The Coolidge examiner., 1932-09-02

of q man having gone on in
worldliness and social achievement
quite beyond the wife, who had
stood still after marriage, as the
saying goes.
Again, the story of the Simeses
was quite unusual In this respect.
Frank Shines had gone on in a man.
ner as unusual as it was startling.
At thirty-one, the young clerk in
second-rate publishing house, while
off on a two weeks holiday at an
obscure seaside resort with his
wife, had filled in his spare time
writing a description of the life
about him.
At forty-One that same near-sight-
ed, not highly personable young
man had developed into one Of the
most successful literary men of his
time. At fifty-one, he was
world figure, the center of a school
of disciples who were content to
bask on the rim Of his reflected
glory, and his fine country place
was the mecca for pilgrims who
were not content to return to their
native heaths without being able
to say that they had at least
glimpsed the retreat of the great
god Shines.
Charabancs and various sight-see-
ing excursions along the state high
way which bordered one end of the
Shines estate, pointed out with pride
the country home of the renowned
author.
While still comparatively young
man, Shines had become a sort of
shrine. The achievement of this,
secuted in the small world of So
phisticates as the antics of lit
erary charlatan, was nevertheless
one to impress a vast public. 1t
could also be said that it probably
impressed Mary Shines even more
than it did the layman.
More and more, as they grew old
er together, Mary was to ask her.
self this question concerning Shines.
How? How had he accomplished
the almost incredible? She, Mary,
better than anyone else in the
world, sycophants who crowded
around him, enemies who jeered,
knew the caliber of the man Shines.
Knew the relentless ego of him
which flung out In all directions,
like the tentacles of some sea ser
pent, strangling where 1t could.
Knew the strangely feeble equip
ment Of this man whose pen some
how, some way, had loaded into
its point persuasion and personal
ity. Everything about this man,
her husband, she knew. and know
ing, marveled. How had he achieved
his almost unique position in the
world Of letters?
There were, Of course, people
who said his somewhat plain wife
was the power behind the throne,
but then that is said practically of
every public man with a plain wife.
There were also those who mar
veled at the constancy Of Shines, so
strangely attractive to women in
what might be called a repellent
way. They seemed to read in the
eyes of Shines, strange eyes set one
slightly higher than the other,
decadent forbidden things that
wrapped his personality with the
half-evil lure OF the genii.
Shines, in a curious inverted man.
ner, had way with women just as
in curious inverted manner, he
must have had a way with his vast
public.
It was not this rather oblique
lure which surprised Mary, she
must have capitulated to it herself,
in the days when he was a humble
clerk. 1t was the stability Of his
success which never ceased to
amaze and secretly to appall her.
How did Shines, specifically edu-
Gated, superficially informed. super
ficially the thinker, the student, the
man of letters. hold with a strangle
grip the interest, fascination and
admiration of his public?
Sometimes, In his loneliness and
heart-hurt. passionately she admit
ted to herself. that she, Mary, the
wife whom to all intents and pur-
poses he had outgrown, was the
answer. She. Mary, who was the
buffer between him and his public ;
the creator of illusions about him ;
the weaver of legends and the hand
at the helm of his phantom ship of
literary illusion.
Then again Mary told herself, try
ing to ferret the secret of his IN
diminished luster, no one person
alone could account for it. Not
even the years Of her secret sacri-
fees, her humiliations. her pre-
lenses and her display Of .admira-
tion where he was concerned were
sufficient to solve the riddle.
Somewhere in the makeup of
Shines must reside lreal greatness.
The fact that she, Mary Shines, had
alone built up the illusion of the