The Ely miner. [volume] (Ely, Minn.) 1895-1986, 1940-03-28
(Ben Syndicate-wNU Service

drawn away by slow degrees, know
ing all the time, as his wife knows,
and the woman knows, that a brief
six weeks stay in Reno will suffice
to free him for the intoxications of
the new experiment.
''My life is made completely
wretched by jealous anxieties,"
writes woman from Columbus,
Ohio. "I've fought it, I've prayed
about it, but with every fresh in
stance of my husbands attractive
ness to women and their feeling for
him, I am down in the depths again.
He likes to firt; he is continually
involved in an affair with some fas-
cinating woman. He writes them
delightful notes; meets them for
lunch, makes them little presents,
but refuses to open his mouth to
me on the subject.
with the help of a young boy I
do my own work in an eight-room
house," the letter goes on. "We
have two small children, a vegeta-
BILE garden, chickens, and I love ev-
cry inch of it. I love my kitchen,
my piano, my books, my room. Why
should all this that I have built UP
be jeopardized by the selfshness of
casual outsiders, who at best take
him away from us, waste his mon
ey, and put us all into false posi-
ton, and at worst may lead any
day to his asking me to set him
free. suppose it would be silly
to say that in spite of all this I love
him, but I do love him, love other
sides of his nature which are more
dependable. and suffer continual
sense of inferiority and helplessness
very hard to bear"
A Vain Boy at Heart.
This husband, and hundreds like
him, is type Of the man who grows
up in g business sense, amt III some
ways in a mefftei sepse. but who
remains vain boy at heart. He
is as tlckied today, at "a, with the
artless batteries of new women &C.
quaintances, as he was Is years ago.
He doesn't want to hold his own in
real world, where friendships,
books, home, garden, children and
birthdays fill his leisure hours.
He doesn't realize that the quiet
companionship of the woman who
has loved him all these years is
real, and that the feelings he thinks
he has for the other woman are self
deception. He hasn't sense enough
In matters of the heart to look about
him at the men who have married
the objects of their "grande pas
sion," only to be bored and disil-
luSioned, after few years. And he
isn't big enough, or his mother didn't
train him thoroughly enough to know
that the only sure path to comfort
and happiness in middle age is to
learn to live the hard married years
in faithfulness and kindness and con-
tent, taking their real joys and rich
ness in place of the younger excite
ments and batteries and dreams.
say, "the hard middle years."
There IS hard time in most mar
riages, when a man is reasonably
sure of his job, woman absorbed
in nursery and household cares, and
when the glamour of love-making, of
the sacred intimacy and oneness of
marriage have lost a little some
thing by familiarity. Dire poverty
and uncertainty, illness and bitter
anxiety for the safety of children
usually spare a family this crisis,
but not all families experience these
extremes, and in easier times we
are all apt to forget the treasure
we have in dreaming of the outside
treasure that might be ours.
After all, the greatest percentage
of human joy comes in a we'll
adjusted family circle. Most men
know this. They know in their
hearts that it is only to weak eyes
that the far hills seem the greenest.
This is the time for both man and
woman to stand firm. Not to hurt
each other with the selfish, superb
cial affairs that cut so deep into
pride and home happiness. Not to
make game of what ought to be a
sacrament. Many a man who is be-
ing lured away by the comforting
charm of the other woman could de-
velop that same pleasantly compan-
ionable quality in his own life, if he
cultivated friendship for his chill
dren. And many woman who is
afraid of losing her husband could
hold him with just little bit more
spelling.