The Montgomery advertiser., 1903-12-13
THE N ST CHARMING
 BOOK or THE SEA@o1.
Ins ,Thoushtiess Thoughts of cari-
 RabAl a.

eAbat. "" If Elisabeth sf the 0srmaa Garden haA moved indoors and to . wide-roonaed Virginia mansion we might have been on the lookout for just such . hghtsoms. deiightfuliy saAiyscai book of essays as these. of eouSse. U must os
 Virginia mansion. for where else could
 the nra tine Mrs. caheii mskes us equally at home. The ''book begun with personal
 confidence happily continues in series or the same. Wo know John. ~unamiiin9 per sonage, with the best of hearts and the stoWest
 of undsrstsndinss." but the srt of treating
 comrnonpiace Man Who Pays the Buh ne
 If be were combination of Lord Byron and
 the Revenend Patrick Bronte" is new and
 Te sttempt to ouots from such . book is
 like trying to pick a bed of vtoletss clean Of
 blossoms on c bright April morning. where
 one beauty is culled two more open wide tn ifs place There 0 nothing to be done with Q
 book like this but to read it, to keep it, to
 read 1t again-and then to buy six copies for our six dearest enemies and present them on
 their several tets days feeling sure that they win he daintily pricked herewith. for every
 fool and foibie under the sun is giitterinsly shown down these pages.
 There is Jane, who slipped easily and con-
 tentedIy Into old maidenhood by the draw ing of . straw'-we all know her. Then there
 are the Eve girls of Virginia where the ob. loouy of being an old maid rests heaVtiy. who strove to mitigate their lot as toloWs' suppose there is no harm in telling It now. t
 
 it-a poor fellow died in C. County, and Ave giris who had an unreasonable but deep- rooted aversion to matrirnony appeared et tne funeral, dressed in widows weeds Not tnaa they pretended to be married to him. but os- trothed. since betrothal carries with many of the honors and much of the dignity ox marriage. One of the expectations wid. ows was . relation of ours. and she told Jane that she never felt so mortified in her lire ss when first one. then another. till all nve wo- men trailed up the aisle. drsped figures of grief, and sat in the front pew. These most ingenious plans. you zee. naVinS .s,'sn t, do about it. but accept the inevitable and marry"
 This dictum the most of women have already accepted. yet-as with charming inconsistency Mrs Cabeil tells us in her next ehapter-"the popularity of marriage Is decreasing every year" The chapters on Dinner Parties and on The Visited and the Visitor gre an oio' but ever-interesting. story to the soutnerne.. We are the most visited and visiting people on the earth-and we know how. The eticuette of it all, until now unwrttten, was taught us ere we lisped in numbers. A girls education is no more deemed complete without us courss of visits from Virsinia to the Gulf than with out it's course of sciences and the languages. If the first blush of ynaidenhood wears on DO. fore the magical Mrs. is attained the course of visits extends, like . post-graduaes course, 10 Taxas and over the Southwestern States. All these things we Southerners have known al- ways, but we never expected to see them told in plain black and white print.
 Here is good advice to Colonial Dame with well-meant effort to explain Co totally uninterested parties how you came by your proud title" If you must do injustice to some one of your relations, choose your Aunt Mathilda, who. I understand has weapons oE her own with which to retaliate, but spare the chief Justice and the Signer. who really deserve better of this generation than to pc known as Mrs ---s everlasting oIo sFano. fatheru.'" Were you ever an engaged many Naturally yes since you are a married man. Did your story run thus? Being engaged was the most exciting period of mans lie Not the identity of the Man in tho Iron MASK was Q profounder secret People no more dared to refer to her betrothal to an engaged girl than they dared to ask her whether she was wearing last Summers hat. The position
 of the hanee to this difficult person was tnat of Dives to Lazarus-between them a great gulf was fixed, the lady, in the character of saint, throwing over to him unsubstantiAl civiYities Some men never got over calling
 their wives Miss Sally or Cousin Lou, so long was the period of probation. and so stern the etiquette enforced. defeatelysminded female when her trousseau was really ready and her bridesmaids asked. has been known
 to admit that she had some idea of getting
 married. but even to her maiden imagination
 she was never quite willing to own to whom. But I fancy the chapter to be read oftenest is that on The New Child. ''The duties of mother have never been particularly easy. even
 when the child was the chfldren'-but as the
 weight of a rose leaf to that of q chapter of
 Durey's Middle Ages' 90 is the burden of the mother of children to that of the mother or inc child-this unfortunate ought to have. along with the squills and the hot water bag, the ergograph and the &phygmOmster."
 Though like the Wise One of old Mrs. Cabell does not spare the rod to any fad or ouft, yet
 like a rod of old that one Joseph held tt blos- soms so with beauty in her hands that we are
 quite ready to obey the ancient injunction and
 kiss the rod It -is delightful and wonderfully new to see ourselves depicted as we really are not as we might be nor e the reading world seems to demand that we must be. There arc certain stareotyped chAracteristics
 that are put upon . Southern character in point just as dxsdiy as spots of red are Yut < on . clowns cheeks. chin and nose. and we are no more considered Southern without thesa X daubs put on than a clown would Do known without his paint and motley.
 CariSabel has, without any pretsnse at por- trait painting, depicted us as we arc and N < follows that her book Is easily the most charm N ing book of the season.
 The ThoushtIess Thoughts of CaFisabel. by < Isa Darlington caber Henry Holt & Co.,. New 4 York. Price Sl.25.