OCR Text |
Show ! IsTHIRTY : the lwove ' rZf, Juan J. MonUfue m borala Mam City, Iow. but soon ttiitratmi to Ortfon. WhiU h ," th Momtog Or.oni.& Arttur Brubuw i hiki of kU tdilorial whI ! avOTtum which muhed fa Mr. Mot. tagut canine to New York. That wu th. bestonliif f imum fa th. Mrrk f th HMrtt orranlaUoti. durint which period MonUfU. wu mtint Utor ot th. N, tin daw und., beadin, b. hlU oriln.t. .l Tn,,h Pe,,r M covd U th bit (torict, windint up with th, , Whn Jimm, miMd from th. tJ.rt orrulatioa b. bran tuocioUd with wp.p., .rBdlctfc a ddito I. thi, b. writes (or th. Sunday paptr a wthly humor. out itorjr, and fa bit spar, tim turn out a 7 dailr .ditorlaL H. fill, fa b, producfa, a i : McaflouU mataiina .tor,. Mr, Montacua tm I vtr thirty, and U marriwL By JAMES J. MONTAGUE I Thackeray accounted for a famous , British general's popularity with worn- j t en by explaining that he allowed them to give him money. There Is no devotion de-votion comparable with that which Is t engendered by the bestowing of favors. I have known elderly theat-j theat-j rlcal managers to bankrupt themselves trying vainly to make stars out of i their wives. And the more money they ; . lost - the more ardent became their j affection for the pretty little dumb-; dumb-; s bells, who never , could learn to do J anything but" stand" still and look ; beautiful. j .If love means unselfish devotion ; and It ought to men who are past thirty are more capable of possessing H than men uhder thirty. And their capacity Increases as they reach ma-turer ma-turer yearswhich often are years of indiscretion. The youthful husband hus-band thinks a good deal about blm-eelf. blm-eelf. When bis "passions once have lost their brutal force," as Tennyson said In a mean poem he wrote about a girl who refused him, be begins to wonder what kind of a break he Is getting out of wedded life. He "locks out of the window" oftener than an older man does. De thinks tenderly of the girls he might have had. and Is prone to Imagine that they wouldn't have taken him as a matter of course so early In the game, and scolded him for leaving cigarette ashes around the house and spending so much time - on, the golf course. ; . Xfter that he begins to feel sorry for himself, and the fine edge of the romance Is over. But there Is something some-thing almost mnternnl In the affection of a mon of more advanced years, and there is no greater love than mother love. He Is tansported to think that this lovely creature even though she were a spinster of thirty or more when he married her has really consented to let him give her flowers, and take her to the theater, and 'sit patiently around modistes' , shopsf Swhile she tries on costumes. He thinks up little, surprises to de light her. He gets out of the weeklv poker event, and actually takes her around the golf course with him every day. I have yet to see a young man doing "that hiore'than a couple of tl'nes to a year. r' Most young men are fairly swollen with conceit " If, before attaining thirty, they have accumulated enough money to support a wife In reasonable reason-able comfort Such a man wants her to listen and understand Tiira when ; be brings borne the figures on the 1 balance sheet and tells her how the advice he gave the sales manager resulted In a record business for the year. He expects thnrshe will be thrilled with all the shop talk which 'i he can get no one else to listen to, i and that she will even remain at- tentlve when he relates the struggles ; of his early youth. ' s ! And when she yawns through his .; conversation, suggests going out to the theater or the movies, he begins to think that he Is not appreciated, : and she Is no longer as beautiful vir as Intelligent in his eyes as she was In the days of the courtship. He may get used to her after that, and regard her with a sort of desperate tolerance, ' but It would be somewhat Inaccurate to term that sort of feeling love. The word "dote" means to love, and the word "dotard" means an old gentleman. Perhaps there Is some etymological connection between them. Anyway, men who get married, after thirty.-while they are far more easily the victims of female fortune hunters, ire far less likely to try to break out of the trap. Rnd far i more apt to glory In their fetters. I When there Is a break it Is. usually due to the lady, for she Is always romantic, and seldom can help regret- ting that she didn't meet John Barry-more Barry-more a little earlier. About women. I am not so sure. Nobody is. or ever has been. Yet I know of a numbet of them who have married after thirty, and who still, believe that little, lit-tle, ugly husbands have the physical attractiveness of a movie star, the strength of Gene Tunney, and the mentality of all the world's greatest thinkers Including philosophers-rolled philosophers-rolled Into one. It Is the maternal Instinct In-stinct In them that makes them love the men they married. And men, born of women, Inherit maternal Instincts too. That is what makes them ardent ar-dent lovers after thirty, provided they marry girls who do not try to boss them, but continue to be clinging vines. Far be It from me to enter Into an academic argument with such a scholarly schol-arly gentleman and profound thinker and observer as Mr. Will Durant. In default of equipment aH I can say Is that I believe he Is wrong. !J. by tba Bll 6,ndlctt. ID.) |