El Paso herald. (El Paso, Tex.) 1901-1931, 1915-03-20

too near home. Tor the only difference
between this man and the balance Of US
is that he has the candOr 10 speak out
what we all secretly desire
The honest truth is that there are
certain matters about which We want
to be deceived Our happiness depends
upon our believing that those about US
see US in a light that we know in our
souls to be impossible and with a halo
about US that we are perfectly aware
we do not possess
What should They Dos
This is especially the case between
married couples. and so it becomes a
nice ethical question whether it is not
really the duty OF husbands and wives
to perjure themselves as regards their
opinion Of each other Perhaps hus-
bands and wives do have right TO
expect TO be deceived by the partners
OF their bosoms. and so this husbands
demand Of his wife was not so absurd,
after all.
Take the case. for instance. Of the
woman who has grown more than fair,
fat and 40. When she asks her hus-
band how she looks. she is simply inn
ploring him to deceive her. She wants
him 10 assure her that she was the most
beautiful woman at the ball and that in
his eyes she is better looking than the
day he married her.
OF course. the woman knows this for
the palpable lie that it is. She knows
that her husband would have TO be
uOuQerlnE lQAOL 10 Lllllh LndA q Ae-s
grizZle headed. pasty checked, dull
eyed woman of so was in the Venus
class with slim, 1.-THE young girls, with
the roses Of youth in their checks. and
the CLINT Of the morning in the gold or
their hair and the dew Of their eyes
Nevertheless, the man who rises gal
lantly to his tarra-diddle makes his
wife perfectly happy. She knows what
he is telling her can't possibly be true,
but she hugs the dear deception 10 her
L.. 70 o. HH
for her.
Precisely the same thing is true OF
men They want their wives 10 deceive
them, and If their wives won't deceive
them they 60 and hunt up some one one
who will. Find a home in which the
wife is VeraciOus Jane and hands out
TO hubby her real opinion Of him, and
YOU will find a home in which there is
discord and ultimate divorce
Men are COvetOus-
Just as a woman wants her husband
to tell her that she is young and beau
tifuI TO him. so every man wants MS
wife to apparently put him on pedes-
tai and knock her forehead on the floor
before him and make him feel that he
is as big and strong as a lion, and as
much Of an oracle as Solomon
If the woman has any Intelligence,
the husband knows that she is bound
to size him up as she would any otner
human being; that, indeed her very
closeness to him in her daily assocla-
ton with him must give her the meas
ure OF his littleness and his lack OF
judgment as no one else can have II,
but his whole happiness is bound up in
whether she deceives him or not on this
point
A philosopher once said that the best
loved and most admired among us could
not survive the shock Of hearing the
real opinion that our friends enter
tanned OF us Certainly no marriage
could last another minute If we knew
how we really look to our husbands
and wives. how big our faults loom I'm
their eyes, and how infinitesimal our
virtues.
Nor could We endure to know how
often we bore them when We think We
are fascinating them, how often they
see through our little articles when we
think them blind. nor how often they
are praying for patience to endure US
when we picture them as piniug for US
in our absence
Let US thank heaven for the kindly
deceit that pads the angles OF matri-
mony. and for our ability to believe
what we want to believe For when IL
comes to being deceived about our own
charms, we all exhibit a credulity that
would make a . year old child look
like a suspicious and doubling Thomas.