The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1902-11-22

her to the dear, delicious, desired de-
struction only to find that it is all
hollow mockery-an iridescent dream.
There are no real devils They are but
a Pigment of the florid imagination of
nineteen.
But to tell the truth a good many of
US who have never invented parapetic
system of philosophy among the sands
and barrenness of Butte, who have
never apostrophized a pile of bricks and
barrel of lime or reduced the eating
of an olive to a purely literary exer else
have suspected as much for some time,
indeed, come to think about it not so
long after we passed the nineteenth
milestone ourselves. Perhaps it did not
come upon us all at once, and the blow
was thereby softened. but it was some
thing of a disappointment to say the
least These lambs in wolves clothing,
these base deceivers in another sense
than they would have us believe, these
upstart pretenders, these absurd impos-
tiers. as Mary MacLane declares. how
have they fallen since they are Invested
of the glamour which our ante nineteen
belief in their hopeless wjckedness
threw over their prOSaic lives. What a
void it leaves in the imagination to be
obliged to think of them as ordinarily
innOcuOus. no longer to be able to SILVER
in horror at their reckless depravity ana
to entertain delightful dreams of their
possible reformation under the Soften
ing Influence of Good Woman's
friendship. To be forced to the conclu-
sion that the Lotharios and the Don
Juans of real life are not what the
poets and the novelists nave painted
them and to be reduced to falling in
love with commonplace man with a
past that may be mentionedd in polite
society,"
We fellows at the club says BERTHE,
the Lamb. in the Henrietta, I'VE like to
have the girls think we're awfully wick
ed, you know" and there can be no
doubt that the girls like to think so.
From time immemOrial. you may say
what you will. woman's ideal has been
a real Devil. She is not always as frank
as Mary MasLane and not always as
daring in her imagination, but the man
who appeals to the average, novel read
ing, play going, day dreaming girl un-
der nineteen has been one Of positive.
masterful character, with a great deal
of worldly wisdom, whom she might,
without too great a stretch of the fancy,
suspect of being on occasion, downright
bad. The Devil of Mary MacLane's
young dreams has changed from era to
era with fashions of dress and manner,
and his literary chrOniclerS. who have
been mainly responsible for keeping the
candles lighted at his shrine from gen
/ Grafton to genera ton have been quick
to feel the changes and, without forget
| ting anV of his essential qualities. have
| been careful to keep him, superfcially,
a dangerous rival to the kind of young
men who wear the new spring overcoat is
in the clothing store ads" as George
| AIDE says.
sistible idol of the women could ever
/ have worn whiskers, but such is the case
/ We would think of Don Juan an awful
| jay not in dress only but in manner and
point of view and mental processes and
everything that modes can change now.
The big, dark dangerous villain with the
heavy moustache who still survives n the
melodramas of the Kerosene circuit, is
amusing now. especially when, as seems
to be not uncommon he wears riding boots
and gloves and carries crop with a
Tuxedo. but he was once the acknowl-
edged mode and his stage presentation
made the matinee girls heart go a regular
James K Hackett pit-a-pat.
The Devil of the modern type is a
! somewhat modified form of these earlier
/ ideals, and can it be because the novel
| lists and dTamatists were making aim SC
/ harmless that he has at last. according
to Mary MacLane, disappeared entir Ely
| Even the popularity of the swashbuckler
heroes of the recent historical novels has
not succeeded in bringing about revival
! of the old-time Devil, although it has put
many a ''sirrah" and '.egad" into the
mouths of the duel-ighting, trouble-hunt-
ing characters that might otherwise have
| been occupying tall stools in Wall street
offices and combining their sentimental di-
/ versions to opera boxes and dinner par
ties The villain so fearful and so fasci-
mating of other days has really degen-
Grated into rather a good sort, mild ex-
purgated and modernized edition of Dor
Juan and "Rawdon Crawley'' an6
.Lovelace," and the others.
Some one has said that the man wo.
man loves is the man who is not afraid
of her. But if Mary MacLane is right
and how can she be wrong 2-and there are
no real devils. who is going to prevent tho
horrid suspicion that his courage and in
dependence which is about all that is left
for woman to worship in Mere Man is
not a bluff. like his wickedness2 VII
Miss MacLane's next discovery be tina
this superior sex of whom we have stooS
in awe these many generations is really
afraid of us, not the Sissy alone. but ev
cry mothers son of us From any sucf
bitter revelation as that,
Kind Devil deliver US.
The Society Man at the boarding hous'
said something about the Evening club