The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1919-03-21
MEN, WOMEN
AND THINGS

LII 0udheSpedTe Henry Nv, we EcdN'
Constant you are,
But yet woman; and for secrecy.
No lady Closer
This man idea has been bruited
abroad SO often and so loud that many
of the male sex just take it for grant
thing. tell woman
Even the gallant Lord Chesterfield
was rude enough to say: Women and
young men are very apt to tell what
secrets they know from the vanity CT
having been intrusted" This takes
double crack, and l am sure it S
no comfort to any female to be
brought down as talking maybe
even though the same shot lands ca.
low youth in the hunters bag.
Is 1t true that man can keep
secret better than a woman? II you
are orthodox and believe in the Sacred
Book, let's go back to the dawn of
creation and get line on the first
created mans ability to guard well
something which was locked in his
bosom and the bosom of his wife.
Now Adam, the first man, surely gave
away Eve, the first woman. True, she
led him into temptation, but is that
any reason he should have told on her
without being chivalrous enough to
take part of the blame on his own
shoulders? I trow not, and he stands
convicted of having given his wife
away
There may be something in the OBJ
servation of Lord Byron who, besides
being a poet, knew men and women
pretty we'll He makes the fine dis
elimination that "a man can keep an
other persons secret better than his
own: woman, on the contrary, keeps
her secret, though she blabs all others"
But, tried by this standard. Alan fell.
I always thought that the face of
the great sphinx was that of a woman.
but I believe it is now the accepted
theory that the Greek sphinx had
wings and a female bust, and that
many of the sphinxes of Egypt had
male heads. Anyway, Heredotus desis
mates the wingless Egyptian ones as
"andro- sphinx" I was sorry to find
this out, as it spoilt a good story for
me.
1 wanted to point out the great
sphinx as eternally looking out over
the shifting sands guarding well her
secrets, but it seems, so far as the
sphinxes and secrets are concerned, I'll
have to make 1t fifty-fifty both for
men and women. This is the way the
Romans, the great adapters, did for
Roman sphinxes of later period. Some
times they have a mans and sometimes
woman's head. After all, reckon 1t
depends more on the head than on
the sex as to how well it is kent
I slipped up on my big Egyptian
sphinx and drew a male; but then rs
easy to fall back on Greek mythology,
for Hesiod gives an account of the one
at Thebes. in Boetia. calling her
the daughter of Orthus and Chimaera;
but. according to Apollionius, she was
the daughter of Typhon and Echidna,
and had the face of a woman, the feet
and tail of a lion and the wings of Il
bird. The muses. taught her a riddle
and the Thebans had to guess it.
I am not going into the story of how
at last Oedipus guessed the riddle of
the Theban sphinx. 1t is one of the
saddest tales in the ancient world.
Sophocles makes him the paincipal char
acter in three of his famous Greek
tragedies. The only point I wish &C
make is that the Theban goddess
guarded well her secret for many long
years, and never told it. but Oedipus
answered the riddle and then slew her.
There are some women who will die
before they will tell.
Now. this is roundabout way to
get to the point that right here in
Birmingham are at least $50 women
who can keep a secret and I am proud
to say that my wife is one of them
for she, together with the wives of the
Birmingham Rotarians, stood the acid
test of secrecy. There wasn't single
informer in the whole bunch, which
speaks mighty we'll for the good juds-
ment of the "Rotes" in picking close.
mouthed wives. I hope none of them
drew close-fisted husbands.
1t was a great stunt they pulled at
the last Rotary lunch They took
charge on Wednesday, but, clever as it
was. I am not here writing an account
of what transpired at the Tutwiler
but am magnifyihg the greater thing
they did before they arrived in the
dining room, for each one of them had
a secret from her own husband for
the two weeks prior to the browning
event in which they let BIRMINGHAM,
matrons who can be trusted not to di-
vulge matters of confidence even to
their leige lords
All of which goes to show that any
man with perfect assurance can make
his own wife his private secretary; for
the word secretary means one intrust-
ed with secrets. In spite of Beacons-
fields tip to statesmen, BE thine
own privy counsellor. pgay tell me
why can't Rotarians right here in our
midst in matters of state and in mat
ters domestic make their own wives
their trusted agents? One thing |