The Birmingham age-herald., 1904-11-27

In these perilous matrimonial times, when it is equally difficult to catch a husband and to keep him after you get him, no question Is of more real heart interest to woman than the effect that absence has upon love. Is a woman most sure of belng in a mans thoughts when she is so directly under his eyes that 1t is a physically impossible feat to forget her. or does he think most tenderly of her when she is far away. and her very remoteness makes a transhguring haze that conceals all her faults, and magni- des her charms? In other words, should the woman who desires to retain the af- factions of man give him her society in allopadhic or homeopathic doses?
 This is sl problem concerning which there Is a great divirsity of opinion in feminine circles both as regards before and after marriage, some contending that the man Is but a creature of habit, im- perfectly domesticated at best, and that 1t is never safe to let him quit eating out of your hand, while others hold that more love is bored to death than is killed in any other way. And both of these opposite theories have right on their side to certain degree
 There is no doubt that proximity Is great matchmaker. The real answer to why ninety-nine people out of hundred married the particular individual that they did is because chance threw them together and nearness did the rest. They
 mad no real attraction for each other. There was no special congeniality be- tween them. but just because he hap pened to be the man in evidence, and she the woman, ane nobody stepped in to prevent them, h.. fancied themselves in 2 love, and so they were married.
 There ara certain psychological mo- ments in all of our lives when we can honestly think ourselves in love with anybody. The genial glow engendered by a good dinner has led many a man to propose matrimony to a woman he never thought of an hour before. A sudden wave of pity of sympathy, of tenderness, or of loneliness, has made a woman say ''yes" at last to the suitor she has re- fused dozen times. 1t is plain case of the time arriving when you must love someone, and to the person nearest Is handed out the prize package of sent- ment.
 All of this makes an enormously strong argument in favor of woman staying at home and looking after her fences, and this is especially important before mar riage. Indeed, woman who removes herself to a distance during the days of oourtship may almost be said to have thrown down her best weapon. She is firing at long range, instead of short range, and the successful feminine con querors all know that a man will present arms to the woman who follows the revolutionary warriors advice and waits until she is close enough to see the lwhites of his eyes and then-shoots.
 Nothing appeals to a man like the slight of a woman in love with him, and to remove this spectacle from his range of vision is to clip Cupids wings. It Is the spectacle of her fattering prefer ence for him that first attracts many a mans notice to some particular woman. It is the knowledge of how pleased she will be that tempts many a man into making love to woman when he really doesn't mean it, and 1t is because he simply hasn't the nerve to break an en- vgement and hurt the woman who adorG him that sends many a secretly unwilling sbSidegroom to the altar Of course, the valueof devotion Is Justs as great, intrinsically. fT. as near but It's effect upon man Is not so great It IS the difference between kissing | photo- graph and the original--the difference be- tween saying things in a letter and 9y word of mouth, and so absence Is n1 friend to the woman who is trying to win a mans love. She needs to be Saly-on- the-spot
 In way a love affair is like business deal-you have to keep the interests worked up in 1t if you pull il off success fully This Is why the best method yet devised by diplomacy for breaking off un- suitable matches is to separate the couple and fill their lives with new interests. It