The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1904-11-27

Of youth with the speculative inter-
est of the might have been. IN
that respect it is full of conjecture
i'm that it avoided a marriage. Many
things happen after matrlIlony
any who have been married Will testl-
fv. More things might have nap
nened had the marriage not taken
nlace-and that is truism. Break
nm a match, and one becomes reSpoh-
sible for that most awful of all Things,
the thwarting of destiny. PefnapS
Destiny sits back and laughs, pc
cause there is Whimsicality itself, put
man is too egotistical by far to give
nm his pet delusion that some way
and somehow he controls the forces
of mystery. That his impulses are
but the product of some fatalisuc
plan, the mixture of his brain and
his superstition will readily admit on
argument: but that he, the indlVid-
ual, is swayed by such small thlng
as Fate. that his actions do not make
or mar the future. is matter that is
of a repugnance to the personal
vanity that makes of a worthless man
good citizen by the very brute force
of it's inconsistency.
Think of a marriage broken up!
What an endless chain of events
ably mean a remodeling of the world.
Presidents may hang in the balance
War NAV repaint the map or the
world. or peace establish its colorS
for all time. What if the father of
Napoleon had been a Bourbon. or
CromwelFs mother a Cathollc! Yet
either event might have come around
through a face lighted with a smile
at a monkey performing on his stick
% "a
a bank, a lucky speculation, a hun
dred and one odd and undreamed OF
contingencies including, and more
reasonably, the illogical sympathy
that is built UP on a glance or a word.
Since the percentage of people who
marry first loves is small to the
insignificance of fraction that has
reached the nth degree, Fate has
much to answer for in this particular,
as we'll as much 70 boast about. But
what of a man who. for "A whim,
would directly interpose his person
atty for the prevention of a union
towards which both environment and
inclination were setting as full tide ?
The acceptance of the consequences
estimated as indicated above
shows in the egotism of the man
who interposes a confidence that is
over eening and nerve that is
riages are really made in heaven
it is a cocksure individual who. hav-
ing no personal interest, will presume
to break the course of true love. Yet
this is what my friend did, and did
in a way that was of the earth earthly
but has since proven its efficacy by
ito results-both parties to the frus-
trated marriage having since wed
SO happily that it would seem as
though the attachment which came
10 naught lad been but the prelude to
the fondly prated of eternal affinity
But for the story:
AT the law school they were three,
and they were inSeparable Tor their
differences. The one was fresh from
the farm, pushing twenty-one and a
waiting inheritance, good, honest, i'm
questionable and unsophisticated. The
other, tinged with the ultra pessimism
of half baked youth, TOOK his pleas
ures as he found them and his work
DIS d thing to which his pride i'm
DelIcd him. The third--atnd he is the
hero of this tale-was a youth that
was soaked with brilliancy till it
flashed at times like genius. Like
genius, too, he was erratic to the point
that he was borne with for his excel
lencies and, in the particular case,
member of the trio had just survived
a blasted hope of love that made him
spout the Faustine of Swinburne and
stick to his small circle of men
friends with the passionate devotion
of the misagyaist
AS the result, however, the other
two fell heir to the clothes of their
friend which, prepared for a, wedding
tour to the Honduras, lay through the
f1oxy in, II Of
owner except when he from the farm
and he who loved pleasure as the
boring antidote for thought, wore
them to the germans which made the
college town a social mecca to scores
of frivolous maids, in search mainly
of unsophisticated young men from
the farm-with inheritances.
And so the summer wore away and
there was peace among the three stu
dents until he from the farm began
to receive square envelopes regularly.
Slowly the signs of desperate resolve
became painfully visible. His moon
face heightened with the days. At the
table, his second helpings were a
thing of the past. On the campus he
failed of his greetings; in the class
room he was distraught. His friends
watched him with a growing alarm
and waited for the confidence that they
knew his open nature could not long
conceal. AT length it came with a
rush and a gurgle that bore tiIe stamp
OF fateful sincerity:
Boys" said he from the farm, ST
am going to marry that girl. l can't
stand it any longer. I'm going TO
leave here tomorrow. If she'll have
me I'll know it; and if she DON'T
and the big voice quavered on the
word-"if she don't-Il make her
anyway"
For a minute or so the two frien DIS
looked at one another in panied 81
lence. The prospect of the Farmer
marriage was crushing and as they
looked at the light in his eyes, they
knew that that girl could not resist
his appeal.
Then Genius hit upon a plan He
spoke grimly between his teeth and his
pipe stem:
There's just one thing about your
going" said he, that possibly you
haven't considered. Those clothes OF
mine have courted their last girl. If
you go off you go without my Clothes .
The Farmer begged but the Genius
was adamant. He was done with wo-
men, he explained with the forced
GOODNESS of one who lives with a trag-
edy. His clothes were things which he
had provided for the exuberance of his