the
very minute she begins all the choice
wickedness that is in you comes to the sur.
face, and when she leaves she can say with
certain amount of truth that you have
are turning infidel. 1t is a wonder you
don't turn cannibal. Then there is the
man who watches you every time you
speak to q man, hoping that you will do
or say something that he can repeat at
his club, and which will hurt your repu-
tation. He has reached that time of life
when he is baggy under the eyes, very
much wrinkled, dyes his mustache, and is
given over to strong perfumes. Also to
kissing the daughters of his old friends,
who loathe him and would rather kiss the
most miserable cur on the street than this
curious expression OF masculine gone
wrong. From the wicked old mani mean
the type anxious to impress you with his
wickedness-may we all pray to be deliv-
cred! Then there is the woman who is
always telling you who her ancestors were.
| She herself is an old bore, and nobody
cares if she was descended from General
Fiddle-Faddle, who came over to America
in 1900, probably on one of the convict
! ships. and who undoubtedly left his coun-
try for his country's. good. This woman
| always reminds me OF something that that
very witty gentleman, Benjamin Frank
| lin, said: 1.-THE mule is very anxious to
| speak about her mother the mare, but
never her father, the jackass."
| l received the other day clipping from
Spanish newspaper, which illustrates
very well how far ahead of us the
| daughters of Spain are in their mingling,
/ not only of religion and business (for some
of US are pretty well up in that), but also
in making the public aware of the matri-
monial possibilities in the family and the
| hard -heartedness of a cruel landlord. This
! is it:
| This morning our Savior summoned away the
| jeweler, Siebald Illmaga, from his shop to
his widow, will weep upon his tomb, as will
| also his two daughters, Hilda and Emma, the
| former of whom is married and the latter is
open to an offer The funeral viii take place
tomorrow. His diseonsolate widow,
VERoNIQUE ILLMAGA.
P. S.-This bereavement will not interrupt
our business, WHICH WILL DC carried on as
usual; only our place of business will be re-
moved to Tessie de Te1nturier, as our grasp
ing landlord has raised our rent.
Isn't that fine? And wouldn't it be q
good thing if we all could, in this childlike
way, publish our opinions of our landlord
and butchers and bakers and grocers, who
invariably charge more than they ought
to, and who grow rich from the profits
gained from innocent and unprotected
women. Of that don't fetch my landlord
nothing willy.
A young woman wrote and asked me
what would advise her to have for favors
on the dinner-table. / wish to remark
that the Senate of the United States has
ordained special thanksgiving on the
last Thursday in November for the doing
away OF all the rattle-trap stuff in the way
of boxes and toys and ribbons that made
one feel on departing like a shoplifter, or
else like one of those horrible women who
chase after bargains. The dinner favor is
no more; it is the dinner that is of i'm
portance, and all the boxes of sweets and
all the candy elephants and all the punches
of flowers tied with streamers will not ex-
cuse bad cooking and worse service /
trust that the young woman is answered
TO her satisfaction.
Another youEg woman who wanted to
know inquired how often she should let
her betrothed spend "sunny hours with
entirely upon her appearance. If, as 1
imagine from her letter, she is com ina-
ton of beauty and folly, she had better let
him see as little of her as possible but if
she happens to be long on brains and short
on beauty then she may meet him as often
as she pleases. The charm of beauty alone
soon wears away, but the woman who has
something more than mere beauty can
make man forget her face and appreciate
keenly her heart and her mind The clev-
crest man that ever lived q decline to
mention his nancy said: Familiarity is
a magician cruel to beauty and kind to
ugliness."
A quotation? OF course it is. When one
is fortunate enough to come across clever
thing it becomes ones duty to send it alon g
to the next. What l am hoping for is that
some day, quite by accident, 1 will say
something very clever; you will repeat it
and your best young man will ask, WHO
first said that?" And you will answer,
'BAB."
An Artists Enthusiasm,