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Show KATHLEEN NORRIS Marriage Can Be Successful ed friend of ours years ago, "All at once Sara's got a backer for her play and I've sold my patent that you all thought was so crackpot crack-pot for sixty grand." "Sounds like the beginning of good times!" someone said, after we had all gasped awhile. Never Recovered Happiness "Sounds like the end of them," he predicted firmly. And he was right. Sara couldn't stand success, and he couldn't stand wealth, and neither ever recovered happiness. They had had eleven joyous impecunious impe-cunious hard-working years together; togeth-er; perhaps that's as much felicity as any of us deserves. To be sure, not all such couples achieve world fame or great riches. But gradually, energetic, ambitious men and women win their places. These places may be in kitchens making jam for the market, in lofts making aprons, in publishing houses reading manuscripts, in big firms directing advertising art; inconspicuous incon-spicuous success is nevertheless success, and the fruits of it are sweet. So the truth appears to be that there is no income upon which the right man and woman may not marry. Gwen's mother would do better to concern herself with regrets that she didn't build in Gwen a stronger character. She would do better to start now to teach her how to cook and let her run the family finances for a month or two. Gwen has been badly spoiled, and no matter how angelic a nature her 19-year-old husband can claim, he can't possibly make a success of this marriage. Not with Gwen, very dainty about her personal appearance, ap-pearance, but entirely ignorant of the method of making necklamb into a stew or using up sour milk. A TENNESSEE WOMAN, Alice Marble, writes me of her distress dis-tress over her 18-year-old daughter's daugh-ter's determination to marry. She says that a recent article of mine gave Gwen such encouragement that she has become quite unmanageable. unman-ageable. "You said that couples could be married on an income as low as $100 a month," writes Mrs.' Marble. "You certainly can know very little lit-tle of conditions today if you can advise young people to take any such risk. Gwen's fiance is just past-19; he gets $25 a week. The way rents are here now they couldn't rent more than a room for that. Gwen's father and I are divorced; di-vorced; he cannot help, and my present husband and I have two small girls to care for, and an uncertain un-certain income. Gwen is very pretty, pret-ty, dainty about her clothes and the care of her room, but she has had no training in cooking or housework, house-work, and knows nothing of the value of money. "We used all the arguments and pleading we can think of, but Gwen is determined to ruin her life and jump into marriage without the slightest idea of what she is doing. I would like to ask you how many youngsters of these ages you have known who did marry on such an income in these days of high prices? Do you know what you're talking about?" Daring Beginnings For one answer to this reproach I would like to show Alice Marble some of the scores of letters that that article brought me. Not in years have I had such a rush of replies. re-plies. Most of them come from middle-aged couples who took the chance years ago, and enjoyed the adventure of working their way up from daring beginnings to success and plenty. And by success and plenty I don't mean the sensational toplin- . . marketing at pushcarts ..." ers who accumulated great fortunes, for-tunes, I mean the hundreds and thousands yes, millions among us who started with nothing and had all the fun and excitement of conquering con-quering poverty and uncertainty, all the trials and disappointments and humiliations that rigid financial finan-cial limits impose. Yes, and all the fun, too. The two-room home high up long flights of stairs in a big city; the marketing market-ing at push carts with every tomato toma-to and half pound of lean beef precious; the museums and concerts con-certs and galleries, all free; the long walks, the happy associations over dinners of spaghetti in basement base-ment restaurants; the long walks along crowded piers and through bustling streets, or in the green shade of the parks. And then the beginnings of success. suc-cess. The poem or the story sold; the understudy part secured, the humble job of correcting proof in a magazine office, the miracle of selling the radio serial. "All at once," said a Wshy-head- |