The Savannah morning news. (Savannah, Ga.) 1900-current, 1904-01-31
THE SHADOW ON
THE HONEYMOON.
By Dorothy Dix.

oN DOlOlHy LIN
The other day the papers contained
an account that was both amusing and
rathetic of a Cincinnati girl who start
ed out on a sentimental journey to the
West to mkrrY't the young man to whom
she was betrothed. No sooner, how
ever. had she boarded the train that
vas to carry her to her impatient lover
han the black pail of Inconsistencies
regun to blot out the rosy mists of
owes young dream, and she commenced
10 snii1le. BY the time she was out
of the city limits, she was sobbing into
the best handkerchief of her trousseau.
FROM Cincinnati to Chicago she laid
the dust with her tears. Detroit found
her still a Niobe. all weeps, and when
she reached her destination with swol-
len eyelids and red and puffy nose,
the discouraged bridegroom, who had
not contracted to marry a saltwater
geyser. bought her return ticket and
sent her back home.
1t is not often that homesickness
overtakes Cupid so early. but the Gin
cinnat girls experience is peculiar
only in that she took her bridal trip
DelOI6 llS WCudlll6 llA0lCc1Q VI alter II,
and so got what was coming to her in
a way of nostalgia in advance. Thou
sands of married women who have
been through the awful agony of home
sickness, who recall the appalling sense
of desolation with which they first real
lied that they were actually separated
for life from their family and old
friends, and were a stranger among
strangers, will bear testimony to the
fact that the only reason they didn't
throw up their jobs as brides and pike
back home to mother was because
they couldn't without raising a scan
6aI-
This is no reflection on the young
husband, and no indication that the
brides affection are not of the all
wool and a yard wide quality that she
has represented them to be, but you
can't pull up life by it's roots with
out a wrench. or transplant it to an
alien soil without it's leaves dropping
for awhile. This is what the brides
homesickness means. After bit it
passes. Her spirits revive. Her heart
puts out new tendrils. but while the
attack lasts she undergoes purgatory
of despair and regret that makes the
sufferings of the ancient Christian
martyrs look like thirty cents, and it is
a solemn truth that most women pack
down the memories of their honey
moon in brine.
This homesic1ness is one of the eX-
periences of life which always finds us
unprepared, for nobody expects it to
happen to them. When a man thinks
of the duties of matrimony he doesn't
picture one of them as wiping the
tears from the eyes of a, bride who is
crying mo-mo-mo-mother and the cir
Cir girls. Nor does a young woman
when she thinks of entering upon the
holy estate of wedlock imagine herself
as sitting up and waling because she
doesn't know the people next door, and
nobody speaks to her going 'down the
street. On the contrary, both of them
expect to enter into an enchanted par
adise where they will be all in all to
each other, and sublimely Indifferent
to old ties and old friends, and even
parents, except as benefcent bestoWers
of checks.
Yet, except in the cases where a man
is sensible enough to marry a neigh
boris shomely daughter, and the wom-
an has discretion enough to espouse
the man who boards across the street,
few escape this damp, unpleasant cpl
sode of early married life. There is a
fatal fascination about strangers that
makes the man from New York marry
the girl from New Orleans, and the man
from San Francisco chase across the
continent for the girl from Boston.
The result is that the average bride
groom comes home at night to a bride
who is so limp with inconsistencies, and
so sodden with tears she needs to be
run through a clothes wringer to dry
her, and the average bride spends her
time wondering between her sobs if it
isn't better to marry the freckled faced
grocer at home than a swell stock
broker who take you where you are
neither acclimated nor acquainted.
1t is a state of affairs with which a
man has curiously little sympathy, and
the whole of succeeding little Sympa-
thy, and the whole of succeeding mat
rimony brings to him no such shock as
when he discovers that his wife is
homesick. She has told him during
the days of courtship that all that she
asked of fate was the privilege of gaz-
ing at his manly beauty, and being
near him. and when he realizes that
the pleasure and excitement of seeing
him at breakfast and sitting by him
while he reads the paper, are not
enough for her, and that she is pining
for her own people. and her old home
he gets the jar of his life. 1t is case
of "Christy's MINISTRIES are in town,
and still she is not 'appy" and he feels
like throwing. up his hands in despair
over the unreasonablenes of woman.
Nor should one wonder at his taking
TINS view of the matter. 1t is not in
spring to be met with tears in place of
snlleS lnat are ones due. 1t IS not
tattering to ones vanity to feel that
the woman for whom one is toiling and
slaVlng and for whom one has sacri-
need all of ones bachelor Injuries, is
plning for another even if that other is
her own mother. 1t is a blighting dis
appointment to find that the wife one
mas expected to make perfectly happy
Is utterly miserable, and that she even
regards the home one has prepared for
ner with such loving care as prison
from which she would escape if she had
nerve enough to break out. 1t is all
lulotlc, unreasonable, unjust, man
Tells himself as he goes out and bangs
tne door behind him. She married him
because she wanted to- and was precious
gao OF the chance to get him. She
knew she would have to leave her home
ana ne has no patience with a grown
up woman doing the baby act.
me man is right. He has reason on
MS slde The trouble is that a wom-
ans emotions are not subject to logic,
ano II is water spout and not a the
Wy ne has with which to deal, but
sonething, too, may be said for the
orloe's side, for there are few more
palmetto figures than that of young
R0hM Min