The Washington herald., 1921-06-27
REyIvING THE DEAD.


miracles, and that is to bring a
dead love to life again.
He says that he married a beau
tiful and charming woman with
wh1m he was much in love. and
who loved him with all her heart.
The woman was everything a wife
should be. They had children, and
a happy home, and for ten years
lived an ideal domestic life.
Then the man met a gay adven-
turess, who captured his tickle
fancy. For a while he was COM
pletely fascinated by the woman.
He neglected his wife for her. He
spent upon her the money that
should have gone to his family.
He was surly. and grouchy at
home, and never happy except when
he was with the woman and the
gay crowd she drew about her.
The wife bore everything with
dignity and patience. She never
ragged. She never threatened di-
voree- She kept her home intact.
and. at least, warded of open scan
dal from her children's name. Fin
ally. the man got tired of feeding
on the husks of sins. Suddenly.
one day he saw the woman as she
was, coarse. vulgar. greedy. and
grasping, and vile. Her spell for
him was broken. her charm gone.
and he returned in sack cloth and
ashes to his wife.
She forbore to reproach him.
She drew the mantle of a decent
silence over the past. and il is
never referred to between them.
She Is kind to him, helpful friend
ly, but that is all. The old love.
the old tenderness is gone, and the
man would give everything he has
in the world to bring them back
to win back again the heart he
threw away so carelessly.
No one can tell him how to ac-
eomplish this marvel. 1t is very
easy for a man to light the fires
of love on the altar of a young
girls soul, but when the fire has
burned itself out II is an almost
impossible thing to rekindle the
ashes.
No woman can really love a man
whom she doesn't respect and
honor, whom she does not believe
to be strong, and faithful, and loyal,
whom she cannot trust. No woman
can feel anything but contempt for
the philanderer who chases every
petticoat, who can be taken in
and made a fool of by any design
IL = L 49,
he cannot do a mans part in bear
ing the responsibilities he has taken
upon himself. and who is SO poor
a creature he cannot be loyal even
to his own flesh and blood.
Every woman who loves her hus-
band visions him as a hero, and
clothes him with a thousand per-
fections that make him godlike to
her. The tears that a woman sheds
over an unfaithful husband wash
her eyes clear. and she sees him
exactly as he is, without even
shred of illusion with which to
elothe the nakedness of his i'm
projections.
Men have always held to the
comfortable theory that woman's
love was indestructible, and that
no matter no" muCh Iney IrdHpIeO
upon il, and abused it, that it
would always be waiting ready for
use again, as good as new when
ever they happened to need or
want it, Nothing could be farther
from the truth. A woman's love is
as perishable a thing as the bloom
on a peach. once brush it off with
q careless hand, and it is gone past
all magic to restore.
1t is true that women forgive
erring husbands and take them back
far oftener than men forgive and
take back erring wives. They do
this for many reasons besides the
one that a mans vanity attributed
to them They do it because it is
often the way to make the best
of a bad bargain. They do it be-
cause 1t is better for their chill
dren- They do it because even
when love is gone from the hearth
stone, her home and a settled posi-
tion in society are still a consola-
tion prize to a woman. They do it
because after many a woman has
ceased to love her husband as a
husband, she still has for him a
maternal affection that makes her
feel the sort of protecting pity to-
wards his weaknesses that she
would feel towards a bad child's.
But no woman ever trusts again
the man who has once deceived her.
No woman ever looks up again to
the man who has weakly succumbed
to temptation. No woman ever
loves blindly, passionately, roman
tically, unquestioningly, but once,
and the man who throws that love
away can never regain IL 1t is
the very flower of a woman's
spirit. and soul, and body. and
when 1t vanishes it is gone for
ever. The woman can no more
recall IL herself than the man can.
When you break an alabaster
vase you may patch the pieces to-
gether so it will once again hold
water and be a receptacle in which
you can put flowers, and you may
maks-shift to do it. But the crack
will always be there ugly and dis
figuring. Nothing can make a
broken thing whole and beautiful
again.
So it is with love. So it is with
all human relationships. Perhaps
II men and women remembered that
there Is no undoing of what they
have done, no blotting out of the
past, and that they can no more
regain a lost love than they can
make a shattered vase whole again,
they would be more careful of the
hearts they hold in their hands.