The Pleasantville press. (Pleasantville, N.J.) 1912-1929, 1921-05-21

my shoulderblade, and the worst Of
them is this thing of giving foreign
spelling and pronunciation to our
home grown names. There isn't a
finer or statelier name in the city d.
rectory than Mary. The most dis
tinguished woman this world ever saw
had that name, and it was good enough
for her.
ANY woman who tries to rear
range such a name as that has some
thing wrong with her intellect, and
I'd be afraid to have her under my
roof. At any moment she might be-
come a gibbering maniac.
"When I was young all the good
old fashioned names were in evidence
everywhere. The woods were full of
Elizabeths and Decreases and Matil-
das. The women who had such names
were proud Of them, and never mon
keyed with them. Had they done so,
they'd have been cast into outer dark
ness by polite society. Just today |
was glancing over the newspaper and
saw some mention of q woman who
calls herself E%lyzabeth. Now, 1 wonder
what that " is doing there. Sane
people don't spell Elizabeth with q "
and in the grand old days the people
wouldn't have stood for such an in
novation. But in these modern times
all the institutions of our fathers and
mothers are being overturned, and If
a girl is SO fortunate as to receive a
stately name at her christening, she
devotes the best years of her life to
overhauling it, so it will look like
something escaped from a feeble-mind-
ed institution.
"There is no law to prevent women
from m%altreating their names, SO we
can't rebuke them by process of war
rant, but we can at least set our faces
against the fool custom and close our
doors to the guilty parties. l am a
man of hospitable instincts, and would
welcome to my abode the veriest beg
gar or social outcast, but no Marie,
s{ssiis h,4-4 tsEIi}p cS e. c1fItf Z ti5e
house while l have strength to resist.
When l see them coming I'll sell my
life as dearly as possible, Mrs. James
worthy.
my sainted mother was the
smoothest woman l eve knew. TAX
ing her by and large, pro and con, she
stacked up about as high as anyone.
She never tried to cut a Swath in So
cial circles, for she had a profound
contempt for everything that was tri-
fling or superficial and she had a rev
erence for old ways and customs.
"Her front name was Isabella, and
she wore it, without any frills or fur
bellows, as long as she lived. She
never sent that name to the upholster-
er or taxidermist to have it made over.
She realized that famous queens and
other great women wore that NAME,
and she was proud of it. You might
have argued her into having her hair
shingled or her front teeth pulled out,
but if you had suggested rearranging
her name she'd have thought your
proper place was the BOBBY hatch. Her
name was a treasured possession, an
heirloom more precious than the fam
lily jewels.
"The name Isabella lends itself to
mutilation and transposition more than
any other. Modern women, blessed
with that magnificent name, can't rest
until they have telescoped it, so we
have Isabels and IsbellS and YsobelS
and half a dozen other variants, each
being more idiotic than the others.
Whenever l think of the way my moth
err hung on to Isabella l feel a new
respect and admiration for that grand
old woman, and l wish she were here
today, to make the round of the Chau-
luuQuas, and point out to young wom-
en- their duties and privileges"