The record-union., 1898-09-25
A SUGGESTED SOLUTION.

There was a supremely Successful
Man, who woke one day with a sudden
shock to a consciousness of defeating
failure, that embittered all achieve
ments and robbed all effort Of purpose
and motive.
So complete and appalling was this
disaster that for a time he moved
about like an automaton without the
power of reflection.
He. did his work and fulfilled his So
cial duties from force of habit and by
means Of momentum. as a wheel will
revolve for awhile after the power is
removed from 1t. Tfe felt himself to
be machine, in which the engine has
ceased working and the fire gone out
under the boiler How long would the
headway continue to grind out his
daily grist? The fuel that had fed the
extinguished flame for SO many years
was his wife's love, a fact of which
he had been unconscious until quite
by accident he discovered that in its
best sense he had lost it, And yet she
was outwardly true to him and affec-
tionate as of old Moreover, she had
sent the Other Man in the case 10 the
right about face and kept her own
counsel.
AS 1t happened, the merest chance
let him into the secret, and there was
an end to his happiness. Every word
she said, every movement she made.
that before had seemed to him to
breathe forth a gentle grace and dig
nifty all her own, was now an irrita-
ton, and fraught with an under con-
sciousness of deception. How could
her love have slipped away from him,
and he not know it! To think that a
woman SO sweet and so calm in her
gracious beauty, could day after day
have lived by his side enveloped in that
stately cOmpoSure which he had SD
admired, and all the time have had
such volcanic emotions beneath that
placid surface!
They had changed places now with
vengeance, for while he knew him
self to be an eavesdropper at heart,
and the knowledge he had to have
been meanly gained, and therefore to
be sacredly guarded, he had moments
OF SUCH inward raging as to make II
inevitable that somewhere, somehow,
he must tell her, if only to break up
that maddening calm.
If he had grown more Indifferent dur
ing the years of marriage, if he had
been taking her too much for granted
she was now amply avenged, for he
would have given his life at this time
to feel that she had cared for him. He
remembered with bitterness how she
had one day jokingly alluded to his
diminished
does not struggle for what he has at
ceased to strivei" She had looked at
him, he remembered. with wide, un-
smiling eyes and made no comment.
prosperity and the habit of success
often stultify a mans perceptions
They also leave him little time to make
love to his wife.
The Successful Man at last found his
one failure insupportable He lacked
the training to bear disappointment
All that he had he said to himself
wealth, reputation, good looks and pop
ularity-Would he give to win back his
wife, and failing that, then permission
to hate her. This middle course of az
fectionate Indifference was done with
for him.
The volcano must be freed of it's fiery
burden.
He knew that the moment had come
one night, as he watched her pale, quiet
face SO unmoved by the influence of
the hour. Between them was the long
stretch Of fruits and flowers and
cleaning crystals, and the chosen COM
pany that make up a dinner. It was
drawing to an end. when the talk gets
general over the coffee and sweets.
Contemporary fiction was under dis
cussion.
1T gives you a dreadful insecure
feeling" said one, about the general
average Of domestic happiness, for one
must admit the novels of the age are
the expression of it's life"
But that's not true, you know"
joined in the after-dinner optimism of
another THE novelist has become a
mere newspaperman on the constant
hunt for the exceptional and the start
ling, which he studies through a mi
croscope. Just now he is calling our
attention almost exclusively to matri-
monial infelicity-it is the passing fad
After all, these criss-cross love affairs
in married life are as out of the COM
mon in American society as smallpox
or yellow fever
There was little furor of agreement
and disclaimer and exclamation.
The Successful Man looked across the
orchids and the circle of pink light to
his wife-a lovely statue with an Cb-
livious, unhearing smile on her face.
Something in the regular rise and fall
OF a jewel fastened in the film of lace
that fell about her white bosom ex-
asperated him to a mad desire to shake
her out of that unbroken calm of in
difference. How dared she sit like that
when the very air about them was
instinct with suggestions of their own
broken happiness,
Il know of a case within my imme-
date circle of friends everybody
stopped to listen to the host, who
twisted his glass idly in his fingers as
he spoke-"Where the wife is respected
and loved by all-even by her husband
and yet she is in love with another
man"
Lawyers have so many interesting
condolences" and the lady on his left
settled her chin in her hand with
breathless interest
1T all came about through a letter
of hers to the Other Man. She acci-
dentally left it unsealed and gave it
with others to her husband to post.
and he-well, he read it, every word!"
How delightfully."- dreadful" muir
INJURED the sympathetic listener, and
the optimist of a moment before added
his comment-"The deuce he did."
'Oh, he knew it was blackguardish
~f@ ..
but the temptation came suddenly, and
ha nn1I16p't w., - - -