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Show Is Thirty : the Love : Deadline : mmn'" 1 ' "i 'i i i n j j . J j Rupert Hushes was born in Missouri in 1872 and since that time bas given plenty of evidence that he comes from the state where they have to be shown. For many years he has been famous for his brilliant novels and short stories. Besides a literary career he once i established a reputation for himself as an army officer and as a music critic and authority on musical affairs. He has recently been running widely quoted series of articles in newspapers newspa-pers throughout the country dealing with modern mod-ern women and their problems. He is married. By RUPERT HUGHES The wise and witty Will Durant Is probably so sorry now for robbing men past thirty of the capacity for love that it Is almost cruel to speak of it. The greatest practitioner of his day, Doctor Osier, became famous for what he never said, and people still blandly misquote the Osier theory though he bas been dead for years and denied the statement that Is glued to his name. Gelett Burgess wrote a quatrain stating that he would rather see than be a purple cow. It grew so popular that he dashed off another: Tea. 1 wrote the Purple Cow. I'm sorry now I wrote It: But I can tell you anyhow, , I'll kill you If you quote it. Doctor Durant may be equally dangerous by this time, but he has not yet denied the appalling words he signed. ' "A man past thirty Is Incapable of love. A man above thirty may go wild over a blonde 'chorine.' That is not love. Love is absolute devotion the desire to give Hill service to another." an-other." " It would be hard to cram more error er-ror and false Implication into equal space. Why Is it impossible to love a blonde "chorine?" Is a brunette deaconess necessarily more lovable? As for "absolute devotion" and "full service," numberless court records would seem to show that blonde chorines chor-ines are able to extract from aged millionaires more devotion, fuller service and self-sacrifice than any other class from any other class. I have not space nor time to go deep into history but a few dazzling contradictions of Doctor Durant occur oc-cur to me almost at once. In the first place, the first man was past thirty when he loved the first woman, for I read in an Oxford catechism written about the year 1400 that Adam, when he was created, was "a man of XXX winters of age." It was after this time that Eve was created for his express company, and he certainly loved her at first Eight. Furthermore, as Saint Bernardino Ber-nardino of the same period states, women are cleaner than men, "for woman was made of a fine clean rib while man was made of a lump of clay." Take a few of the most famous love stories : Antony and Cleopatra, for Instance. Surely Antony loved Cleopatra ; he gave up victory and all to follow her. Yet he was forty-two when he first met her, and she was about twenty-eight. Where is there a more pitiful, passionate pas-sionate love story than that of Abel-ard Abel-ard and Heloise? Yet when Abelard met Heloise he was thirty-eight. She was much younger but her love continued con-tinued on through life until her death when she was more than sixty, and they were buried side by side. In Murray's words: "There has never been a passion more famous. It was great love." Contrast with It the almost equally famous romance Of Robert and Elizabeth Eliza-beth Barrett Browning. He was thirty-two when he met her; she was thirty-eight. Her father opposed the marriage so bitterly that two years later they eloped. His poetic references refer-ences to her, "half angel and half bird," and her so-called "Sonnets from the Portuguese," written when she was forty, are as glowing with love, as anything In literature. If Browning did not love bis wife, and if she did not love him, then nobody ever loved anybody. Among musicians the devotion of Gluck to his wife was famous. They met when he was thirty-five. Beethoven never married, but he could love; and bis burning letters to bis "immortal beloved," his un-sterbllchle un-sterbllchle Geliebte, were written after aft-er be was thirty-four. Hawthorne's marriage is among the perfect romances. He was thirty-five when he fell in love. One might go on and on and prove by Innumerable further instances, famous and humble, that men and women can and do know true love when they are past thirty, Doctor Durant to the contrary, notwithstanding. notwith-standing. (O 192S. by the Bell Syndicate. Ino.) |