The Washington times., 1927-06-18


retreat sand to sobs and tears off
bitter disappointment, grief and
heartbreaks.
That is my train complex" Rain
has always since that tragic hour
of my babyhOOd been to me q SYM
Dol of catastrophe.
Our favorite poet has said:
'"Thy fate is the common fate of all,
'Into each life some rain must fall.
Some days must be dark and dreary"
Some rain-some days-yes. But
it seems to me ! have had more
rain in more days than is the com.
mon fate.
> Her Picnics Are Washed Away
It has always come at the most
inopportune moments to pour on
my parade and to wash away my
picnic.
Is it right for US, when rain
falls so often and so pitilessly and
so always unexpectedly to allow
ourselves to anticipate our picnics
with such high hopes? If we do
not, then we live drab existences
with no high lights and no high
spots. If we do, then comes the
downpour to drown our high lights
and our high spotS-and our high
hopes, besides.
That is the puzzling problem Of
LIES philosophy that has come to
me since the final collapse of my
life, since the cloudburst came all
at once to replace the. dribblings
and showers Of the rains that have
saturated my years.
Az ho-n IL r
aScribe my miserable position to
the fact that expected as much
of this mortal span of breath and
heart-beats that took desperate
measures to meet my expectations
when the ordinary breaks" failed
to even approach them.
Reach For Happiness In Vain
I thoroughly believe now that
most of us are born to be un-
happy; that the curse on Adam
and his breed hangs over us, and
is the will Of Providence, or fate,
or destiny, or Kismet, or whatever
you may want to call 1t.
Yet, with cunning malice, nature
has, after so many centuries Of
human disappointment, failure, and
defeat, left us with that deathIess
discomfort that makes us reach and
fight for what Is not meant to be
ours and, instead of letting us get
it, makes us pay heavily for the
insOlence of trying.
could have been a reasonably
contented housewife, mother, and
citizen, 1 suppose, had I not craved
those thrills on which my heart
was set, such as love, respect, I'M
Observation-Disclosures.
I surely wasn't born to them. I
surely was no pampered doll-child
whose mother fed her on mighty
notions of what to expect, let alone
demand.
Slept In Flannel NightgOwn
Ruth Brown went to work at the
age of Is, a 'sickly girl, in home
made clothes; she turned in her
salary every Saturday without OPEN
ing the envelope; she slept In a
flannel nightgOwn and got a quar-.
ter q week for spending money.
Her mother was q hard-wOrked
woman with little experience i'm
high-pOwer amuSementS. Her father
was even more so.
Just where Ruth Brown got her
flighty and tall ideas about what
life should give back to her, Ruth
Brown Snyder does not know.
But Ruth Brown was probably
the most hopeful kid who started
for that kindergarten picnic and
probably the most heart-sick one
who came back.
Nothing cold-blooded about Ruth.
She took her thrills in high and
her spills with a crash.
She hated hard and she loved
harder.
She IOnged for much, reached
after it far-and landed in the
bOttOmless pit Of despair, still
descending.
Strains for Love and Mercy
Nothing seems to break her spirit,
though. She still, in the death cell,
strains for love, sympathy and
mercy. But still, not pity! A
glutton, Ruth seems to be. But
Ruth cannot help it. She realizes
herself but she cannot reorganize
herself. Some bigger, stronger will
some mysterious power that she
cannot undo, shaped her that way
and gave her all her faculties and
she cannot reshape herself when
the instruments of resaaping are no
stronger than the resistance to
them.
Maybe it is in my Morse strain.
Ibsen wrote such women: Drab
grubs born and raised to be brood
mares and semi-slaves-yet who
burned inside with revolt, who
could not let circumstances con.
quer the spirit Of romance, and
who did extraordinary and violent
deeds in their outbreak against the
coarse, crude, animal existence OF
their limited being; women. who not
only dared to gaze at the PARKWAY
horizon, but who finally dared make
a break for it.
The Old. Old Triangle Tragedy
One of the analysts" of the no.
torious Snyder-Gray affair wrote:
Skinned down to bare facts
leaving aside the individual minu
tiae of this Long Island triangle
tragedy, its elements are simply
age-old and COMMERCIALLY. as well
as psychologically typical.
Almost every village has its Sny.
der'Gray case almost every year,
There is no Henrys. no Buick, no
long-distance calls, no bobbed hair.
But in other respects the causes, the
reactions, the results are about the
same.
The farmers wife sees in the
hired man or the neighbOr an out
let from the disappointment i'm her
husband; the third party sees in her
q ready conquest because of her
frame Of feeling; soon they are in.
fatuated one with the other, and
then come the natural brute in.