The Savannah morning news., 1904-05-29
WOMAN'S WORLD

ulates her life by what HE-a preach
er worshipper always speaks of the
parson in capitals-says Fortunately
when a preacher marries he tumbles
off of his pedestal so far as the ma
jority of his female flock are concern
ed though there are some women to
whom the preacher is nero 70 the
end, and who spend their lives break
ing their alabaster boxes AT ibis feet.
The matinee hero follows close on the
heels OF the clergyman. This marks
virulent stage Of feminine hysteria. 1t
is a malady that few women escape
! and none ever remember without
wondering how the fOol-killer happen
ed to overlook them while ii lasted
The outward symptoms are a mania
for going TO hear some particular ac-
tor or singer act the same play, or sing
the same song with precisely the same
tremor in his voice, the same clutch
at his heart, the same adoring cues,
day after day, or night after night
Still she is thrilled by it. She sits in
the sef-same place, and fiatters her
self that her hero must difterentiate
her face from the duh uncomprehend-
ing faces of the audience, and she
wonders if he is not conscious of her
presence--if there Is not some rapport
between them.
When she has it very badly indeed,
and has no kind friend to shut her up
in a padded cell in a lunatic asylum,
she writes him mash notes, telling of
her love, her devotion, her willingness
to leave home and family and friends
and fly with him. At this time she al
so spends her allowance in sending
him flowers, which he gives to other
women, and in buying his photographs
before which she burns candles ana
says her prayers. Generally, the mat
nee-heTo- worship craze does no par
ticular harm. Sometime however 1t is
necessary to use violent measures to
wake a girl up who is in a trance
about some romantic actor. The best
way to do this is to let her make his
personal acquaintance under properly
chaperOned conditions. A romantic ac-
tor with his upholstery off is about the
least romantic person on earth, and
girl is forever after an apostate where
the stage is concerned.
Following the matinee hero, and far
more dangerous because he has to be
dealt with at close range, across the
parlor lamp instead of from the safe
distance across the fOotlights, is the
man with dark and lurid past. No
body can explain the fascination that
"A bad man has for good woman.
Neither can anyone deny that it eX-
lists, and is especially potent with lg-
norant and innocent young girl Char
lOtte Bronte was an unsOphisticated
country maiden when she created the
wicked and sinister Rochester, ready
to commit any sort of a crime to get
the woman he loved, and that sort
of man always was and always will be
the favOrite hero of young girls.
Heaven alone knows why a woman
should find anything romantic in
man who has been a drunkard. or
a gambler, or a roue, but she sees
him through some sort of a glamor
that makes his sins appear pictures
que instead of sordid, and it is while
she is under this hypnotic spell, while
she believes that her worship is a last
ing passion instead of passing fancy,
that he is apt to make a marriage
that she spends the balance of her
life in repenting.
If she escapes this sad fate, if she
chances to find out that her hero
wasn't so black as he painted himself,
or she has the good fortune to meet
him when he is drunk, instead of hear
ing his poetic account of dallying with
the wine cup, and it is because women
hear about things instead of actually
seeing them that they make such bit
ter mistakes, she is generally safe for
the next few years True she breaks
ship, of some great pianist or she
burns few joss-sticks before Ibsen, or
some famous lecturer or traveller, or
artist, but this amounts to little. 1t
lacks the fervor and the fire of her
previous devotion.
Then comes her final great perform
ance as a hero worshiper the culmnat-
ing triumph of the feminine magma
ton, that enables her to see in some
perfectly commonplace man, the ideal
of all her dreams and fancies. She
falls in love, and straightaway the
homeliest, shambling, tow-headed man
that ever walked becomes a paragon of
masculine beauty; his most stumbling
speech becomes thrilling eloquence, and
his occupation, no matter how pro-
sale, becomes a field of adventure She
has found her hero at last, and she
sits down joyously to pour out adul-
alton before him.
And its up to the husband to offer
up thanksgivings in the temples for
his luck. for the choicest gift that fate
can bestow upon a man is to make
him a hero in his wife's eyes.
Dorothy Dix