The Montgomery advertiser., 1903-04-19
THE EXPERIENCES OF MRS. ]. MATRIMONIAL BLISS
She Tells Her Friend Emily Lonely why
 ing of
BY EMILY HOLT.

'Tve been invited. to join the new wo-. mans club round the corner" demurely | confessed Mrs. John Matrimonial Bliss to Miss Emily Lonely. who comfortably | toasted her cork soles on the. fender, | while she trifled with her second cup of | tea. What sort of club2" inquired the caller. The president is the famous Mrs. l Bernice Bowman Bouncer, who has ad- dressed the State Legislature. run for Congress and believes in woman's rights | and the suppression of polygamy and war and vice and trusts" said Mrs. Bliss. This list of topics for debate this year covers very nearly all the burning ques- tions of the hour, from Cosmic Star Dust to the kind of pictures we can allow the President to hang in the White House. It is federated all right, too, with the Pan-American Society for the Superin- tendence of Purity in Literature. Art, the Drama, Music and Costume; with the Trans-Continental Ladies' Association; with the Interoceanic Dress Reform League, and dozens more of the most powerful combinations of feminine intel lsct, influence and progress. not exclud- Ing the Bi-Weekly Lunch Club and the unsectarian Tattling Society. Already there are niRety-five members paying dues and writing papers, more are clamor- nR to be let in, and the Greek motto on the club seal signifies. so tne president ex- plained, that woman. must. wake from her sluggards sleep and grapple with the problems of the day.
 How nice and purposful and stimu- lating that souads." commented Miss Elm uy, when Mrs. Bliss stopped for breath 'isI hone yoil iofped q,
 You may think the less of me. but didn't" replied the hostess. 'I con- iessed that in my bold bachelor girl days, before John Bliss persuaded me to re- hgn my liberty and my latch key, had dreamed that woman might still be free, but that 1 had had experiences to prove that after all matnmony was the most interesting and prtoccupying profession in the world, and when a woman did all her duty in that line she really had no time and no need for the new movements.
 "Of course, the revelation of so befog- ged and serni-bkrbaric an intellect as mine closed tho incident. Evidently was considered iao loss to organized wo- man, and I molly forebore from saying that was not Able to see much practical use in womant clubs, anyway. and that believed there were a score or two too many in this town already.
 ''DOn LOOK go ClOuuy, MISS r1aVo another cup Of tea, and let me assure you that the real questions of the hour to be grapned with are not the privi- leges of the ballot, nor Platonian phlloso- phy, nor the discoverey of the Ego. but just the sine old questions that have been troubling womankind since the ark landed.
 .I .lnow whereof I speak, for, between you and ne and the gas -ogs, there has been a b.ief but painful interval in my married life when I, too, was a strong minded woman; when I thought 1t per- fectly spendid to extend my intellectual horizon;7 to have mornings with Aris- totle or Socrates and Thursday after moons with Kant; to find that was part of the universal consciousness, and that think Is a function. Haven't sat up far iHb the night writing papers on sub jects that would have stumped Lord Bacon attended conventions of mothers, spoken luminously on questions of child ytudyt talked like three-volume scientific work on the psychology of goo and .dadl and sat on committees, and circu- latel petitions, and served as a delegate at-nrge, and been just as emancipated as Eou please and considerably proud of myself, also?
 ITO my disgust and amazement, how evsr, I found that profouRd knowledge ofthe philosophy of the oversoul and the smctity of the ballot profiteth a woman npthing, when her maid of all work an- rbunces that her great-aunt has died on Ier,' with 'bronkittis,' with out warning ind that weeks holiday with wages must be devoted to the old woman S obsequies; when Bobby comes home from kindergarten with a bad case of mumps; when mother-in-law writes to say that she and her trunks can be expected by the 2:10 train for a nice long visit; and l when John telephones up, for the third time in the week, to say that he Is obliged to stop down town again for dinner and the whole evening, in order to finish UT some pressing business.
 ''If she Is a thoroughly emancipated woman, this state of domestic affairs makes small difference. She gets 1T a trained nurse for Bobby. heads off hel mother-in-law with a good strong wire about contagious complications in Bob. by's case, and lets John go his own evi ways. while she regards 1t as her high. est duty to bundle of to the other sidt of the United States, with four hun dred other women delegates, to tht Mississippi Suffrage Convention There she forgets her woes in the joy of wearing one of the most becom Ing lace-encrusted foulards at tht show and in being interviewed by reporters quoted as Mrs Flossie Frothingham De La Porte Bliss and described as the possessor of ringing voice. command of stirring elo uuence and a born leader of women.