The Sunday globe., 1901-07-14
A DEPARTMENT IDYL
The History of One Woman Whom
We Knew.
SHE is A TYPE OF TOO MANY
Whose lmmOraIItes and Love Of Pleasure
Have Driven Honest Men 10 Despair and
Suicide, While Their ParamOurs SIT Back
and Sheer at Virtue and Domestic
Happiness.

a highly-strung nervous system. Pos
sessing a singularly pure type of ner-
vous temperament, he was naturally
an idealist. His ideals were Of high
order and his principles were what
some would call stern and narrow, but
he tried to shape his life in accordance
with them, and that is something in
these hypocritical days. He was ve-
hement and unsparing in his Ian
guage when be pronounced his views
upon any subject he took an interest
in.
Once, when speaking of the use to
which a celebrated picture had been
put to in advertising a soap, he said,
at is the prostitution of art and the
prostitution Of art is as pitiful as that
of woman"
In his mind art and woman we're al
ways associated together, probably be-
cause his ideals Of both were equally
high. Not that he knew much Of wom-
en-, for three decades of his life had
almost gone before the image Of one
had entered his heart. His life had
been welded solely to his work, and he
had lived in a world Of his minds Gre
alton.
She was woman Of the world and
Department clerk, whose senses were
highly developed and whose brain was
as stagnant as a muddy pool in a trop-
ical Jungle. Her conceptions Of right
and wrong were vague, her love OF
pleasure Unsuitable. But she was full
of le jole le vivre; her vitality was
large and magnetic; and physically she
was a splendid type Of wonanhood.
She was peculiarly refined A coarse
word from a plebian's lips excited dis
gust within her, while story well and
artistically told by a gentlemanly roue,
with faint suggestion of indelicaey
running through it, she listened to
with pleasure, But she would not re-
peat it, except to her own sex.
Her affections were strong while
they lasted, and they invariably lasted
until her senses were dulled with sa'
tiety. Her age was-any age. she
was old in experience, young in desire,
She was the personitication Of tact
and diplomacy, and, above all, thor
oughly respectable
And this man and woman met.
The type of woman was new and un-
known to the man, and her glorious
ana NlIllG DtISOudllAg blOhC upbA NV
nature as the resplendent rays of the
sun break through the clouds of night
and beam refulgently on Mother Earth.
1t brought him down from the dream
er's heaven to the world of men, and
resurrected the animal instinct that
art had deadened and imbued his blood
with warmth and quickness.
She liked him, too He was a nov
city to her, and her volatile nature
hungered for novelties She didn't
understand him, and she liked men she
didn't understand; she had met so few
of them.
She insidiously fiattered and drew
him out. Not being a man of the
world. he could not perceive that her
interest in his aims and ideas was sim
ulated. He thought he had met kin
dred soul, and his nature gradually
expanded and warmed toward her.
One day he rather surprised her with
a long semi -pOetical dissertation on his
ideal of womanhood, interspersed with
many fattering illusions to herself.
She laughed a short, pleased laugh
when he had gone
80 he imagines he has found in me
his ideal of pure and noble woman
hood" she remarked to herself, half
oontemptuously.
Most women would have felt regret
full, but she felt rather pleased; 1t was
so complimentary.
She married him. For some things
she would rather have mott is so
nice to Just be friends without being
irrevocably tied by marriage; but he
was not that kind Of man. Then he
was far from poor and she was poor,
and when a woman is poor, she reflect
ed, and getting dangerously near be-
ing considered passe, it is a pleasant
feeling to know her future is assured
Six months passed swiftly away.
vague undesirable sense of dissatisfaC-
ton took possession of the man. He
tried to analyze it but failed ignomin-
ously, for his analytical efforts only
led him into a labyrinth of chaotic
iueas and left him in a hopeless state
of perplexity Worst Of all, his hand
lost its cunning with the brush and all
the sources Of his inspiration seemed
to have dried up. This infecundity OF
mind, combined with the impotency
of his hand, appalled, him.
Another six months came and went.
To add to his grief, his wife had
borne him no child; but when he dis
covered that she had frustrated ma
lures intentions, his hyperimagina-
tive mind ascribed to it the reason Of
has falling powers The pedestal on
which his ideal stood gave way and
the cherished ideal was dashed to the
ground broken.
The woman had no ideals to be shat
tered, but she had senses to crafty.
Now that the edge had worn Off the
novelty of the new life she felt mex
pressbly bored Her simulated inter-
est in the mans ambitions had grad
ually grown inert and she had now
sunk into a complete STATE of indifrer-
ence. The monotony of the unsoclal
existence heT husband ed palled dread
fully, and to shape her life according
to a creed Of morals was irksome In
the extreme. Her nature rebelled
against the narrow confines Of her
cage, and she longed and looked for IN
opportunity to escape, Possessing an
executive brain, she resolved to make
one.
He thought to run down to Atlantic
City for a few days would tend to re-
cuperate his failing powers. He
broached the subject to his wife, but
she point-blank refused to go, SO he
went alone, which sent the woman
into the seventh heaven Of delight.
T. was change he wanted so the man
argued with himself But not even
among the beautiful ocean and scenery
he loved so we'll could his mind find
,oet oud fnenfrotiOn Nnnd one after