A Woman of the World | Page 2

have
realized my dreams, and have no least desire to turn them into
nightmares. I like original rôles, too, and that of the really happy wife is
less hackneyed than the part of the "misunderstood woman." And I find
greater enjoyment in the steady flame of one lamp than in the flaring
light of many candles.
I have taken a good deal of pride in keeping my lamp well trimmed and
brightly burning, and I was startled and offended at the idea of any man
coming so near he imagined he might blow out the light.
Your letter, however, makes me more sorry than angry.
You are passing through a phase of experience which comes to almost
every youth, between sixteen and twenty-four.
Your affectional and romantic nature is blossoming out, and you are in
that transition period where an older woman appeals to you.

Being crude and unformed yourself, the mature and ripened mind and
body attract you.
A very young man is fascinated by an older woman's charms, just as a
very old man is drawn to a girl in her teens.
This is according to the law of completion, each entity seeking for what
it does not possess.
Ask any middle-aged man of your acquaintance to tell you the years of
the first woman he imagined he loved, and you will find you are
following a beaten path.
Because you are a worth while young man, with a bright future before
you, I am, as I think of the matter, glad you selected me rather than
some other less happy or considerate woman, as the object of your
regard.
An unhappy wife or an ambitious adventuress might mar your future,
and leave you with lowered ideals and blasted prospects.
You tell me in your letter that for "a day of life and love with me you
would willingly give up the world and snap your fingers in the face of
conventional society, and even face death with a laugh." It is easy for a
passionate, romantic nature to work itself into a mood where those
words are felt when written, and sometimes the mood carries a man and
a woman through the fulfilment of such assertions. But invariably
afterward comes regret, remorse, and disillusion.
No man enjoys having the world take him at his word, when he says he
is ready to give it up for the woman he loves.
He wants the woman and the world, too.
In the long run, he finds the world's respect more necessary to his
continued happiness than the woman's society.
Just recall the history of all such cases you have known, and you will

find my assertions true.
Thank your stars that I am not a reckless woman ready to take you at
your word, and thank your stars, too, that I am not a free woman who
would be foolish enough and selfish enough to harness a young
husband to a mature wife. I know you resent this reference to the
difference in our years, which may not be so marked to the observer
to-day, but how would it be ten, fifteen years from now? There are few
disasters greater for husband or wife than the marriage of a boy of
twenty to a woman a dozen years his senior. For when he reaches
thirty-five, despair and misery must almost inevitably face them both.
You must forgive me when I tell you that one sentence in your letter
caused a broad smile.
That sentence was, "Would to God I had met you when you were free
to be wooed and loved, as never man loved woman before."
Now I have been married ten years, and you are twenty-three years old!
You must blame my imagination (not my heart, which has no intention
of being cruel) for the picture presented to my mind's eye by your wish.
I saw myself in the full flower of young ladyhood, carrying at my side
an awkward lad of a dozen years, attired in knickerbockers, and
probably chewing a taffy stick, yet "wooing and loving as never man
loved before."
I suppose, however, the idea in your mind was that you wished Fate
had made me of your own age, and left me free for you.
But few boys of twenty-three are capable of knowing what they want in
a life companion. Ten years from now your ideal will have changed.
You are in love with love, life, and all womankind, my dear boy, not
with me, your friend.
Put away all such ideas, and settle down to hard study and serious
ambitions, and seal this letter of yours, which I am returning with my

reply, and lay it carefully away in some safe place. Mark it to be
destroyed unopened in case of your death. But