The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1898-02-27

no matter how good end kind a husband
we may have. there are still times and
seasons of domestic stress when we all
secretly regret the man we didn't marry
There may be many good reasons why we
didn't marry him. Sometimes he didn't
ask US 10, sometimes there wasn't any
other man at all. sometimes we had
hard-hearted father who used good old
fashioned coercion to keep us from wreck
ing cur lives by making an idiotic match,
occasionally we had a gleam of common
sense ourselves in time TO prevent our
making fool of ourselves by marrying
the other fellow. 1t doesn't matter. In
the mellow haze of distance he looms up
with charms he never possessed, and at
fractions that were not his due. He IS
The Carcassonne of human beings.
In all good truth, the man we didn't
marry isn't a man at all He is a dream
a figurehcad that stands for a woman's
ideal Of what a perfect husband ought to
be, and generally isn't. He is the John we
married with a halo, and without ways"
a masculine angel in a dress suit with a
temper that is never ruffled when dinner is
late or the bills beyond reason. He Is al
ways and invariably unparalleled perfec-
ton. the man we didn't marry.
OF course, we are not saying word
against the man we did marry. Dear
John is the best fellow on earth and if il
were to come down to a plain business
proposition we wouldn't trade him off for
any man alive Still there's no denying
that he is trying at time, and 1t is then
that we take a melancholy satisfaction in
thinking how different life might have
been had we only married the man we
didn't.
For one thing we are sure the other one
would have understood us. He would
have known we were a profound and in
strutable mystery. John doesn't. 1t has
never occurred to him that we have vague
yearning after the whatness of the what
and the intangible generally, that We mem
orize poetry, and in the secrecy of our own
apartments have recited scenes from Mac
beth that made the cat howl and run I'M
der the bed. John is strictly practical and
absorbed in business, and there wouldn't
be the slightest use in trying to explain a
yearu to him. He would look up from
bis paper and say. "Eh, what? Heav-
cps ana earth, Mary, can't you let a man
read the market report in peace? Say. /
made a good deal to-day; if you want a
new frock, go down and get it, And we
sigh patiently and smile a sweet sad
smile as one who must en-
dure these things, ana think thar
the man We didn't marry would have I'M
derstood our soul longing. Then we re-
feet that better is a good income and
plenty than poverty and comprehension,
and there isn't bit of disloyaity to John
in our hearts as we go down to get the
new frock.
Another advantage that the man we
didn't marry has is that we can always
picture him as being wildly, fraH6icaly in
love with us. Not in the prosaic fashion
of John, who, having once declared his
unalterabe affection for us, and having
married US to prove 1t, has never felt it
! necessary to mention the temperature of
his devotion since Perhaps he thinks in
! his dull laundering man fashion that his
patient, unremittinE toll, day after day,
| to make us comfortable is a good deal bet
| ter evidence of his love than any fiowery
! speeches, but that doesn't satisfy a wo-
man Her idea of a perfectly undying love
| is somebody who will pay her compliments
| at the breakfast table when her hair is
done up in curl papers. Let man do that
and she will let him starve her, and ne
! elect her, and still congratulate herself
upon having made a good match. Words
are always the main thing with her.
OF course. the man we didn't marry new
| err would have gone out at nights. He
would never have wearied of our compan-
( ionshp and longed for the society OF his
own sex on the contrary, he would have
! adored pink teas and parties, and there
would never have been any struggle to
get him into his dress suit, and out &c
! receptions, where he stood around with
the expression of an early Christian mar
tyr like John does when we drag him Out
into society. and that makes us wish tc
goodness that we had left him at home tC
browse over pipe and paper in his own IL
brary. The man we didn't marry would
have shown in society. He had the happy
knack of saying the right thing in this
right place. and of paying the lovelies
| compliments We still recall regretfully
the things ne said about our eyes. Yes
but he said the same things TO other wo'
men. too and, UNI, perhaps 1t is just al
comfortable in the long run to be married
to a man whose tongue is not too adept
and who has not had too much experience
in fine speeches. Not so exciting, but safel
and more peaceable.