San Antonio daily light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1886-1907, 1897-07-25

gar IN the WlldeTness or Rachael mourn
ing for her children because they were
mott
should think it would be mothers
first pleasure and interest in life TO get
on intimate terms with her daughter,
to obtain her confidence, to lead her to
talk of herself and to lay bare her heart
to one whose natural duty it should be
to show sympathy and to give counsel.
Where these close relations exist with
mothers and daughters do not believe
it is possible for a girl to become en-
tangled in an unfortunate love affair
without the mothers knowledge. Love
may go where it is sent, and the best
mothered girl in the world might con-
ceive an unwise passion, but the ma
ternal instincts if properly alert would
be aware of it, and the maternal SYM
patty and solicitude would avert its
eliminating in tragedy.
confess that good, strong senti-
ment of disgust mingles with my pity
when read of some distressed mother
of an erring daughter who declares that
she was not aware that her daughter
even had an admirer.
Why do parents so quickly forget
their own youth? 1t is incredible that
the sweetest and most romantic part Of
life should fade from memory so wholly
as it seems to do with the majority Of
married people. 1t is because the pas
sion of youth is sort Of intoxication,
which, like the drunkenness of wine,
blurs the memory.
have observed that it is not infre-
quent for men who have sowed full
crop of wild oats to show both amaze
ment and Indignation when daughter
even indicates a propensity to admire
the opposite sex. Yet the laws of nature
are constantly proving that daughters
more frequently than sons resemble
their fathers. One would think that a
man who had passed through the whirl-
winds Of passionate youth might con-
slider it sacred duty to carefully guide
and tenderly protect his children
through similar period, not by keep
ing them under lock and key, but by
giving them we'll chosen associates and
talking with them freely and wisely re-
| garding these associations.
Really the American fathers and
mothers are droll beings. One would
find them very amusing were it not that
the farce they play SO often ends in q
tragedy.
met beautiful and highly cultured
young woman not many years ago who
impressed me as a girl with a secret or
a history. She lived alone with her
mother, who confessed to me that Ma
RE had always been a strange girl who
| was hard to understand. She fancied
she had passed through some love af-
fair while at school which had prema-
turely saddened her, though she had
never mentioned it"
One day / invited the young lady to
with me. was quite alone when
|, me Before she had been min
l. 4 my warm rooms l discovered
| IL was too intoxicated to sit up
Sc ,urs passed ere she recovered
her sufficiently to tell me her his
tory. =. kind hearted but unwise old
lady where she boarded while at school
| taught her to take hot whisky tod
dy" when very tired with her studies.
She had acquired the taste for intoxi-
cants, and the habit had become fixed
one.
Il think mamma suspects that l take
stimulants at times" she said, "but
she has never spoken of it to me, and
/ have never had the courage to tell her
about it or to ask her to help me to
overcome the habit "
The girl made me promise solemnly
not to tell her mother of the occurrence
in my rooms, as it would unnecessarily
mortify her. 1 gave the promise only
after the girl gave me her oath not to
touch stimulants again. lost sight
Of her for nearly year. Then she
drifted across my path again, ruined,
desperate creature, crushed with the
most awful tragedy that can come into
a young woman's hfe-a tragedy di-
rectly due to her habit of using slim
ulants. OF course l was sorry for the
mother. And yet is pity due mother
who could live under the same roof for
two or three years with a daughter who
was a victim of drink without suspect
ing it, or, if she suspected, who felt the
matter was too delicate a one to men
ton?
Another young girl whom knew fell
i'll of terrible complication of liver
maladies.
"How could you let your daughter
get into such a state?" asked the ply
stefan of the mother.
Really, DOCTOR" the mother replied
with great dignity, II brought up my
daughter to be too modest to talk to
any one-even to me-of stomachs, liv'
ers and digestive organs. "
So the daughter died, but the modesty
of the family was sustained.
ELLA WHEELER WILCOX.
Asparagus on Toast.
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