The Savannah morning news. (Savannah, Ga.) 1900-current, 1903-02-22
LOVE AND ILLUSIONS.

g<e WIZ 6SSr SSSeS because they are
twice women" This statement, saws
the New York Press, is true enough
to make the average woman stop and
think. All women are indeed, ac-
tresses; but some of them are extreme
ly poor ones, without a particle of the
true dramatic instinct; seoond-rate ac-
tresses who go through life with in
artistic makeup on their sorry little
faces and with a constant sound Of
scene shifting behind their fiimsy lit
tie poses. They do not understand nor
value the art of creating and keeping
up a mans illusions, that art on which
hangs all the happiness of the delicate
and Elusive thing called love. 1t is not
in the least necessary to be beautiful
and wise and angelic in order to hold a
mans affections; but it is necessary to
be clever enough to make a man think
you are all three of these.
What on earth does he see in herr"
her lorgnette to gaze wonderingly at
the plain little thing across the street,
whose young husband follows her
about with glance of alteration such
as a saint would bestoW upon a Ma
donna. Do we not all know how utter
~ surprised we are whenever a clever
and desirable young man marries one
of our dearest friends? Do we not all
know, while we wink at one another,
that she carries rat under her fluffy
pOmpadour, an acrid little temper un-
der company smile and nothing at all
inside her wise little head?
But the young man himself does not
know these. things and never will. He
has hung his illusions about that young
woman like a mist, and through their
tinted colorfngs he sees a beautiful Gre
alton of his own BRAIN 1t is only when
a woman willfully tears aside the veil,
skaters the illusions, shows him the
rat" under the pompadour and gives
him a sting from the acrid temper that
the mist disappears, and with it, like
Moses in the chariot of fire, all the
tender young love he had felt.
1t is not the worlds great beauties
who have held their lovers affections
the longest and f1rmest; history and
the divorce courts prove that. The IA
nous beauties have depended too much
on the power of a perfect nose and the
Witchery of shimmering hair. They
have grown careless about their lines,
their cues and their poses in the little
drama called Love and Matrimony."
1t is those women to whom the at
tainments of hearts has been most diff
fiCult who have learned how to hold
them longest Nine divorces out of
every ten are pretty women.
1t is seldom necessary to build up
illusions for the man who is falling in
love with you. He will do that him
self. He will draw mental pictures of
how you would look without your
beautiful hair down; of how sweet and
strong you would be in the time of do
mestiC trouble; of how cleverly you
might write or paint or sing if you only
chose. From the days in which he first
begins to send you paper valentines
and play kissing games until the days
in which he smoothes your old gray
head he is constantly putting you on
pedestal of some sort. The easy and
natural and wise thing for you to do
is to stay upon that pedestal, no mat
ter how slippery it may be. OF course,
he does not want you to deceive him;
of course he wants you to be hon
est and frank with him; but, neverthe-
less, he will not thank you for smash
ing your pedestal and stepping down to
his own common level
1t is the intimacy of courtship and
marriage which strains the delicate ia
brio of sentiment until it is torn to
shreds; not those deep sweet intimacies
of soul, but the ugly, gross little init
macies of personality. Catching love
is like hooking a fish, easy. 1t re-
quires nothing but placid waiting.
Keep your hair we'll curled, your smile
we'll oiled and your wits sharp, and
somebody is sure to fall in love with
you But holding love is like the land
ing of the fish after it has been hook
ed it requires a subtle management
that nine women out Of ten do not an
lerstand.
Alma, who has been engaged
month, receives Algernon some morn
ing in half-soiled shirt waist that
doesn't meet her skirt in the back she
greets him with an effusion or Kisses
ever so family scented with onions.
And then she wonders why he finds the
fascinating Miss Jones so engrossing
the next afternoon. Miss Jones, still
enveloped in a maze of illusions, pre-
sents attractions for Algernon he had
never before noted. He forgets TO ASK
himself if all women are alike; ne can
not imagine the ethereal Miss Jones
eating boiled onions or wearing d nall
soiled shirt waist.
Adelaide, who has just been married,
thinks it immense fun to show Jack
the rat" under the pompadour and
to explain to him how she pulls her
bodice down in front to make that
sveIt figure of hers. She comes down
to breakfast some ulOIlllHS III SuIA pa
pers and cold cream and wonders why
he spills his coffee at the sight and
why he hurries off to office without
even kissing her good-by. Doesn't he
love her for herself alone? Didn't he
say he did? Mercy! how unreasonable
men are And Jack rushes off, in
wardly grooming. He feels just as
shocked and unhappy as he did when,
as a little boy, he went behind the
scenes at the pantomime and saw the
sleeping beauty putting rouge on her
lips and drinking a bottle of beer. That
night when he comes home he hears
Adelaide arguing with the cook. The
house is smelling of cabbage and the
baby needs a bath. The wheels of do
nestle machinery CRATE loudly in
Jacks ears and, like the shifting of the
scenery in the pantomime, the sound
is soul killing. Adelaide has let him
come up too close to the stage. He dis
covers the palace is nothing but
painted canvas and the fairies are only
a lot of ugly little women in soiled
gauze skirts. Silently he takes his
key out of the latch and slips away
to the club. And then poor Adelaide
mourns.
Every man is, like Gaul, "divisa in