The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1896-01-26

bright speech with an indifferent stare
or short answer, and proposes that he
snail think all his time. The woman who
can talk when you want to talk and keep
quiet when you want to think is the
woman to be looking out for, irasmuch
as she IS the proper one for you TO marry.
II a laxative woman is married to an
Engilshman, he coolly and calmly, either
Dy indifference or brutality, gives her to
understand that he don't went to listen to
ner. A Frenchman will endure as long as
ne can and then depart to his club, and, II
ne desires to think for any length of time,
ne IS perfectly capable of finding some
lady sufficiently congenial to permit him
TO indulge in thoughts while in her pres
ence. An American-well, an American is
always polite, and if woman will talk,
VIII persist in talking, and never allows
even the thought of the thinking-cap, it
dawns on him how easily divorce
may be got in some States. Speaking
OF French people reminds me that the
politeness usually credited them is rather
exaggerated. A Frenchman's politeness is
ike the icing on plum cake-there is no
great depth to it, and it is by no means the
pest portion. An Engishman is more or
less polite, as he chooses to be, to the
woman in whom he is interested, but to
the world at large he is an unmitigated
boor 1t is true that if one fell into the
river an Engishman would rescue one
without making any row about it, but one
can't go tum bling into rivers every day,
and 1t does seem TO me that little less ex-
traordinary bravery and little more con-
sheraton about tribes would make all life
smoother.
An American is polite to woman be-
cause she is woman, and not, as
Frenchman supposes, because he expects
favors from her in return. She is
woman, and he, stronger in every way, can
n 30 So. - l. liz
likes, and make himself her obedient
servant. often think he is too obedient;
but still he is very nice. 1t doesn't hurt
women indeed 1t is very good for them,
quite as fattening as sweets, and much
more efficacious in keeping wrinkles off
their face than any well-advertised COS
metic, to feel that they have their own
way. Enthusiastic? Yes, l am once in a
while, when l compare our men with for
eigners. You know The old saying, "When
he dies, good New Yorker goes to Paris
Well, If that is So when she dies good
English woman in paradise gets an Amer
lean husband.
These awfully cold days people have
been saying how sorry they are for the
poor, but l don't feel SO very sorry for the
awful poor, who can go to missions, and
all the other wonderful places, and have
things given to them. / do feel sorry for
such poverty as l heard of the other day.
NJ BCI4tISWOLuclJ IuOIIl6r dIlu Laughter,
who used to give French lessons, but be-
cause of the hard times have lost their
scholars, were discovered sitting on the
floor, because they were burning the last
chair they possessed. And they had had
nothing to eat for forty-eight hours The
mother was over 20 and the daughter over
so. They were refined, well-bred women,
not ashamed to work, but ashamed
to beg. How many more are there like
them2 God help the genteel poor! Help
that household where there are three or
four little tots, father out of work, and a
mother helpless, because the youngest of
the babies Is only four weeks old. God
help the poor gentlewoman, who has to
support somebody else, and yet must look
genteel, and so during that freezing
weather annoyed one of her wealthy
scholars because she shivered so. That
girl would have shivered, too, if her under
wear had been the kind that she usually
dedicates only to summer days. And pity
is wanted for those households where there
has to be an effort made to keep up good
appearance.
The Bible says il is hard for a rich man
to get to heaven. If that is true it must
be because the sins committed by the poor
are forgiven them, for it is poverty that is
demoraliZiug. The people to be pitied are
those OF the immense army of the shabby
genteel, and the woman to be pitied is that
young one with every capabiIity for en-
joy1nent, with a feminine love for pretty
clothes, with liking for all dainty things
that belong by right to pretty women
and who is truly woman enough to sigh
out her wants all by herself and look