Evening Republican, Volume 15, Number 257, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 31 October 1911 — MYSTERIOUS WOMAN. [ARTICLE]

MYSTERIOUS WOMAN.

® . ■* * UndpratAfiH o - * them ” “At least you know how to please them.” I “Four circulation figures prove that* But even as I spoke this woman's crown of argument, “the last word,” an answer to it sprung up in my own mind. His magazine was successful because he had the stufT of success in him, the energy and determination to- address his particular audience. He might have manned the ship of a yellow journal, he might have directed the destinies of a vehicle of literature, he might have molded the opinion of capital classes or their anti theses, as successfully as he managed this woman’s journal. He had been chosen to speak to women, and he spoke to them as directly, as-force fully as he would have spoken to a .political meeting or a meeting of the board of directors of a bank. He was a gifted executive. Like any othei broad shouldered, strong featured keen minded man, he scorned the rep utatton of being specialist in fern! nine psychology. - Other clever men have wisely giv en up reading the riddle of women For why attempt to understand then when other women are •*lways read) to act as interpreters. Set one wo man to catch another. Most men have sisters, and every man has 8 mother. These priestesses in the temple of femininity can always en lighten him. For women are not mys terfes to each other. Their conclu sions are correct because they build as men do not, upon the premise that woman is a reasonable being Women know that there is a reason even for her moods, that mental ■weather that men declare la so puz zling, though I have seen as many men as women in the clutch of mood. The difference is merely that the moods of men are governed by their stom achs; women’s moods by their hearts A woman’s mood is a knife edge or m downy cushion, according as hei heart hides a hurt or leaps with joy Moods are mental weather, but there is a reason for a change of weather Men not being subtle or industrious enough to seek out these reasons, die miss what they don’t understand a* something past understanding. A woman is low-spirited for days, and her husband remarks to hi* friends at luncheon: “Women are queer creatures.’’ He is at no pains whatever to learn why she is low-spir-ited. Whatever manifestation he la too mentally lazy to investigate h« sets down as A “woman’s way.” For every mood of woman there is a reason. She cannot cannot hide it from her mother. She could not hide it from her husband if he cared enough to try to find the reason. Woman is riota synonym for whim - sy. She is as amenable to the laws of cause and‘ 7 6ffect as any other ere ated being or thing; but men haven’t chosen to take the tremble to trace the effect to its cause. Even a woman’s lightning changes of mind, so puzzling to man, have their root in the natural order of cause and effect. r”

An element in her toafflingness is introduced by man himself. He has said, again and again, stupidly, that woman’s chief charm is her mystery. She has taken him at his word. Mystery has been multiplied, because men wanted mystery. “For goodness sake tell her she's* inscrutable. She loves it,” said a friend ot the most transparent woman I know. The transparent woman’s fiance had talked of inscrutability, scarcely knowing what it meant, and this lovable young woman had instantly tried to swathe herself in a veil of mysteryThe phrase would better go upon the rubbish heap of past follies, banished with 0»e “mother-in-law tyranny and the old maid angles.” Man gets mystery because he asks for it When the demand ceases the supply will vanish. ,'V“ Men and women are becoming more alike. They have more subjects in common than the former household expenses and children. They speak the same language, even to bits qf over-emphasis now and then They are comrades in a larger sense than ever before. A young man calls his sweetheart bis “pal.” and she is more charmed with the kinship this word Implies than if from some remote distance of misunderstanding he sent her a sonnet or a tiara. The young woman whose betrothed sent her engagement ring from London to Chicago by a messenger hoy has applied for divorce from the sender. • - *—Pssffi— v”.