Wauwatosa news. [volume] (Wauwatosa, Wis.) 1900-1948, 1917-03-16
THE WOMEN OF ATLANTIS


Field fell in love with his heroine
In the last scene before the sacrificial
stone she and the hero swear to meet
again and fulh!l their love though a
thousand lives Intervene between that
and the one so soon to be ended Then
their breasts are rent by the flint knife
of the priest, who sacrifices his daugh-
ter to atone for her delinquency
knew that Field had suffered thus,
thousands of years ago. for even the
writing of ii occasioned him untold
agony He loved his heroine and wept
over her; he wrote the last three chap
tiers in condition of ecstasy.
Field vas engaged to Miss Cynthia
Latham, charming girl from his ma
tive town of Salem. Now, to say that
writer's heroines may become rivals
OF his own fiancee or wife sounds like
an absurdity. Yet. as Field wrote, the
conviction dawned on him that his
marriage would prove to be an IN
happy one. Lota, the woman of his
imagination, came to I'LL his heart, un-
til she was more real than any wom-
an of flesh and blood. Miss Latham
was not slow to notice the change in
him. She questioned him, but Field
laughed and ascribed his erratic be-
hayior to overwork. And Miss Latham
let her faith override her judgment.
"It was two days before his mar
riage that Field came to see me. His
eyes were bloodshot, his manner indi-
Gated that he was upon the verge of a
nervous breakdown.
Doctor, he burst out excitedly, st
is all over. l cannot marry her. | do
not love her. / seem to be possessed
by a peryerse devil, for / love this
woman of my creation more than any
one on earth And ! feel that in mar
rying Miss Latham I am committing
an unspeakable sacriIege.
Do you remember that passage
read to you from my book?' he conrin-
ued. Though we be severed through
thousand lives to come, each from
each, yet | will find thee at the e1d?"
And then the lovers, embracing and
utterly convinced that some day they
will be reunited, yield themselves to
the knife without a pang? Doctor, l
am that man. Laugh at my idea as
you choose, know it; and know that
somewhere in the world Lota, the
heroine of my romance, is waiting for
me to claim her. And If fail her now
l shall lose der forever
The thing for you to do an
swered, is to forget about your own
representative emotional personality
and think about Miss Latham. How
would it affect her if the marriage
were not to occur?
81 know that 1t would break her
heart he answered Immediately. And
yet. what is her love to Lota's? Has
| she waited for me ten thousand years.
"'Since the beginning of the world,
| Field l answered. Nothing is left to
chance, though we make our own fac
tors in the predestined totally There
is one thing that / have learned of
life above all others; do the DUTY that
lies before you and let your dreams
alone, for these will work themselves
out without your volition. If you are
pledged to Lota, you have waited for
her through a reasonably large num-
Der of incarnations, and you can rea-
sonably wait until the next, when you
will perhaps have acquired greater
wisdom. Take my advice, Field; don't
throw your chance of happiness away
for phantasy, but marry Miss La
than and spend your honeymoon in
some romantic place where you will
learn to send Lota packing back to
the land of dreams
He did not relish my remarks
Then / suggested that he let me hypno-
tie him. thought that might per
haps effect, by suggestion, some sharp
er cleavage between the normal man
and the dreamer With his permission
l placed him under hypnosis and dis
covered, as had anticipated, that the
hypnotic state was the real one. Field
hypnotized was Field. and not Field
plus the Atlantean hero. So sent the
Atlantean back to his own lodgings
and, when he awoke, Field was quite
himself again and laughing at his
imagination of ten minutes before.
They were married as they had
| planned and were supremacy happy.
But couple of N onths after their re
turn from their honeymoon Field
came to me in great perplexity.
Doctor he said, 4 don't know
what is the matter with me, but
can't write a word. I cant even get
an original idea. And I've got to earn
money. Diagnose my case; isn't it the
result of your treatment?
! "As a matter of fact, it was. In
sinking down the shadowy. prehistoric
/ Field, as l may as well call him, so
/ deeply that he could not come into my
/ patients consciousness, I had also
/ sunk down the imaginative faculty.
Here was nice problem before me;
/ to restore just enough of the Atlantean
/ o;,rn Ill Il I,aoIy his oip ~