The Washington times. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1902-1939, 1911-09-19
THE PROBLEM OF JANUARY
AND MAY.
Times Inquiry Department:

1 nave a NOME Oh luy Onus dI0 hhOW =
would be a desirable companion to him
At my present occupation ! am very
unhappy and feel that my resignation
Ia greatly desired by all OF my superior
officers. Yet am ashamed TO give 1t
up; am ashamed to face my family
and say have failed in my undertake
They would be pleased to have me
marry this man as he Is supposed to
hay have !, money 7 Ssy, Would 1t be SO terribly
/ don't want his money: merely
want a home Of my own where I'd be
happy and feel that my presence was
desirable. Please tell me which seems
the better, to remain where l am or
marry q man don't love.
UNHAPPY MAE.
There is something SO sincere and
pathetic in this appeal that it stands
apart from the routine inquiries for
recipes and lotions and claims a special
word of sympathetic candor. Into every
situation such as our correspondent
describes the personal equation so
largely enters that it is not easy to
generalize with cock-sure assumption
of infallibility. There have undoubt-
edly been instances where a prudent
regimen in youth has insured an age
without infrmities and a natural bent
toward buoyancy has laughed away
the torpor which sometimes comes with
advancing years. When the heart of
youth and the mind of age conspire
to light love with the lamp Of wisdom
and experience, it is conceivable that
January may mate with June.
And yet the heritage of youth is so
rich and unreturning that one may
well pause and consider how it is to
be spent. In the varied crises which
come with dawning womanhood the
problem which perplexes our unhappy
young friend has mystiied many gen.
erations of her equally unhappy sisters.
Little wonder that in the darkness of
uncertainty she gropes for a friendly
hand to trsnquillize her troubled spirit,
and, if possible, guide the drifting bark
of a young life's opportunity into
safe and quiet haven.
If youth is exuberant it is likewise
easily discouraged. Experience alone can
bring that larger view of life in which
we find that the darkest hours are
before the dawn. The skill which
brings a commanding place in the
business world is not acquired over
night, but once acquired it leaves but
little likelihood that service would
continue to be intolerable. Since the
necessity of meeting and mastering
these business difficulties is one of the
alternatives which our troubled cor
respondent must face it is not too much
to suggest that for yet a while she
cultivate that infinite capacity for
taking pains which is allied to genius,
ever bearing in mind the golden
thought of Michael Angelo that critics
make perfection, and perfection is no
trife."
And yet these sober preachments
must seem dry and Intellectual to the
ripening womanhood which feels that
it has right to the highest fulfillment
of the laws of its being. It seems a
pitiless mockery that the joyousness of
eighteen should be chilled and stifed
in the withered companionship of three
score, merely as a refuge from the
primary pains of hunger and cold and
from the gnawing chagrin of feeling
that one is superfuous in an existing
environment. II stirs desperate rebel
lion in the heart against the irony with
which fate brings discord into the
harmony of the world. Facing facts as
they are, we 'realize that there is a
point beyond which heroic resolution
and cold sense of duty cannot go in
their effort to silence the voice of
nature.
And finally we come to the one SUI
preme consideration. Whatever the
flippant cynics and jaded worldlings
may say, the one thing which waters
the arid waste of life, and makes
existence something more than "a
conyulsion between two mysteries;'
the one thing which sweetens toll and
comforts grief and paints rainbows on
the leaden eloud-racks of despair is the
world-old witchery of love, which is
born anew with. each tomorrow. No
doubt the glorifed heights of heaven
are musical with the long procession
of sanity women who have muted the
tremulous harp-strings of their hearts
here on earth during the slow canker
of self-martyrdom and sad renuncia-
ton. But perhaps, after all, their re-
ward would have been as great if, in
such contingency as that which con-
fronts our unhappy questioner they had
listened to the voice of nature after
the goodly plan which came to earth
when the evening and the morning
were the first day.
Impartial candor can find but one
answer to make to the normal heart of