The Minneapolis journal. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn.) 1888-1939, 1904-06-15

The Extraordinary Love Affair Of a Wild
oW-A Novel Which Goes to Prove That
When Woman viii She Won't and
When She Won't She WlIl-A Book to
Encourage the Faint Hearted Suitor,
Especially II He Is Suing for Widows
Hand. 1870 ~
An affair of a Widows heart, that is the
sum and substance of Anne Warner S
(Mrs. G. E: French's) A Woman's Will.
or course no two affairs of the kind are
Just alike, SO this one is different from any
other, except in results. If the author had
set out to show that the saying, that
When will, she WILL and you may de-
pend ont;
And when she WON'T she won't, and there's an
end ont.
was utterly baseless and the mere fiction
of some rhymster, she could hardly have
done better. Indeed, that seems to have
been her purpose as regards Rosina, the
widow of the tale, for Rosina, like a
burnt child, does not purpose to get
burnt again; SO she is never going to
marry again. She decides she will take a
trip to Europe. She has not been there
more than a few days, almost said hours,
before she meets him-von Ibn, a great
violinist, and very promptly lover, and
something unusual in that line, too. You
will have to admit that fact from this
proposal.
Rosina, from her past matrimonial ex-
perience informs Won Ibn:
I don't believe in men. 1 don't believe in
anything that they say; not in anything that
they promise. And 1 don't believe one bit in
love.
That is sad" he said digging into the gray
Ell with his cane, mot to believe in love- or in
the truth of man; and you are woman,
you
Rosina felt dishearten A ready acouies-
cence in her views is always discourag1ng to a
woman. What is the use Of having views if
they are just tamely agreed to at once:
abruptly from his seat.
II tell You just now that I am an atheist,
and that is very true. Now l will make you a
proposal, and you shall see how serious 1 mean.
will change myself and believe in God If
you Will change yourself and believe once more
in men,"
But Rosina still thinks she will never
marry again. So she evades the point and
directs the conversation along parallel but
different lines.
Later she is talking to a cousin. Jack
is his name, Of course.
ION, Jack, you ought to hear him talk. He
before the cool grew too hot
Jack regarded her sympathetically
'Id certainly M0rry him. he said with de-
c1slon. IF he can say things like that off
mana, only think what he'd be to live with day
after day.
Besides being primarily the story OF
the love Of a widow for an odd and
fierce enough lover, the book has other un-
usual features. 1t is a novel in three
languages, English, French and German
all entering into the conversation which
makes up most of the tale. Then there
Is Is the explosiveness Of the German.
think 1t is about page 80 that he tells
Roslna that she has lied using no euphem.
ism in doing so, either. The reader will
md amusement, too, in the words of wis.
dom" like the following:
Men who fall in love with college girls arc
nearly always widow proof
Inc pest cosmetic in the wide world is the
kno"ledge that the right person is waiting
downstairs.
It's a terrible thing to have been married
be1s<e you We been married you're so ready to bt
married to any one and after Won va beer
married you don't care to marry any one. l
The book is good sllidmer reading de
spite the fact that Rosina is not satisfa G.
tory. Her almost coarse references to he1
1lrst marriage jar on one and do not har
monte with the character in other re-
spects. But the author has written stor,
that lew having begun will, leave unit
they have read thru the closing chapter.
with. their surprises, sQlIs1
The Uneasy Chair.
MY HEART HATH TALKED OF THEE
My heart hath talked of thee
ALI the soft hours of the slumbrous day
AS thru the arch Of tree and tree.
Mid springtime's wooing volub1lity
One fuller, more insistent note,
FROM unseen, vepained throat,
Comes down the leafy way.
Here, hour by needless hour,
Upon the moss-stained fence I lean,
And wonder at the sudden shower
or blossoms on the ripping green,
And watch the hand Of God unfold
The poppy and the marigold.
| The rose is lovely, and the feur-de-Iis,
And apple-blossorns, dear to thee and me-
But now I choose those richer-colored flowers
Lifting gold faces to the golden hours.
My fancy Is robust they; sweet, war;
kiss
Belts day like this.
| Herbert Muller Hopkins, in The Bookman
for June.