El Paso herald. (El Paso, Tex.) 1901-1931, 1913-01-31
No Room For the Crouch
The Woman Who Weeps and the
Man Who Wears the Long Face
Are Back Numbers.

" HERE is one feature of modern

" HERE is one feature of modern
progress that has not attracted
the attention it deserves. and
that is that people are happier and
more cheerful than they used TO be-
In the past, in America at least, plety
and gloom were synonymous terms,
and the more melancholy the individual
the more religious he or she was es-
Uremed. 1t was thought that to be
cheerful showed you to be light
minded, and those who laughed easily,
especially women, were looked upon
with suspicion as being no better than
they should be. When people met to-
getner they told each other their trou-
bIes, and women enjoyed themselves
by mingling their tears when they
foTegarhered for a pleasant afternoon
We have to get a prospective on
the past TO realize how different cOndi-
lions are today and how We have
cheered UP without realizing it. We
no longer mistake biliOusneSs for sane
tification. Indeed, there are several
religions, with millions OF followers,
ness.
For our souls sake and our stom-
achs' sake we are adJudged alike by
priest and doctor TO think bright and
joyous thoughts and to dwell on the
good in the world instead of the evil.
People with tales Of woe TO tell find
no ready listeners and are made to fec
by the public attitude toward them
that they are towards and winners, and
if women have tears TO shed they shed
them in private whore they won't
aIfliet anybody else, nor ruin their own
compilations.
Their Lonely VigIIs.
Women still keep lonely vigils wait
ing for the drag of a drunken fOotstep
on the stair; mothers bend above empty
cradles, and gray headed, old wives
are deserted for younger and fairer
faces Nothing in the whole category
or sorrows is changed, but somehow
We have struggled up to a Drawer atti-
tude toward life and saner way of
meeting our troubles.
Just as many terrible things happen
70 us now as ever happened to our
IorDears, but we do not let single
misfortune. however great, ruin our
lives as they did. ANY of us who are
middle aged can recall two or three old
women with long sweeping black wells
ana mourning garments and melan-
choly cOuntenances. who used to come
and visit our mothers. When they
went away our mothers would explain
tnat these women had lost their hus-
Dands, or child or a mother some
80 or 40 years before, and that since
mat time they had never worn a stitch
on colored clothes, or let up the parlor
window shades, or smiled. They had
Deen monuments to grief.
mere are those sable women today?
lou never see them. None of these
Niopes come and bedew our carpets
with their tears. We wouldn't stand
1or such an affliction, and no modern
woman, no matter what her grief,
would think of burdening her friends
with it.
just as Devoted as Ever.
omen are just as devoted daugh-
ters, Just as adOring mothers, just as
1oNlhg wives as they ever were, and
when they lose parents, or children. or
husbands they are Just as grieved as
any woman of the past ever was. But
Iney no longer make a cult of sorrow.
IN fbIleg no longer sacrifice the living to
LHe dead and instead of parading their
woe before the public, they hide it out
OF sight, and try to add their mite of
SSneer1ulness to the world instead OF
burdening it with t.feir gloom.
IN other days it was the fashion
5T5eNer 10 recover from any heart affair
II a man was flirted by a pretty Co
less swain, public sentiment demanded
mat ne should become a surly nissan