The Savannah morning news. (Savannah, Ga.) 1900-current, 1901-03-03
WOMAN'S
WORLD.

Romance has done more harm in the
world, says Dorothy Dix in the New York
Journal than drink. 1t has broken up
more homes, and wrecked more lives than
liquor and the worst part of the affair
is there is no Keely cure for it. There is
no way of inoculating girl baby against
growing up into a sentimental goose, or
10 reform sap-headed youths from the
habit of committing romantic marriages
with Tenderoin brides
In reality romance is merely a kind of
mental and moral delirium tremens where
those afflicted see imaginary charmers
instead of snakes. and from which they
generally awake with a dark brown taste
of remorse in their mouths, and an aching
heart, and reputation that needs to be
sent to the laundry.
OF course, we haven't been in the way
OF looking at the matter in this light.
We have glorined it, and made It the
synonyme OF all that was sweetest, and
tenderest, and most beautiful in life More
than that, we court the misfortune
We go about covered with lightning
rods designed to attract romantic love,
hoping we will get struck. But all the
came, the devil could shut up shop, and
take a vacation now and then, If II wasn't
for the romantic fools who keep him
working overtime.
With the majority of the people romance
is that which, put into the heart of
man, stealeth away his brains and robs
him OF his reason. 1t inspires him 10
flights of idiocy of which he would be in
capable at other seasons. 1t is this that
makes an otherwise sane individual ad-
VeTtise in a matrimonial paper for a wife
or contract to marry a woman whom he
has never seen, and whom he is to meet
for the first time at a railroad station
and recognize by a white rose pinned on
her left shoulder.
That such people escape the fool-killer
can only be explained on the hteory that
the inevitable after-clap of their romance
is the only punishment capable of fitting
the crime.
1t must be perfectly apparent to every
body who gives the subject any thought
that most of the sins that are attributed
10 total deprayity are the result of the
love of romance that is generally the be-
ginning of evil SO far as human beings
are concerned. once let a man acquire .
thirst for romantic affairs, and he is La
BILE to do anything. except the right
thing. for the first principle of romantic
love is that it must be Illicit love.
There's nothing romantic in well or
dered affection for your own wife. 1t has
to be somebody else's to have the proper
amount of thrills TO it, This varies tho
dullness of contemporaneous life by
throwing in those erotic romances where
married men elope with their wives
friends, or lead double lives, or other
wise contribute to the prosperity of the
divorce court.
Upon woman the effects of romance
are still more dangerous, because she has
more time to indulge herself in 1t. She
begins by deciding that she made fatal
mistake in marriage, and that the sensi-
HE and practical man who slaves ten
hours day to pay her bills and leave
her time to read novels. is not her real
soul mate. He does not comprehend her
aspirations after the intangible, and she
feels that such poetic and idealistic ma
ture as hers ought not 10 be tied down
to three meals a day and a baby, any
way, and she starts out to hunt for an
affinity.
She doesn't mean any harm She doesn't
intend to be false to her marriage vows.
It's just plain case of romance, and its
only after she has gotten involved in
first class scandal that she finds out that
no married woman can cherish a yearn-
ing for an affinity and indulge in ro-
nance and still preserve a good general
average of virtue.
So far as young girls are concerned ro-
nance is always a wolf in Sleeps cloth
ing that is waiting 10 devour them. 1t
looks so innocent, and is so dangerous
1t Is the glamour of romance that makes
respectable young women, of respectable
families, pursue good-looking actors with
compromising letters. 1t is romance that
makes well brought up girls who know
better indulge in firtations with strange
men and meet lovers of whom their par
ents disapproye outside of their own
homes, and make fool marriages that
they spend the balance of their lives in
repenting. 1t is romance that tempts
many a girl from the right path; not
viciousness.
The suppression of romance is re-
form that the anti-vioe crusade ought to
take up. At present there is no protec-
ton against it. Anybody is liable to catch
1t at any time, and II is like the measles
the older you are when you take it the
harder it goes with you. There is no spec
tscle like the foolishness of an old wild
over, who is just beginning TO take no
tice, undergoing his second attack of ro-
mantle love.
Having banished the temperate canteen
from the army, let us trust that the la
dies addicted to reforming things will
now turn their attention to suppressing
the Incorporate and dopey novel ia the
home.
Since early girlhood says the Philadel-
phta Saturday Evening Post, DIR. Anita
Newcomb MCGEE, who voluntarily resign
ed the distinction of being the only wo-
man in the country commissioned as an
army officer, has shown individuality as
to matters of form and conventionality
When, as Miss Newcomb, she was max
ing preparations for her marriage with
Mr.. McGee, she was anxious that her
wedding dress should be something differ
ent from the commonplace, conventional
effair of white satin and long veil. She
applied for help to her friend, Mr.. Frank
r. Stockton, who at once set TO work
to design something for the occasion. The
result was a combination of Nile green
and shrimp pink. which made the bride
look as though she had just stepped out
OF Patience.
Then Miss Newcomb wanted something
unique in the way OF wedding trip
something quite out of the ordinary, 1t
should be-and again Mr. Stockton came
to her help and invented one for her.
The result was that as soon as the cere-
money was well over and congra tulations
and good wishes had been offered, the
family all left the house and the bride
, and groom stayed home.
Aside from her medical practice Dr.
MCGEE is a student of history and sociol-
ogy, an authority on the communistic So
cieties of this country and vice nresidept