The herald and news. [volume] (Newberry S.C.) 1903-1937, 1904-11-18
HOW TO REJECT A MAN.
Sad Fate of a Young Woman Who
Had 1t All Fixed Up.

unmarried, even at the risk of living
an old maid, but who wished so much
to spare the susceptibilities of her
potential admirers that she long made
it her study how to refuse them with
out wounding them. To this end,
writes w. D. HoweNs in Harper's
Magazine, she read all the novels she
could lay her hands on, and as much
poetry as she could bear. She
went constantly to the theatre, and
in the intervals of her social duties
she took serious books, like bio
graphies and memoirs out of the IL
braries, and Informed herself of the
methods and manners of the heroines
who declined offers from high mo-
tives. She was, upon the whole, a
good deal disappointed, especially
with the novels. These manuals of
the impassioned emotions seemed to
render in almost every case blind
allegiance to the law of ending well,
which in the low conception of the
author was getting the. hero and he
roine married, and then dropping
them in the very, very few cases
where they suffered girl to refuse
a lover, it was that she might leave
him to some other girl who secretely
loved him, and who would probably
pine away, or partly away, if she did
not have him. This the young lady
thought simply disgusting and idiotic,
she was a young lady of strong ex-
pressions as we'll as tender feelings
and fixed resolves; and she found the
poets not much, if any, more instruc-
tive than the novelists. They CAV.
examples enough Of girls who dio
not marry, but it was because their
lovers died, or did not ask them,
when their lovers both survived and
proposed, the girls refused them
from pride or from shame, OR from
want of presence of mind; and Bit
terly regretted it ever afterwards. The
personal histories were largely arts,
letters and sciences, whose courtships
and marriages were dismissed in a
few cold and Indifferent phrases, as
incidents of small consequence in
their several careers. Where they
did not marry they seemed not to
have been courted; and where they
were loved, it was in a vague, tenta-
tive sort that never arrived at pas
sion.
In spite of all, however, the young
lady did evolve, though from the OBJ
servation Of life rather than her &C.
quaintance with literature, formula
of sympathetic rejection which en-
tirely suited her. We will not re-
veal it because it was so charming
that if put in the possession Of young
girls generally, it would tempt them
to its use in the case of every offer
Of marriage. But we may conhde
that the young lady lived to witness
the comparative failure of marriage
among her friends, and always liking
her friends husbands better than her
friends themselves, though she
blamed them for her friends unhap>
piness, made such study Of their
varying temperaments that she knew
just where mems sensibilities would
suffer most, and so contrived a iorn.
of refusal that would justly flatter
their vanity and console their affec-
tions, and at last leave them grateful
for having been rejected.
The only difficulty she experienced
was in the application of her formula.
1t happened that the very first man
who offered himself was one whom
she had long secretely loved, and she
instantly accepted him, without, as it
were, thinking. She never regretted
what she had done, and did not even
appear chagrined at tie waste of the
time she had spent in acquiring the
useless information stored up for a
contrary eventua1:+v Unless she
should become a widow, hers must
remain the most signal instance Of
r1isSDent research that we cou1d offer,