The San Francisco call., 1904-02-11
"PnlliHg Double"

SUI. tlCsI
Copyright. 1904. by Joseph g. Bowles)
When two streams of water meet they
flow to the sea together. Whether both
are Of the same volume or one is large
enough to swallow the other whole
their direction is always identical.
Hand in hand, heart to heart, they
move amicably between the same
banks toward the same goal.
But il is not often so with two hu-
man lives. At rare intervals it hap
pens that their aims and hopes are so
nearly identical that they melt into a
single stream of tendencies and glide
along like a meadow brook among the
grasses. More often they suddenly dis
cover that their motives, habits and
purposes are dissimilar if not antag
onistic. One tries to flow this way and
the other that, and so the waters rave
and fret.
1t is at this critical point of the mar
ried life that the stern lesson of this
brief essay needs to be brought home.
Two people who do not pull together
will soon begin to pull apart, and it is
necessary for them to learn how to
make concessions.
Take, for example their tastes"
How seldom you find two people in
whom they are similar. One likes to
read and the other to play games. One
is fond Of the. seashOre and the other
of the mountains. One likes to go to
parties and the other to stay at home.
These differences seem the merest
trif1es before marriage and are sub
jects of good humored jests. But if
a wife insists on dragging her husband
out to receptions and card parties when
he is tired out with business soon
enough there viii be trouble in the
camp. Or if a woman likes to read
good books. and her husband will never
listen to anything but the suicides,
murders and embezzlements in the yell
low journals-a breach will spring up
that will widen till their death. More
homes than the statisticians have ever
counted have been broken up or rem
dered permanently wretched by differ
ences of taste as trifiing as these.
What a selfish thing it is in a man
not to conform to his wife's love for
little things which do not interest him.
OF course, you don't like fancy work,
but is that any reason why you should
not learn to? Lay down your paper
or your book and take up that pretty
tidy or napkin that your Mary is en-
broidering. Show your appreciation of
her right to be interested in whatever
strikes her fancy. Come out of your
self and see things from woman's
point of view. She is a woman-and
Or perhaps the shoe is on the other foot
and it is the man who has an incur
able love for hunting and fishing. Both
pastimes are distasteful TO his wife,
and with the imperious will of a little
tyrant she tries to uproot his natural
instincts. But who gave her the right
to dictate in such matters? He is a
man and has the privilege Of his sex
for the rough life of the out-of-d door
world. How much better it would be
for her to don her short skirts and take
to the woods with him!
But there are more serious differ
ences than those of tastes" There
are differences of principle. They do
not reveal themselves before the mar
riage vows are taken. Each of the in
fatuated lovers has softened or con-
cealed those traits and ideas that ex-
cited the antagonism of another. It
was easy to put them out of sight dur
ing courtship. But now that the hon
eymoon is over and they have set
tied down to the daily grind of life
nature begins to reassert itself. 1t ap-
pears that the man has a deepseated
antipathy to religion, while the woman
is a devoted Christian. She begs him
to go to church, but he refuses and
insists on her taking rides into the
country or visiting beer gardens. First
come the sharp surprises; then the
deep heart sorrows, and finally the
open quarrels. Two wills have set
themselves in violent antagonism.
Two lives are pulling apart. 1T is
the rift within the lutte that by and
by will make the music mute and ever
widening slowly silence ALL"
Somebody must give wayi- Can any
one tell us who? My answer is this
sharp, sincere and earnest-the one
with whom the question is not a mat
ter of conscience. This present ques-
ton is not that fundamental one of
the truth or falsity of religion. 1t is
simply the QuESllOn dS 10 WneInoT
man has the right to de-
spise and trample on the deepest
sensibility of the soul of that person
whose claims upon his respect and
reverence are the holiest things in
life! Suppose that religion were the
mere superstition that some men
think it is-what right has he who re-
fuses to let his wife interfere with his
smoking or drinking or gambling to
deny her the privilege of going to
church on Sunday and listening to the
advocacy of ideas which are dearer
to her than life itself? Nothing was
ever more unjust: nothing was ever
more contemplate than such tyr
amy. When / recall the brutal sell
hshness that have seen men show in
such denials of the right of private
judgment and personal preference to
their wives it makes my blood boil.
Wantanno-And is your friend strong
in the faculty known as saving COM
mon ssnse"2
Duzno-Remarkably SO. When it