The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1909-02-12
THE GIRL WHO DOESN'T MARRY

How about the matinee cir"
asked, with her stage idols, her
vlolets and soda water and her Sat
urday promenade on Broadway? Have
the conditions you mention given her
dangerous point of view?"
MOI" said Mrs. Barr emphaticalIy.
The matinee girl is all right. Her
frlvolity, or whatever you choose to
call it, is only the unthinking, un-
formed enthusiasm of youth. In
Lancaster, where was born, we used
to have saying: Where you find
froth you find good ale;' and under
the effervescence of the matinee girl
you will find just as sound and sweet
heart as in the prim girl of the
village. There's nothing hopeless in
what have perhaps incorrectly
described.
But let me tell you one thing"
continued Mrs. Rarr earnestly, "the
matinee girl has no future unless
some good man makes her fall in
love with him and makes her marry
him. The home girl is the only one
that is worth while, and the girl
who doesn't marry il she gets the
right chance is a fool. Only that
way lies happiness. And by the right
chance don't mean money and auto.
mobiles and the chance to be idle.
A salary of $1,000. $1,000 or even
I $1,000 year Is enough, and more
than enough, for any young couple
to live happily on. don't care who
they are. And if they have any sense
they can do It right here in New
York. too.
A girl has no business to go ira
posing of to an Office or a store UNI
less it is matter of sheer bread
and butter. She has no business
/ trying to carve out a so-called ca
reer' for herself If she is making
her home better place to live in
her career will come without her
seeking it.
1T doesn't matter whether she is
"a gifted woman or not, What il
she does possess talent for music
or art or literary work. A woman
I has no right to a career until she
has married and had children AMI
gone through suffering and sorrow. !
L don't care how great a genius she
( is, it is only through this ordeal tina.
she can make herself fit to sing or
paint or write as Gcd intended she
should when He endowed her with
her talent. She must have expert,
/ enced the heights and depths of life
sin> order to make her art-whatever
/ 1t is--a speaking, vital, original
force: and marriage is the only gate
! to that experience. And without 1t,
4 II she writes. she is doing no more
admirable thing than pouring the
! contents of one inkstand into anoth.
er.
Is I never wrote a line until after
was fifty-tive years of age and had
married and reared fifteen children.
4 4 am prouder of them than / am
of my books. Every period of a
woman's life has its own peculiar men,
tai and psychological secret; and /
am not so sure that it is because |
am an old woman that sometimes
/ feel that youth and its powers have
attained ridiculous degree of ex-
4 altation in modern opinion. Is the
poise of age and bitter-sweet expert
ence not as potent? Should 1t not be
more potent than the impetuosity OF
/ early life? Poise Is. the magic that
enters into women's lives at about
the age of flfty-five Without poise
we can do very little in any field.
and 1t Is this quality which most
women conspicuously lack. The want
OF It through her Younger years
brings her large share of unhappi-
ness and failure, whether in the home
\ or in the literary and artistic life.
AT fifty-five or sixty woman
should find herself at her brightest
and best. She Is now far enough
past the child-bearing period to have
fully outlived the physical strain Of
motherhood, with its decades of bur
dens and cares. At sixty life as.
sumes a truer perspective for a wom-
an. She begins then. and hardly be-
fore then, to see the great Vital
truths of life and character in their
proper proportions.
Especially Is this true of her ex-
periences with men AS sixty she
looks back upon the tragedy of TWEEN.
ty. or thirty, or forty and takes an
almost humorous comfort in the
knowledge that he was not entire.
I ly to blame. All. dear man. that is
the lesson which it takes us women
so long to learn-to get the per-
spective. to see the aggregate good
which the years pile up against tho
bitternesses of the long visto of our
/ lives.
Therefore say to the girl who
i dreams of a career, Marry; learn
your lesson before you try to teach
IT. And let no girl set herself up
as too precious jewel of genius to
marry what 1t NAV please her To con.