The Savannah morning news., 1903-03-22
MISTAKES GIRLS MAKE.

one OF the commonest errors that
girls make, says Dorothy Dix in the
New Orleans Picayune, is in thinking
themselves in love with the first man
they meet who resembles the hero of
their romantic dreams. All of their
lives they have been imaging the man
with whom they would fall in love
when they are grown up, and did UP
their hair and went out to parties. He
would be an Adonis, with large dark,
SoulIul eyes, a sweeping muStache
which he would gnaw savagely, mel
ancholy expression and a lurid past,
and he would make love in beautiful
Booth-Tarkington language. To meet
TINS vision is like being exposed to the
measles. With the very young, es-
pecially, it is almost sure to take. but.
fortunately, the attack is seldom seri-
Gus.
During this short and violent hectic
flush, however, it leads a girl to do
things that she bushes to remember
the balance of her life. More often
than not the object of it is some mat
1nee hero, and she spends her money
going to see him play and buying his
photographs, before which she burns
candles and keeps violets, and if she
mas got 1t very bad, indeed, she writes
him silly love letters that he laughs
over with his wife. Finally, though,
the disease eXpends itself and the girl
begins to recover, and it gives her the
cold creeps after she has really fallen
In love with some unromantic, freckled-
faced, honest-hearted man to- think
what would have happened to her if
she had married the first hero of her
untaught, childish imagination
Another mistake that girls make is in
persuading themselves that they are
in love with a man because he is in
love with them. This is a peculiarly
dangerous and insidious error, because
1T is so easy to fall into. You are
bound to have a tenderness for any
body that is fond of you. 1t shows so
much good taste and good feeling and
appreciation that you can't help liking
them for 1t. 1t is hard to be firm with
them, and it hurts you to hurt them
1t is infinitely appealing to a woman
to know that she is making a man
unhappy, and when she sees the look
or dumb pain in his face that some
word of hers has caused, she feels ex-
actly like she had hit a baby in the
face with her fist. She simply lacks
the courage to repeat the offense, and
by and by she comes to believe that
her pity for him and her sympathy
for him is love. 1t isn't, though, and
some day, after she is married to him,
and wakes up to the fact that he
wc-'|n't have died for her even if she
hadn't married him, she knows in all
its bitterness that she has sold her
birthright for a mess of pottage.
A womans virtues are always her
undoing, and the nobler she is the
more apt she is to make a mistake in
love. This is why so many good wom-
en- are married to drunkards and
thriftless ne'er-do-wells. The man
throws himself upon her mercy. He
makes her believe that she alone can
save him, and that If he only had her
influence he would never thirst for
highball again, or desire to see the
ponies run. The girl is naturally fiat
tered. There is strong element of the
reformer in every woman's nature, and
just as every boy passes through the
period of life when he yearns to go
forth and fight Indians or be a bold
pirate, every girl has a period when
.1he dreams of becoming a mission
airy or a sad, sweet-faced Sister of
Charity. Here is her opportunity of
saving a soul, besides. there is some
thing romantic in a man with a dark
past, and she easily fancies herself in
love, and by the time she finds out
that she isn't, it is forever too late.
There ought to be state asylums in
which a girl could be safely incarcer-
ated and isolated who has been Bit
ten by the microbe of reforming a
man until she has a chance to get over
it.
The girl who thinks she is suffering
from a blighted love and broken
heart will fiuI that work is an unfail-
ing specific for it. The reason men
never die of such complaints is be-
cause they have something to do be-
sides sit and think of the state of
their affections. Love is an exotic that
requires leisure in which to grow. 1t
is only the idle who are overly senti-
mental, and the girl who finds that
she is the victim of unrequited affec-
ton has only to get busy in order to
have a complete cure effected, and her
heart left in good working order.