Evening Republican, Volume 15, Number 180, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 1 August 1911 — NOVELISTS ALL WRONG [ARTICLE]

NOVELISTS ALL WRONG

f jV- ■ PEOPLE DO NOT PROPOSE AT ALL IN ACTUAL LIP* V'-* ”•*> v •:%£!![riaffljffjl in •„ ,j, 9o Asserts Man Who Has Made a Careful Investigation of Wihat H * c *"‘ •It's about time the novelists were getting this proposal thing right,” said the man with, the meerschaum pipe, using his thumb for a bookmark. “They ought to give us this love-mak-ing game the way it's carried out in real life. ‘They get it all wrong In novels. I claim that people don't propose at all! There's none of that heart-palpitating business outside of the Bob Chan||m and other brands of Option. I’m not married mykelf, but I got interested la the proposal thing some time ago and. I made some investigations. “First of all I spoke to my old friend, Phil Harper. Phil’s been married for only about two years and a half —not so long that he wouldn't remember the full particulars. “‘Phil,’ says I, Tell me now—and this la no kid, understand—tell me what yoy said when you proposed to your wife. Where were you and how did you get around to the subject, and were you scared, and what did your wife —or, rather, your girl—say to you and all thatr “Phil looked at me and gave a laugh. ‘Sorry I can't accommodate you,’ ho says, ‘but to tell you the truth, I never made a proposal. Oh, no, don't get the idea that iny- wife proposed. I did whatever proposing was done, ft you call it a proposal. After I’d been calling on Maixle two or three times a week and twice on Sundays for a couple of years I found that the Malsie habit had as much of a hold on me da any drug habit could have, and X didn't know of any quiet little sanitarium where I could be cured of the habit. ‘“One evenings/ couple of ‘ girl friends of Maleic's strolled by the front porch and began to guy us. One of them said that she'd be willing to bet we were engaged even at that moment. “ ‘ “Why, of course we are,” I says, acting* on impulse. “Aren't we, Maizier* “ ‘Malzle gurgled a little “yes.” That’s the wajr I proposed.’ “Then,’’ went on the man with the meerschaum pipe, T asked George Crothers about his courtship and proposal. ‘“Why,’ George told me, ‘it was a queer thing about oqr engagement It Just sort of got to be understood between us that we would be married, sooner or later. OnS day we were taking a walk and I stopped to look at a new apartment house that was being built ‘Are we going to live In a fiat or In a house r I asked suddenly, and Carrie—she’s m? wife now —said she thought we could save money by living in a flat, at least at fliht No, there were no Hushes of confusion or long drawn sighs or clenches such as you read about* in novels. It was pretty commonplace.' V f C ' “Oh, I must have asked a dozen frtenda how they proposed, and I didn’t get a single case with any more •Hearts and Flowers' music to It than these I have cited to you. “Still, I don't suppose there’s any use getting excited over the situation. It won't do any good. Thee novelist* will go on dreaming their wild, moving picture dream*. And a lot of 'em call themselves realists!"