The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1904-01-30

that they are the greatest and grandest
of the works of God, that there are only
few of them left and those badly
scattered? Don't the girls begin chas-
ing them while they're still in short
trousers? What do they ever hear
from womankind from their earliest
years until they commit matrimOny to
lead them to suspect that they are not
the darlings of the gods as well as Of
the ladies'? I once heard a woman say
that she felt sorry for a certain young
chap, a fellow of rather cynical habit of
speech and somewhat glum as to man
ner, because she imagined that he was
sour, disconnected, unhappy, unloved
and unappreciated Don't waste any
sympathy on him. advised her When
you see him sitting around that way
chewing the end of a cigar and appar-
emily STEPPED in gloom he's really hav-
ing a grand good time thinking of all
the girls who have loved him desper-
ately.'
But when a man marries he finds
the habits and conditions of a lifetime
changed. Not all at once. of course.
He rather tapers off after the wedding,
like the slaves to other inebriants who
make New Year resolutions. If it came
all at blow I suppose it would kill
him. He hardly realizes it at first per-
haps. but one day he wakes up to the
fact that he is married man. and for
the first time he is conscious of the ball
and chain. Not only, he realizes, think
ing the matter over. does that adoring
creature. his wife. whom he so good
naturally married because he really
didn't want to break her heart. regard
him with a somewhat lessened degree
of awe: not only does she occasionally
give him to understand that her own
opinions and preferences are a matter
of more Importance to her than his, but
| the other women he knows seem to
share her views. Only the other day
he met that pretty visiting girl from
n fha CT 1,cIv
on her car with her suit case, but when
! that silly ass Bob Nye came painting
up full of APOLOGIES at being so late,
| she moved over to make room for him
beside her, quite ignoring him and al
most forgetting to thank him for his
| assistance. Time was, he thinks
swelling with a momentary return of
/ his old self-confdence, when no fellow
/ was stronger with the visiting girls
/ than he He would like to have seen
! Bob Nye butting in and monopolizing
| the attention of any girl he might have
1 been with then. OF course this girl
had never known him before he was
married That made a difference She
! probably thought OF him as old and
/ but then he remembers the other girls
all the girls who have always known
! him and who used to seem so glad to
! meet him and be so grauEed to have
/ him call or take them to the theater,
4 or ask them for dances or anything.
/ There's no denying that he has lost
cast with them, somehow since his mar
! rage. He was formerly quite favor
ite with the young married women,
! too, but although he can't see why they
should object to his new ties, he knows
/ that they have shifted their allegiance
to some of the other fellows, men whom
| he could once distance in any compe-
tition in which women We're the judges.
And SO from the seventh-heaven of
self-satisfaction and assurance he falls
with a thud to the bottomless pit of
/ matrimonial Obscurity and neglect
Talk about the way a woman fades af-
ter marriage-it doesn't compare with
her husbands declined Nobody notices
him, his wife. least of all, so what's
the use of caring how he looks? He
goes off noticeably in his appearance,
| wears the wrong kind of shoes and col
lars. shaves only every other day or
even less frequently, has dandruff on
| his coat collar and goes in for comfort
rather than style. For weeks at a time
/ this former Adonis, this favorite of the
| ladies, this society leader of the inc
| luctible charms goes back and forth
ia his xVork and follows the duh rou.