Show I JOT AND TITTLE PAPERS ii In a book written by Rose Elizabeth Cleveland sister of the president I find quite an entertaining article on Charlemagne Among other things commonplace enough in thought but prettily put into words I find the following fol-lowing rather pertinent remark More than one woman goes to the making of one man or if not the man lacks something of being finished Now that is quite a bold generalization for a bachelor girl like Rose to make and it has set me athinking AUcordingi to Miss Cleveland any man to be complete must sooner or la I ter have a wife The statement is a sweeping one Nevertheless it is true true when the ideal of life is realized or nearly so but true only then However How-ever A Hop springs eternal in the f human breast and every trusting son of Adam expects ex-pects to realize his ideal in this line If in no other It is right pardonable at least that he should Man it has been said is a social animal an-imal i Solitude is unnatural to him and bachelorhood Js by far the worst form of solitude His nature if normal nor-mal craves something higher and nobler no-bler than he can get from business the necessarily mechanical humdrum of life or from books from science > literature philosophy or be his oown L ego his fetich from himself He can L find this essential to his completeness 1 and happiness only in the society of women Perhaps I should say of woman a woman one woman for sooner or later it must and will center down to that Woman has a sort of centripetal force which strive as he may man can not long withstand Love is the gravitation of heart to heart It is a I natural law in the spiritual world He who resists it must do it wilfully and sinssins against himself He must too suffer the inevitable consequences I of his perverse rashnesssolitary irrational ir-rational puling irritable desolate old bachelorhood This is indeed a sorry fate It almost appalls one even to contemplate it is a future contingency Jet I sometimes some-times question whether it is much worse than the evils and miseries resulting re-sulting from so many illpaired unhappy un-happy marriages Gail Hamilton declares de-clares that Marriage is the grave of love But I do not believe it i i Woman is indeed mans betterhalf in more ways than one She is necessary neces-sary to his equilibrium He needs a better half But then i is only u nail he needs no more no less especially I no more Sometimes this quantity essential es-sential to his completeness is defective defec-tive Sometimes Fates and grisly headed Furies sometimes i is ret re-t Now when the mater is overdone in the < pase of the second woman his wife who helps to shape his aims to control his aspirations and to determine deter-mine his destiny largely a man is less a man than he ever could have been before He loses his virility of mind his manly independence His gristle gris-tle as it were does not harden into bone He is a mere puppeta contemptible opacity incapable of casting his own shadow Poor man He ean never dope to tame his shrew So he prefers this ignoble devitalizing pitiful lot to domestic rebellions in which he is morally certain the rebel will invariably invaria-bly be reduced That Socrates never allowed xantippe to puncture his nose and beribbon it with one of her apron strings as a bridle for her ugly philosophic lord is sufficient evidence to me even if I had no other that he was indeed a great man Nothing but genius and that of the very highest order could have triumphed over such conjugal environment as he had to contend con-tend with Being asked once why he had chosen such a woman for a wife Socrates replied that wishing to converse con-verse and associate with mankind he knew that if he could bear her society he would be able to get on with anyone any-one else in the world On the other hand if the matter be underdone in the way of a wife man Becomes selfasserting domineering tyrannical He expects and demands obedIence His wishes are supreme His welfare is allImportant He is selfish and arbitrary It is my business busi-ness my house and you are my wife with him In his lexicon my denotes possession and possession absolute control His notions of family relations rela-tions are eastern Docility obedience and a crouching but smiling countenance counten-ance are the only avenues to his stern repellent heart And even with thes < r the lawful queen of that reputed citadel of the affections must waitIn true oriental fashion in the outer es tlbulc of his erratic pleasure to know whether the king shall holdout the golden scepter when she appr6aclie o the inner court And alas O God r > when Jhe e shall fail life were a bitterness bitter-ness indeed to her But no doubt the writer of the sentimental paragraph before mentioned had reference to the ideal union only in which love deep selfsacrificing allenduring love is the pervading force that welds two hearts and links two souls in an allsufficient inseparable oneness Thus are both woman with her beauty her refinement and virtue her soaring ideality anchored modified broadened strengthened in contact with the titili strengthened of man man with his sordid impulses his bartering selfish aspirations inspired with a nobler more generous more chivalrous nature touched and quickened as it were in the very high places of his being by lending lend-ing himself to that spell which the right woman can induce are both I say better fitted for life better equipped equip-ped for meeting its responsibilities forbearing for-bearing its burdens for assimilating its pleasures and joys for dissipating its sorrows and disappointments Verily two arC better than one m t But there is a practical side to this important affair Let no man be deceived de-ceived by his ideals The cuisine of connubial life does not consist entirely of white bread lotusfruit Hymet tus honey and hymeneal nectar with never a taste of the black broth green persimmons and sour grapes of actual palpable existence Neither will mere love potent as its transforming trans-forming spell satisfy the vulgar pinch ings of an empty stomach at least for any appreciable length of time We are mortals still though in love Our clamoring appetites remind us of cile that fact Owen Meredith says in Lu cileWe We may live without poetry music and art We may live without conscience and live without heart We may live without friends we may live without books But civilized man can not live without with-out cooks Ah no Evelyn may be accomplished accom-plished She no doubt can sing like a Siren She may be able to coax the most enrapturing strains from the piano too See she can cover the walls with Kensington panels pas telles or even now and then a watercolor water-color or an oil painting She can ebon ize the old bootjack and gild and be ribbon the rollingpin into things indeed in-deed of beauty Under her delicate manipulation an oldfashioned dish a grandmothers splitbottom chair or a Texan cows horn becomes an attractive attrac-tive parlor ornament This pretty throw that seems to rest in its place with such a careless exquisite uncertainty uncer-tainty is a filmy piece of crocheting She did it And these artistic little nothings that fit so snugly into their niches here and there yes she made them all She is clever indeed and skillful too Her bricabrac shows that What does i matter if some of these things are frothy and bizarre still less if they do not harmonize But after all can she cook Ay theres the rub Can my Evelyn make a nice white puffy biscuit Does she know when the steak is exactly done or how to stuff a Thanksgiving tar key without calling in the assistance assistnce of her mother or some kindhearted neighbor Can she ever learn to bridge over the hiatus of an old sock heel or put new wristbands and anew a-new collar on an old threadbare shirt Now that is a delicate little piece of work and worthy almost t as much at tention or will demanci as much ass i as-s bestowed upon the piano or crazy patchwork And then there are ones buttons What a source of annoyance they are But they must be kept on Will my Evelyn ever learn to know intuitively that the two back buttons of intuItvely every day trousers are about to come off at the same time or that the eyelets of my suspenders are about to break out I she doesnt when she sees me rush ing i home some hot August afternoon afernon with both hands rammed down into my breeches pockets a whirlwind in my eye and a ternpest on my brow will she still have the temerity to ask I Why whats the matter dear I verily believe the verly reason Adam never got a divorce from his beloved Eve was because he didnt wear buttons and suspenders and other annoying paraphernalia and otlel consequence never had to brook SO much affected afected innocence Can my Evelyn and will she dO all these things And more Would she be willing for economys sake during hard times like these to darn and rebind myold overcoat and remodel her own old dolman for an other seasons wear Then were she a very jewel indeed And further 9 till whisper it If if i i should ever bo i necessary i would she get up in the wee hours of some bitter March night when the weird music on the outside divides our at tention with the melodic infantile OII I within > and go down into the back I kitchen to the old tjn safe and from forgotten the upper paregoric lefthand corner fetch the paregoricJAY JAY MACK KAY |