The Savannah morning news. (Savannah, Ga.) 1900-current, 1901-08-18


memory. He-for, of course, 1t is a man
asserts that the average woman can
not remember dates of Importance in
the history of the world half so well
| as she can the anniversaries of petty
personal occurrences. Women may for
/ get their own birthdays, but they never
| make a mistake in locating the precise
moment when a friend came into this
| vale of tears" Now one would inn
agine that this clever writer advanced
this idea with a view to disparage the
feminine memory. 1t is not altogether
/ clear that his object is otherwise; new
ertheless, the fact seems rather com
plimentary, and may be associated with
a beautiful sentiment for others. More
over, there are anniversaries which
mean a great deal more to a woman
than any others in the whole range of
human history-dates which, perhaps,
are regarded as highly uninteresting
by other people, having sometimes to
do with Johnnie's first tooth, and the
time when little Mary's curls were lop-
ped off, but to the loving heart of the
woman they are occurrences of Tar
greater moment than the signing of the
magma charta, or the discovery of
America.
/ know of one woman, says tie New
York Sun, who has so many anniveS-
ances have difficulty in keeping trach
of them all Her husband is, especial
ly, unfortunate in this regard, and his
lapses of memory occasion his wife no
end of trouble. She considers that she
has a divinely- appointed mission to
school his cumbersome masculine In
tellect in the long roll of these occur
rences. The result is sometimes anus
ing, and sometimes pathetic.
This is an anniversary, Fritz" she
will say to her liege lord at the break
fast table. Did you know it?'
Know it? OF course, l did," Mr..
Fritz responds, knitting his brows. Let
me see-July /. Oh! certainly; it's
your birthday"
ITS nothing of the sort" says his
better half irritably, 81 should think
that any man who had been married to
a woman three years would know by
this time that she was born in October,
but l have to tell you SO every year.
We were introduced to each on July l.
Now, do try to remember it always"
II shall" replied Fritz, obediently,
but he doesn't. He gets the day that
they met mixed with the day that he
first called her dear" or with the date
upon which they became engaged, or
the one upon which they had their first
quarrel, or that upon which he placed
the engagement ring on her finger.
And yet-what if she, too, forgot
these things?
1t is fortunate for us all that there
are women who cherish the memories
of events which are, to others, so ut
terly insignificant.
IT find" said an experienced house
wife to a New York Tribune reporter,
that 1t is a great mistake to begin to
rectify any one thing in a shah
room; 1t makes everything else loo
ten times worse than it did before.
Unless you are prepared to make gen
eral renovation it is much better to
leave things alone"
you are quite right" remarked her
companion, land it is exactly the same
way with clothes. Have you ever no
ticed when you get a new bonnet how
doWdy it makes your costume look
and vice versa? A new gown calls at
tention at once to an old hat, or worn
gloves, so that one thing always leads
to another"
ct can tell you of a worse result than
that" interpolated a third speaker. II
know of a case where the change con-
sequent on the purchase of a new bon
net brought a man to ruin and broke
up a happy family. 1t happened in
this way About ten years ago there
lived near us in the country young
couple, whom I will call Smith. The
man was in a bank in town, and his
wife was exceedingly pretty-quite
beauty, in fact. My aunt, who was
visiting us, took a great fancy to her,
and on one fatal day invited our neigh
Dor to go on a shopping expedition with
her to town. My aunt, who was
rich woman. visited her milliner's, and
there little Mrs. Smith tried on a hat
that was so adorably becoming that the
clever Frenchwoman contrived to make
her buy it. Aunt L, knowing that
the Smiths could not afford the ex-
travagance. tried to give it as a pres
emit, but the little woman was proud
and would not permit it. Aunt L,
to make amends, make a second mis-
take of inviting Mrs. Smith to visit
her. To go with the new bonnet, of
course, a new gown had to be bought
several gowns, in fact-to make
creditable appearance. The husband,
proud of his pretty wife, demurred at
nothing, and the consequence of the
whole thing was that she was admired
beyond everything by a society she
could not pretend to keep pace with.
other people took her up, and she soon
far outstripped poor Aunt 2 in So
cial sweetness. In the meanwhile her
support his wife's extravaganza, until
finally one day there was a crash. A
bank deficit was discovered, and young
Smith was found to be the defaulter.
Through the influence of her friends he
was kept out of prison, but they lived
very unhappily together after that, and
were finally divorced, The man died,
she drifted out of sight, and that is
the end of my story of the new bon
net"
Dear met" exclaimed the first
speaker, chow curious the drift of con-
versation sometimes is. / had no idea
when mentioned the inadvisability OF
buying anything out of keeping that 1t
might lead up to a tragedy"
If could put up one prayer for the
guidance of my sex more fervent than
all the rest, says Dorothy Dix in the
New Orleans Picayune, ii would be
that woman might be delivered from
the vices of her virtues. To me there
is no other thought so profoundly de-
pressing as the knowledge that wo-
mans goodness is responsible for half
the wrong in the world. In one of Mr..
Howells' most charming novels he tells
of a laundering saint who, with the
best heart on earth, could do more
harm in a minute than malice could in
vent in a week, and in a way she is
typical of the general feminine atti-
tude towards life.
Take the matter of sympathy, for in
stance. That is always held up as the