Capital journal. (Salem, Or.) 1919-1980, 1920-09-23
By the Noted Author
Idah McGlone Gibson
ADVICE TO DAUGHTER MARY

ADVICE TO DAUGHTER MARY
Perhaps, my dear, having read
this little book which I am going
to place in your hands, you will
want to know when your Daddy
Karl" and / came to the conclu-
sion that we could live more
successful and beautiful life if we
lived it together, than If each
should go the way alone.
You will be somewhat surprised,
my dear, in fact, l was surprised
myself on looking back over my
life, to find that Karl Shepard new
er definitely proposed to me. He
never asked me, Mary, in so many
words, to marry him. He never
put that question to me, which 1t
is said that a man always puts be-
fore marriage and a woman always
asks after. Karl Shepard has
never said to me, ''Do you love
me" He never asserted, II love
you.'
There has never been any analy-
sis of our feelings for each other
and yet l know l am a part of
him. There is peculiar oneness
between us that makes it impossi-
BILE for me to even separate myself
from him in my thoughts. And
am quite sure that he never thinks
of himself unless the thought in
cludes me.
We are perfectly content.
am not quite sure, my dear,
if the words happiness and con-
tent are synonymous. Indeed, I
think one can be content with
out knowing the great heights of
happiness, and one can be happy
and still long for a passive level
of content.
1 know now, my child, that you
are saying, There you go, mother
dear playing with the spiritual, in
stead of the obvious meaning of
words" But 1 must tell you, dear,
that whether you consciously or|
unconsciously deduce these spiri-
tual meanings, being woman, you
will have to live by them.
Men, by long years of evasion,
have been able to forget, or lay
aside anything but the obvious.
And because they do this, they
have put upon us, my child, the
duty not only of bearing the con-
sequence of their forgetting, but
they have also made us the GUS
todians of the realities.
But this much comfort I will
give you, dear: However much
most women rebel against this du-
ty at your time of life. they come.
at mine. to accept it not only con-
tentedly, but with kind of proud
happiness. There, my child II
there 1 have just written the diff
ference between, and the defini-
ton of. the words content and
happiness.
Fate, after all, is memorable, not
because we are not free agents, !
but because we stufable on blindly. |
while Fate goes on coldly and
sometimes it seems to us, cruelty, |
marking the pattern of that
changeable thing we call Destiny.
Looking back tonight, after read |
ing this story of my other life, 1
am wondering if 1 would have |
been a happy wife to Karl If II
had never been the wife of John. |
Or. if John had come back from
that tragic ride and we had gone
into the new home to Jog along /
together" would have been as
happy as I am now? ?'' All of which
thoughts are rather futile.
1 believe that that word 'if'
makes almost all the trouble in
The world. Looking back, We al
ways say. sIf I had done So"
You remember the poet uses about
he same idea, but he doesn't use
he words, when he proeiaims-
.'of all sad words of tongue or
pen. Il
The saadest are these: 1t might j
have been
But when one nears fifty. my /
'hHd. when woman notes the