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About The west shore. (Portland, Or.) 1875-1891 | View Entire Issue (July 5, 1890)
WEST SHORE. 847 you I beg you for your own happiness and for the happiness of the women who must come after you and who may follow in your footsteps, do not trust him, do not make allowances for his shortcomings, do not marry him 1 If we are to avoid divorces, we must elevate, and make more difficult, marriage; if we would elevate marriage, we must improve the morals and the habits of the men. This is a work that lies in women's hands alone. Do not siok to any man's level, but lift him up to yours : if you can not do thi, let him go, though it cause you suffering to do it. Better it were to suffer now than to feel your heart crumble away, bit r.y bit, through all the future years. Stand upright alone if need be with a hand and a will ready for any work and any fate, strong in your own inde pendence and in your own convictions of right and wron. I believe there is no fate happier or higher than that of a woman who is married to a man who h worthy of her ; but let her find out before and not after marriage whether he is or is not. This summer outing business is getting to be a nuisance; it is too often a one-sided affair. I don't believe in women think ing " they absolutely must "with all a fretful woman's italics " have a few days at the coast, or at the 4 springs,' or in the mountains, because they are so worn out they juBt can't keep up any longer "unless the tired, and often uncomplaining, husbands may go also. There are so many silly women who always try to ape and toady to som one who has a little more gold, or a little more style, or a little position ; they hang on the ragged edge; they hear their aristocratic neighbor talking about going to tho sea shore perhaps, indeed, she rays, in a condescending, matter-of-course tone : " Where do you go for the summer?" and although remembering, with a little shud der, the hard-working husband, with his small salary and bis few comforts, the women who toady fall straightway to plan ning a summer excursion because they fear they can not longer cling to Mrs. Fashionable's skirts unless they do everything she does, while in her heart Mrs. Fashionable scorns the silly women who try to live beyond their means. If those women whose pocketrbooks are so narrow that their husbands can not go on an outing with them will take good, strong doses of com mon sense and will power wh'ch do not cost a cent and pro duce disagreeable results to vanity only and stay at home and keep their houses as cool and as cheerful as possible for their husbands, they may be spared certain little, unpleasant twinges of conscience when the summer is gone. I have a tiny, playful, gray kitten, with a red ribbon and a chime of tinkling bells about its tiny throat. It plays daily upon the sidewalk before my door, and I have noticed some thing peculiar in connection therewith. About half the num ber of women who pass, smile at it or speak to it, but lightly or carelessly ; while not one man out of twenty fails to pause and speak tb it, and always with a kind of tenderness in his tone, too. From the highest to the lowest, the happiest to the sad dest, the most refined to the most depraved they all have a quick and beautiful change of countenance for the little, fluffy ball of a kitten, with her small, impertinent nose and surprised eyes. Even a miserable, forlorn tramp, the other day, stooped for five minutes and pulled the tatters of his sleeve back and forth that she might catch them between her paws and toes them at her own sweet will all of which goes to prove that that which is young and happy and innocent appeals to the higher nature of man, and brings out all the good and the ten derness of his soul. Walt Whitman has chosen his burial place, and a lovely spot it is said to be characteristic of the poet' love of pictur esque beauty. Practical people declare that it does not matter where you lie after you are dead, but I think it matters a great deal if any one is left who loves you. There are in Puget sound that opal sea flaming with scarlet and purple and gold many little island, scarcely larger thun a room, rii-ing high and green as emeralds out of the deep Hue sea that churns always about them. There are tall fir trees upon them, and wild pink roses, and great white dog-wood blooms leaning their round, grave eyes over the water's edge. Here the air trembles with the wild birds' notes, and golden butterflies drum their little lives out in the wild honeysuckles and the sunlight; here gleaming sea gulls come, with wondering eyes and slow, whirring wings ; here all is dreamy peace and rest, far from the haunts and cares of men. How sweet, when the solemn call comes, to lie down on one of those tiny islands and rest rent and dream, dead, dead, to all save the blue sky and the blue sea and the one or two heartB that loved you I The Illustrated American says : " You rarely, or never, see a woman's name attached to a poetical or prose contribution in any of our comic weeklies." For three or four years, at hast, there has hardly been an issue of Puck or Judge that did not hold the name of Madeline H. Bridges or her magic initials; while the names of three or four other women are seen fre quently in all our best humorous weeklies. There is a belief among Central European Hebrews that a married woman should make herself as unattractive as possible to every man save her husband. Therefore, all married women wear hideous wigs, often concealing most beautiful hair. They leave us to presume as we, of course, will that the married men make themselves equally undesirable in the eyes of all women save thone of their wives. Whenever beer is mentioned I recall the disillusioned man who once followed the poet Tennyson around for hours to catch one beautiful sentence from the gifted man's Hps. Finally the great man with the soul of a flower said : " Mary, you stay here with the children while I go and get a glass of beer." It has been a long time since I read it, but I shall never for get it that little, tender story of the young wife who, when her husband left on a long sea voyage, wrote a number of lov ing letters to him and gave them into the captain's keeping ; so that each morning at breakfast a letter was handed the hus band, which breathed a loyal wife's devotion and trust. Julia Ward Howe is said to be unutterably tired of constant allusion, in her presence, to the " Battle Hymn of the Repub lic." Mrs. Howe should not be harshly judged for that it Is only human nature. We are always eager to tire of the ladder by which we climbed upward. Miss Julia Wilson, the English beauty and actress who is expected to tucceed Mary Anderson in the affections of the English people, is said to possess a minimum of talent and a maximum of good looks. The Empress of Germany dresses so simply and so Incon spicuously that she might easily be mistaken for some young country matron on a first visit to the city rather than the wife of the emperor. Mile. d'Albe, niece of ex-Empress Eugenia, at ber wedding recently received gifts valued at $1,000,000. Happy is the brldo that the gold showers on.