The Savannah morning news., 1901-09-08
WOMAN
WORLD.

The reason that so many women 80
bankrupt in happiness is not that they
have so much real sorrow, but because
they persist in borrowing trouble at
usurious rates of interest. II used to
be thought that i'll health and deli
cacy in women were a hall mark of
feminine refinement and delicacy, and
for a woman TO have owned hearty
appetite would have been esteemed al
most unladylike. Thank heaven, We
have outgrown that piece Of idiocy, but
women have not yet gotten beyond
kind of sentimental feeling that melan-
choly is an indication that they are
serious minded and take soulful views
of life.
Perhaps no one will exactly admit to
that charge, but q woman who IS
bright and lively, who enjoys a good
dinner frankly and a good laugh, and
who fnds life amusing and diverting,
especially one who doesn't go into
spasms of anxiety every time one of
her children stubs his toe for fear he
will have blood poisoning, and whom
doesn't walk the floor in anxiety every
time her able-bodied husband doesn't
get home at the minute she expects
him, is sure to be looked upon askance
by other women, and to be regarded
as frivolous.
This faculty for suffering from i'm
aginary ills, says Dorothy Dix in the
New Orleans Picayune, fills the sani-
tariums of the land, and makes hum
dreds of thousands of cures for every
possible sort of fake religion. Half the
time when a woman is sick she needs
TO have her Imagination doctored in
stead of her body, ad anything that
can arouse her out Of her dismal
brooding on herself will cure her. All
of US have known women who had been
invalids for years, who have been
cured by a sudden necessity. Some
times the kind, patient husband dies,
and a houseful of little children must
be fed and clothed, and the invalid
forgets herself and gets up and goes
TO work, a well woman. / knew one
woman who was cured by a couple of
new dresses. Her poor nerves" had
gotten into such state that they re-
quired her TO stay in darkened room
and everybody in the house to go by
on tiptoe. A celebrated neurologist
was at last called in. He examined
the sufferer carefully, and then wrote
a prescription calling for a swell silk
lined tailor made frock, and a silk ev-
ening gown In the interest of getting
the clothes and wearing them TO show
them off, the woman forgot all about
being sick, and was permanently cur
ed. Still another case was personal
~ acquainted with was that of wo-
man who, after the death of child,
went into a state of melancholia that
eliminated in nervous prostration, and
slouchy wrappers, and untidy hair and
a sofa. One day she accidentally
overheard a gossiping friend say that
she-the wife-was not going to live
long. that tina tit would be a good
thing for the husband, as he was too
young and handsome to be tied to an
invalid for life, and that remark cured
the wife. All the jealousy in her ma
ture famed up, and she rose up and
got her some good clothes, and was a
well woman from that day on.
Another of the imaginary ills from
which women suffer is the fear of
poverty. No one believes in prudence
in money matters more than I do, but
there is reason in all things, and there
are so many women who never indulge
themselves in luxury in the present
for fear that some time in the far
distant future they may want it. They
cant enjoy a good dinner to-day
dreading that twenty years on they
may be hungry. There are plenty of
women in comfortable circumstances
who might have, in moderation, the
things that make life worth living
a pretty home, comfortable table,
good clothes, travel, books, amuse
n1ents, yet who deny themselves ev-
erything and exist because their i'm
agination has conjured up the poor
house as a possible destination for
them. They don't seem to make any
distinction between prodigality and
prudence, and because Of the bugbear
of possible poverty they do without
everything they might have as well as
not. Yet it is the irony of fate that
those who have what they want and
enjoy themselves as they go along
seem to escape the almshouse just as
often as anybody else.
know women who get good gown
and hang il up in the armoir, because
1t is too good to wear. until 1t is out
of fashion. I go to houses where the
parlor is kept shut up. except when
A chance guest arrives, and where the
best bedroom is kept for company and
not used once a year. Every bit of
pretty furniture is kept shrouded in
linen. Mosquito netting is over the
pictures and the bric-a-br every
thing is being saved for--what?
don't know. have asked myself that
question a thousand times, but some
where in the back OF the head of the
mistress is a boyle of dread OF some
imaginary i'll. Perhaps she thinks
that the time may come when she
won't have enough clothes, or a chair
TO sit on, or a picture to look at. Per-
haps she doesn't know herself why she
does 1t. but, none the less. she is do
ing a wrong and wicked thing to cheat
herself and her family out of the COM
fort and good they could get out of
their possessions to-day. Be sure that
when we come to the end Of life II is
not the things we have enjoyed we
shall regret. 1t is the pleasures we
have missed. There is world of phil
osophy in the exclamation of the glut-
tonous old king: Let fate do her
worst. ] have dined."
What women suffer in Gscounting
the misfortunes that might happen to
their families has made the world a
good understudy of purgatory for
many a wife and mother. AS soon as
a woman loves a man she seems to
regard him as an imbecile who is not