The Washington herald. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1906-1939, 1921-11-30

wife that marriage u Just one darn
bill after another.
1t 10 the Inevitable disiiiusiou OF
matrimony that makes the ideal OF
our first love retain its enchant-
ment
For the years never touch . mans
first sweetheart. She always stays
sweet and twenty. Her figure 10
always 1.-THE and slim. Her hair
never loses its luster, nor ner
cheeks their roses. She IL always a
creature Of moonlight and thrills,
babbling Of celestial things.
Somehow. q man feels that IL he
had married her he would have es-
capped the sordid cares Of domestic
ity. She would have been always
beautifully dressed and meeting him
at the door Of q vine-wreathed cot
tage that would have OCCURRED no
money to support She would never
have been sick, and haggard-faced.
Her babies would never have had
the collie. She would never have re-
minded him of his faults and no bill
collector would have ever crept into
their Eden.
OF course in his sober senses. the
man knows that IL he had married
his first love she would have been
very much the same sort OF wife
that his second love has, and that
he would have had to pay the same
price for domesticity. Nevertheless.
he cannot help contrasting the two
women TO the detriment of the sec
ond. and many a mans life is made
bitter by his regrets over the woman
he didn't marry.
, Women are subject to this same
folly. and many a wife. unsupported
by her husband, has her little pri-
vate altar before which she wor-
ships the image of the man she did
not marry, and who. she is sure.
would have treated her very differ
entity from the way in which the
commonplace man to whom she is
united in the holy bonds of wedlock,
treats her.
He would always have been a ro-
mantle lover signing at her feet He
would always have appreciated her
and paid her flowery compliments
He would have kept her a goddess
on pedestal instead OF turning her
into a cook in the kitchen. He would
never have quarreled over the bills
He would have always stayed slim
and handsome, instead of getting
baywindowed and bald as has the
man she mistakenly chose.
So she. too. signs for what might
have been. and eats her heart OUT
In longing for the old romance.
There IL one sure cure for this
Stiffness. Let every man and woman
who long for their first love, pack a
bag and start forth in search of
them. Let them go once more to the
shrine of the old romance. The man
will find that the girl he remem-
bered as light as thistle-down and
as pretty and fresh as a rosebud.
has grown fat. and and homely and
dull. When he seeks to revive the
old romance, she will talk to him
about her children, and now
trifiing servants are now, and she
Will bore him to tears with her plat
itudes. The woman will find her Ro-
meo with his mind obsessed by the
green grocery trade instead of sem
tment' and he will tell her how she
has changed. and she will feel like
numbering him where he stands.
NO people are so strange TO us as
all those who were once dear to us
and from whom we have long been
parted. No one seems so old to us
as those whom we have remembered
as young and beautiful. and so
probably no one ever meets one's
hrst love without thanking God for
the escape from him or her.
Giving the once over to that OH
sweetheart is guaranteed to remove
the last lingering regret that one
dldn't marry him or her.