The Savannah morning news. (Savannah, Ga.) 1900-current, 1902-08-10
THE SL0vENLY WOMAN.

She Is n Poor Bargain for Her Hus-
bnnd-sIouchy Gowns and Curl Pa
pers Shnttcr a Mans Ideal.
Every man when he marries, be he
ever so hard-headed, INDUCES himself
in some sort Of dream regarding the
home that is to be his, with something
in his dream of an ideal sort, If he al
lows the word ideal. He is out and
about in a stormy world of effort, of
strife, of attainment; he is breathless
from the struggle. so to say, and tired
of the turmoil, and when he opens his
door, in his fancy, 1t is to go into the
chamber called Peace.
Not a care is to fiutter its dark wings
there; all is to be sanity and sweetness
and gentle grace and gayety. His wife,
in that dream, always wears a calm
and trustful smile; she always wears
pretty clothes, too; he does not know
what, but of pleasing effect; she IS
always as she should be, spotless and
soignee. There is no disorder anywhere
in her region, no loud or sharp tone
marks the silver of her voice; all the
wheels of her housekeeping move
noiselessly and smoothly; all her ways
are pleasantness and all her paths are
peace. When he wishes to go out with
her, she is ready on the moment; when
he wishes to stay at home he sees her
in the low chair opposite with the pref
ty work basket, or she goes to the
piano for the new song, never having
suffered herself to fall out of practice
In her music. She never grows old;
she never grows unlovely. in his
thought: sorrows may come, and trou-
BILE, and years win pass, but she is to
be always the beautifully developing
flower of the girl he loves.
What would he say to himself, then,
II he could look into futurity with any
prescience and see her at the break
fast table, in her slatternly morning
gown and with her hair twisted up
carelessly. while she could write her
autograph in the dust on every plain
surface in the house, and two of them
on the piano, which she has long since
ceased to open? What, when he sees
the breakfast table itself with soileI
cloth awry. dishes cracked and nicked,
napkins forgotten to be changed, salt
cellars just as they were last dipped
into silver dull knives stained, the cof-
fee thick, the bread heavy, the steak
burned and nothing hot or inviting?
1t may be his own fault, to some ex-
tent, that the piano is unopened; but
1t is not his fault that her hair is un-
dressed, for in sheer self-respect she
could have found the instant to ar
range a neat toilette, and to snatch
some dainty neckgear, from that up
per drawer of hers, which is usually
in no more confusion than her mind;
and 1t is not his fault that the food
he has provided is made unfit to eat
and the house unfit to eat 1t in.
Is there not kind OF dishonesty in
such stewardship of the goods entrust-
ed to her? Is there not trait of dis
honor in the appearance of this untidy
and unlovely creature in the place of
the charmer who once charmed linn
so wisely?
There are countries inhabited by bar
barians, and by the semi-civiized,
where such conduct as that of this in
dolent woman would give her husband
the right to put her away forever Here
1t acts in a precisely opposite way, as
1t has the power to send him away to
scenes that are more to his mind. And
the woman who then finds herself in a
neglected home has no one to thank
for 1t but herself. There is an old
Scotch song that portrays the joy a
wife feels in the return of her husband
from a long illness:
20 hand me down my biggonet,
Ny bishops satin gown
she cries; and also that the whole
house shall be festal,
"Gie little Kate her cotton gown,
And Jack his Sunday shoon,'
and the poor fish wife of the blithe
song knew more of the effect of what
the boys call glad rags" than the
slovenly wife ever thinks best to put
in practice: for as nothing but death
excuses one from a dinner engagement,
nothing but sickness unto death OK
cuses a woman from breaking her en-
gagement to make herself and her
house pleasant and attractive to her
husband