A WORD
WITH THE WOMEN
(By Ella W. Peattie)
Anna Gould has gone- and the gods
be praised. She became a nuisance. It
wasn't her fault, poor girl. It was the
fault of those space writers in New
York. One has nothing against the
space writers. They must live- at least,
they think they must. And New York
is overrun with them as the cellar of
a deserted house is with rats. It- is
more or less difficult to find something
likely to be popular in its nature to
write about every day. So these liter-
ary rats have fed and fattened on this
Gould gossip. Now I am not, myself,
inclined to say off hand that Anna
Gould sold herself for a title. For I
know nothing about it. One should not
scorn the nobly born. There is no rea-
son why love should be crushed in a
woman's heart merely because one's
lover is a Frenchman and a count.
Those are accidents over which the
lover has no control, and ought not in
fairness to militate against him. Let
us be patient with the count. Perhaps
after all he did not mean to be a count,
and is sorry for it. Moreover, these
two young people, even at the worst,
have been no more reprehensible than
people who are being married around
us every day. The chief difference lies
in the fact that the average marriage,
while more or less a matter of conven-
ience, is not sufficiently picturesque to
attract our attention. These average
marriages are, in fact, so uninteresting
that we think they must be virtuous.
Let us not, however, curse the Castel-
lanes for being picturesque. They have
been of signal service to the previously
mentioned space writers, and such
sources of diversion to our servant girls
- of course it is only the servant girls
who read such things- that we owe
them a debt of gratitude. Perhaps,
after all, we have been rather hard on
them. And it would be distinctly amus-
ing if we were one day to find out that
these two are the most ardent of lovers
and that while two continents were ac-
cusing them of being mercenary, they
were really looking in each other's
eyes and being marvelously happy
over nothing at all, except that both
of them were alike and had the right
to love. If this should prove to be so,
it would be a sort of international joke,
in which we would not only be made
to appear very foolish, but also rather
coars. it has, on the whole, been
rather mean of us to accuse these young
people of venality, merely because they
were rich and [?] and thoroughly
eligible. Why should we disapprove of
anything so appropriate as the carry-
ing off, of beauty by the prince, when
we all heartily gave our approval to
some dull marriage of an ugly woman
to a business man, and declare it is
quite the most sensible thing in the
world- whereas, as a matter of fact.
It is probably the most nonsensical, and
the two ennuled parties to it will yawn
themselves into early graves. We have
got in the habit of railing vehemently
against these international marriages.
But Cupid, it must be remembered, is
no patriot. He is a cosmopolite. And
while there may be some excuse for our
indignation at the sale of American
girls for European titles, it must be re-
membered that after all the thing is not
one whit more base than the sale of
American girls for American homes, or
American money, Ol American posi-
tions, That we see every day, begin-
ning with the Clevelands and ending-
but no matter. It all goes to show how
unthinking we are, that we do not more
heartily condemn these petty matri-
monial transactions of the barter and
the sale sort here in our neighborhood.
Our attention can only be arrested, it
seems, by something spectacular.
One is really inclined to pity the Cas-
tellanes. A snail is more or less in-
convenienced by the house on his back,
which he must drag with him wherever
he goes. But what shall be said of
these other snails, so hampered with
possessions, that they must drag after
them a weight of which a comet would
tire. It took several days to haul the
plunder of the invading Franks up to
the Gould stronghold, where the little
bride waited, already burdened almost
to death with her own paraphernalia A
supply train will rumble after thsi bridal
party wherever they go, and the rumble
of it will drown their love whispers.
Material is a bothersome thing! A
hampering degrading, care-creating
thing[!] Life would be so simplified if
it could only be dispensed with. We
break our hearts over the acquirement
of it, we betray our friends, forego our
loves 'lose' our sleep and wreck our
health to get it! And in the end it is
hopelessly vulgar, very tiresome and
bewilderingly evanescent. It never
comforts in the hour of sorrow, or stays
the approach of death. If it brightens
daily living it is only as the accessory
to other joys of a more substantial
kind. It is all well enough for the sav-
age. But it is a horrible nuisance to
the civilized man.
What a rest it would be if we would
all take the vow of poverty and sim-
plify ourselves for a year. Our finan-
cial complications would disappear as
the dew before the sun. No man would
be hungry, no woman in [tags], no child
go uncared for. But we all so far as
we can imitate this young, count and
his bride, and drag after us & quantity
of stuff, in houses, lots, furniture and
clothes.
Vanity, vanity!
A hermit in a hut, with a karaf and
a pallet seems, after all, the most en-
viable of creatures. But the worst of
it is, that if we materialists were to
try that sort of thing we would get a
cut glass karaf of bliss and the latest
thing in pallets of Shiverick!
Probably we could not be put any-
where that we would not be foolish and
selfish and ignorant.
But where shall wisdom be found?
And where is the place of understand-
ing? Man knoweth not the price there-
of, neither is it found in the land of
the living. The depths saith, it is not
in me; and the sea saith, it is not with
me. It cannot be got for gold, neither
shall silver be weighed for the price
thereof. it cannot be valued with the
gold of Ophir, with the precious onyx,
or the sapphire. The gold and crystal
cannot equal it; and the exchange of it
shall not be for jewels of fine gold. No
mention shall be made of coral or pearls;
for the price of wisdom is above ru-
bies. The topaz of Ethiopia shall not
equal it, neither shall it be valued with
pure gold. Whence cometh this wis-
dome- and where is the place of under-
standing- seeing it is hid from the eyes
of all living, and kept close from the
fowls of the air?"
There is the question. But the an-
swer is not.
