The Washington herald., 1918-04-15

Most men at heart are sentimental
TommieA Especially when they are
sweet-and-twenty. Then they are IN
love with love, and so sloshing over
with sentiment and romance that
they are ready to spill 1t on any
female who happens to be around
handy. Their hearts burn in their
bosoms like a dollar in a small boys
pocket, and they can't be h<ppy until
they have spent their treasure.
It is then that a youth yields to the
insidious temptation to make love to
any girl who happens to be in his
environment, or who chances to be
enampred OF him.
He isn't really in love with her and
he knows II. He isn't ready to marry.
He doesn't want to marry, and es-
pecially he doesn't want to marry
that particular girl. Nevertheless, he
cannot resist the sentimental impulse
to say soft things to her. and the
result only too often is the breach
of promise suit. or the long engage
ment Of which he wearies and which
have done more to wreck the careers
OF promising young men than any
thing else in the world.
For calf love is not a, subject of
Jest, as We are generally pleased to
regard it. 1t is one of the greatest
dangers along the pathway Of youth.
70
three points OF peril in a mans life,
and II he can be piloted safely by
these, the chances are that he will
have a pleasant and prosperous voy-
age across the sea of life.
The first menace is that calf love
will result seriously. Every boy is
as sure to have an attack OF this as
he Is OF the measles. Fortunately
neither complaint is often fatal If it
Is judiciously treated, and II a boy
can escape marrying his grandmother.
or the housemaid, or someone of the
other unsuitable ladies that the cal
low fancy seems to prefer. he has
gotten by the first rocky reef on
which his little bark was liable to be
wrecked.
Unhappily, not all escape. Some
times calf love does end in the youth
committing suicide before the altar.
and there is no more pathetic sight
on earth than this of the married
boy-of the boy who has taken a wife
before he was ready to be a husband.
before he had come to himself, and
knew what he was going to he him
self. and still less knew what he
wanted in a wife.
Surely the very angels must weep
at the sight of a lad who has burden
ed himself down with the cares of a
family in the very heyday of youth
when he should be exulting in free
dom.
Too early marriage for a man is a
tragedy so complete that the State
ought to furnish asylums with padded
cells In which boys who are suffering
from acute attacks of calf love could
be imprisoned until they came to their
senses. just as We shut other lunatics
up to prevent them from harming
themselves,
The second sentimental danger that
threatens a man consists in the temp
taton to make love to a girl because
she is in love with him. The theory
that man is the pursuer and woman
the pursued in matters of affection,
Is pretty and polite convention, but,
as everyone knows, it is far away
from the trsth. Common usage does
not permit a woman to openly pop
the question to a man, but that does
not hinder her from wheedling him
into making love to her in spite of
himself and against his better judg-
ment.
1t is human for all Of us to like the
person who likes US and to admire her
taste and respect her judgment. More
than this, 1t is Intoxicating and nat
tering to any man to feel that a wo-
man has given him her heart un-
sought. Every instinct of gallantry
and chivalry bids him be tender to
her. He feels that he will be almost
a brute to be cold to her when she
looks at him with adoring eyes,
or to withhold the tender speech
when Just word of careless senti-
ment will make her flush with hap
piness and gratitude. 1t is exactly
the same impulse that makes us
stroke the cat that rubs against our
knee and begs for a caress.
Ninety-nine times out of a hundred
the man who is foolhardy enough to
risk himself in the company Of a wo-