The Donaldsonville chief. [volume] (Donaldsonville, La.) 1871-current, 1904-12-31
SAD FATE or YOUNG WOMAN
Spent Much Time in Following Cut
Plan, But It Was All
V5k3 ed.


There was tlg lady OF ten-
| infieAsbIy detel ....4 "a TO live unmarried,
sTens ar the risk Of living an old maid.
but who wished SO mucn T. spare the
| suSf eptibEities of her potential adj
mifers that she long made it her study
| how to refuse them without wounding
them, relates Harper's Magazine To
this end she read all the novels she
could lay her hands on aud as much
poetry as she could bear. She welt
constantly to the theater. and IN the 81
teryals Of her social duties she took
| serious books, like biographies a1d
| memoirs, out Of the libraries, and sn-
formed herself Of the methods and man
ners of the hero;nes who declined offers
from high motives.
She was, upen the ghoIe, a good zeal
disappointed, especially with the nov
els. These manuals Of the imprisoned
emotions seemed to Tender in almost
every case a blind allegiance to the law
of ending we'll, which ii. the low con
eeption of the author was getting the
hero and heroine married, and then
dropping them in the very, very few
eases where they suffered a girl to re-
fuse a lover it was that she might leave
him to some other gipI who secretly
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 idiotie; she was a
young lady of strong expressions as
well as tender feelings and fixed re-
solves. and she found the poets NOT
much, If amp, more instructive than the
novelists
They gave examples enough Of girls
who did not marry, but it was because
their lovers died, or did not ask them,
when their lovers both survived and pro-
posed the girls refused them from pride
or from shame or from want Of pres
enee of mind and bitterly regretted it
ever afterWard. The personal histories
were largely those, of women distin-
guisAed in the arts. letters and sciences,
whose eourtships and marriages were
dismissed in a few cold and Indifferent
phrases, as incidents OF small consa-
quence in their several careers. Where
they did got marry they seemed not to
have been courted, and where they were
loved it was in a vague, tentative sort
that never arrived at passion.
In spite Of all however, the young
LADY did evolve. though freB1 the OBJ
serYation of life rather than her ac-
quaintance with literature, formula
of sympathetic rejection which entirely
suited her. We will not reveal it be-
cause it was SO charming that il put
in the possession OF young girls general
ly it would tempt them to its use in the p
case of every offer of marriage. But
we may eonfide that the young lady,
having live9 to witness the comparative
failure OF marriage among her friends,
and always liking her friends has
hands better than her Friends them
selves, though she blamed them for her
friends unhappiness. made such q study
of their varying temperaments that she
knew just where mems sensfbi1ities
would suffer most, and SO eontrived d
form of refusal that would justly fat
ter their vanity and console their affec-
tons, and at last leave them grateful
for having been rejected.
The only difficulty size experienced
was in the application Of her formula.
It happened that the very firstm man who
offered himself was one whom she had
long secretly loved, and she instantly
accepted him, without, as it were, think
ing. She did not even appear ehagrined
at the waste OF the time she had spent
in acquiring the useless information
stored up for a contrary eventually.
Unless she should become widow hers
must ever remain the most signal in-
stance Of misspent research that we
could offer.