Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 237, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 October 1917 — Page 2

Little Problems of Marrede Life

By WILLIAM GEORGE JORDAN

' (Copyright) TALKING HOME MATTERSOUTSIDE. Have you ever met women who seem continually flying a flag of distress from the ship of matrimony? They give monologues on the slightest provocation, and often on the very, slightest acquaintance, on the evernew subject of their home troubles. They seem to be a private press association for syndicating news of domestic cares, worries and miseries. They keep their memories of home discord all labeled, classified and dated, and seem to take a collector’s delight in parading them. It is. a false advertising instinct that publishes the weakness of the matrimonial firm. If the sky of the home is overcast and the sun of love is temporarily darkened by doubt or misunderstanding, it is not wise to bring in the neighbors to witness the eclipse. If there Is a little sand in the sugar of home happiness, it really seems better to concentrate on the sweetness that remains than to carry around samples of,the grit in envelopes of conversational confidence. I •In the business world, when a firm has to pass through a period of sunless days and stress and storm; when they are long on hope and short on prosperity; when the partners enthusiastically agree with each other’s policy; when the present looks grim and the future grimmer, they guard their confidences carefully; they fear their troubles may be known outside; they realize that they are facing a problem that must be solved from withtnr~notexploited from without. They feel an esprit de corps that makes it seem disloyalty to talk patters over outside the breastwork:}. And in married life love, loyalty, dignity, a basic mutual respect should make this guarding of the sanctity of the home even greater. Talking home matters outside is advertising the insolvency of harmony. It weakens the credit and reputation of the home firm, and often causes unjust ratings in the Bradstreet of society. A'temporary trouble, that may be merely a week’s clou,d jn the home itself, may be recorded as a “Damaging tornado,” if given intensity of life by being idly talked of outside the family walls. Gossip is a natural weed in the garden of conversation; it grows so freely and spontaneously that we need never plant with our own hands the seed of needless criticism, comment and condemnation of ourselves and of those who should be nearest and dearest to us.

There are times in the home when some grievance, real or fancied, swells our feeling to a dangerous high-tide of emotion; pique or pride may add a new pang to suffering, and, carried along by the torrent, we feel we must tell it to some one. It hardly matters what ears hear the story, so that we may have our hearts filled with the consoling music of sweet sympathy. It may be a natural hunger, but it is none the less dangerous. Its very nature may make it unjust. In the intensity of feeling we concentrate in out complaint on the climax, the word, phrase or act that seems the essence of our hurt. But we rarely tell the true story truly; we unknowingly suppress pah, slur-over in innocent lightness our part of it—an incendiary word that added new fire, an unkind silence, perhaps, that made us equally guilty. This is the element that makes the telling uujust and intensifies its disloyalty ; we eagerly drink in the sympathy, feel a moment’s balm of righteousness in hearing the other condemned; and it usually intensifies and exaggerates our sense of hurt. But when our wiser judgment returns and night dawns into day, and the bright sunlight pours id through the windows, we see things in a more normal perspective. Our high-strung emotions of the night before seem unjustified, foolish, wi|h the garish disorder and confusion of a banquet table still standing the morning after. We would give so much to buy back our * confidence of the night before, and would pay a good premium just to be able to lock our secret again in the silence of the unspoken.. But that is one thing that all our most earnest prayers and sincere repentance cannot bring to pass. What we have told, we have told, and it has gone from our keeping. This is the cyclonic confession, understandable, and even forgivable, perhaps as a cloudburst; but there is a mean drizzle of complaint, a constant fog of petty charges, that is one of the worst phases of talking home matters outside. When a husband adopts the martyr pose and talks freely of all the things he has to put up with at home, Interposing sample home converisations und itteideuts, one longs to take him into a corner, remove this ‘‘Dead March in Saul” cylinder from the phonograph of his conversation and put in a “Home Sweet Home’ one. When a wife feels that every one must be Interested in her story of her difficulties in divorcing her husband from a little money for household expenses, and continuously encores herself with similar narratives In her repertoire, one cannot but feel, somehow,-a good deal of sympathy with the husband. <■ If the horse-power energy that married people thus put into syndicating

their trials, sorrows and troubles were concentrated on trying to lessen the cause; on seeding, through love, to discover a way out; through mutual esteem to rench a truerbasis of understanding and harmonfy/dhey would accomplish wonders and! would realize that the larger part 'of their suffering is cruelly wrong because —preventable. . Advertising it to-the world publishes, -of -course, the competition, but does not bring a solution. They should some time stand reverently for a while before one of those modern engines that Consume their own smoke, 1 and then heed the moral of this sermon in mechanism.

Confidences on vital home matters are dangerous in proportion to their importance; they imply so much that they should be entrusted, if at all, only pei two, whose- tested love, honor and loyalty make doubt seem sacrilege. There are friends of the mind, friends of the heart and fri&ids of the soul. It is with the last only that we have assurance and certainty that open ears will ever be associated with closed lips, that any message committed to them In stored in the holy of holies of memory, where speech can never reach it to reveal it. In life, usually, the only absolute, incontestable insurance, of a secret is to tell it to no one. If one does not want a fact known it is wise not to tell any part of it. Partial confidences are dangerous, because in time the separate pieces retained in the memory of the llsteirer iiiay oe carefullyput together, like the irregular sections of a dissected map. Sometimes a word, a suggestion, an inadvertent phrase, meaningless in itself, vitalizes unnoted trifles of old memories, which suddenly,combine and stand out, vivid and luminous in a moment as a complete jrevelation, such as the speaker never intended to give. There are sometimes exclamations that are liferevelations in a word, autobiographic confessions in an unguarded phrase. Sometimes in the desire for sympathy or advice, one is tempted to tell a home problem impersonally, or rather in the third person, as the life-expe-rience of some dear friend, with a hazardous confidence in the safety of the alibi; but the turning of a phrase, a sudden tension of emotion, a feverish note of protest or plea may tend to puncture the frail bubble of deception. The vicarious sympathy may be forthcoming, but it hardly pays for the risk. The advice under such circumstances is valueless, because it is not based on the absolute knowledge of every detail requisite for true judgment and counsel really beneficial to the one asking advice and help in some individual crisis.

Circumstances, personality and character are so interrelated that it is difficult, impossible, indeed, for one human being to give an opinion on the merits of a questiqp affecting two others when he knows really little about them. Such ad vice might well be not only worthless, but harmful. Far better is it to deny even this indulgence to oneself—for, after all, it is only an indulgence. There is unwisdom in talking too freely even of happiness in married life outside the home walls. It may give a new touch of pain to one struggling with a serious heart problem and unable to see a way out. It may be a tax on the courtesy and patience of those who cannot be expected to feel a deep personal interest in the vaunted joys of another. Often in the swift current of speech one may speak of some little domestic episode that should be held too sacred for the ears "of others. What may be sweet and dear, in the words and acts of either, may seem but silly sentimentality translated by unsympathetic minds ‘and repeated with variations by wantonly wagging tongues. Should there be' any drop In the value of the home stock and one no longer tells of the pearls of happiness, the very silence will be construed as a confession and may bring a trail of humiliation or criticism and gossip. It may entail lying and hypocrisy to sustain the old record. True happiness rarely boasts; it radiates. If it really exists the little world that cares at all, the few who have real heart interest in the two, will reach it in the eyes more truly than from the lips, more in the voice than in the words. It will glow and pervade an atmosphere of sweetness, trust, peace and comradeship, manifesting itself in a hundred little ways that tell the story without words as a rose reveals its presence through its perfume, the sun the light and warmth it radiates. True happiness need not advertise; dt—has merely toexist to make itself felt.

When the home problems assume the acute phase when confidence somewhere seems compelling, then let husband and wife confide more closely in each other, realizing that their problem must first be tried by this council of two, if it is really to be solved at all. In the sweet, honest, full, frank interchange of views, seeking, not the blame of either, but the happiness of both; letting no personal pettiness or false sense of momentary triumph eclipse the looked-for justice, and feelin- that, for the time, the great struggling, hnsyjx-orld outside is too microscopically small to be worthy of a thought, when weighed in the balance of their, united happiness—their happiness in union and unity—then, in such a spirit, and only in such a one, great things become possible. It Is this spirit of the finality of the two, love recognizing no higher court of appeal in the world around them, that holds the ideal of married life so high that it would seem the desecrating hand of an outsider touching the ark of the covenant of their love even to think of talking these matters over outside the sacred walls of home. ,

THE EVENING REPUBLICAN. RENSSELAER. IND.

IN THE CLASSIC LINES

New Parisian Coiffures Modeled After Famous Greek Statues. Artificial Waves Out of Favor and Hairdressers Are Trying to Give Natural Effects. Two of the newest headdresses for girls are shown In the accompanying sketch. The profile head shows the classic outline which is so muclXln favor with the Parisians. The unwaved hair is softly drawn back from the face and twisted into a-eeR-at the back

New Coiffures for Girls.

of the head, after the manner of so many of the famous Greek statues, writes Idalia de Villiers, a Paris correspondent. Then a long length of gold galon edged w’ith black is passed round the forehead, then round the chignon, with a bowTieddindefneatirthe Tatter. An-

USE MUCH WOOL EMBROIDERY

Paris Designers Place Unusual Designs on Almost Every Kind of Material, Even Chiffon. Since the simple silhouette is an established fact, an opportunity has been given women to spend their time and energy upon the charming details of their costumes. In America we have been so busily engaged changing the cut of skirts and the width of sleeves that we had no spare moments to spend upon the little hand touches, the expert finishings, and the hemstitched edges. These seemingly insignificant niceties are really important, says a writer in the New York Times. In Paris they realized that ages ago and took advantage of the fact, sending us each season creations to excite envy because of their infinite attention to the little things that put their stamp of perfection upon the finished gown. Wool embroidery, the Parisian edict is, shall be an important factor in the trimming of winter frocks. They are drawing woolen threads through it on silk and satin, on serge and velvet, and -—yes - even on chiffon. And the patterns? They are no longer effects of a group of roses or a chain of daisies stamped laboriously upon the material and then worked over in tiny, close lying stitches. The artist takes a large-eyed needle and a strand of bright-colored wool and works out a design directly*upon the gown, directly upon the spot where it will live until the whole creation has become passe.

Filipino Embroidery Attractive.

As it becomes more and more difficult to obtain large supplies of French embroidery there is greater and greater chance of pushing embroidery from the Philippines. This embroidery is really very attractive. It is something like Japanese embroidery, but is superior, in the opinion of those who know both types well. More and more of Iq found in the good shops and, therefore, it Is an increasingly large feature in fashionable trousseaus and layettes. There have been suggestions that we might gather further inspiration from these Pacific islands in the way of models for women’s blouses.

Pockets to Go.

As to materials for the fall gowns the manufacturers claim that, just as designers for men have promised to reduce the amount of material used by the elimination of the large pockets, so designers for women will make the wool suits narrower and plainer for the. same reason. The pocket will undoubtedly go along with the other unnecessary appendages. The manufacturers are making the cotton back with wool filiing for the same reason. -

Straight Fastened Coats.

Revers are abandoned by the tailors and dressmakers. Where one coat will have them, sixteen others will be fastened in a straight line from the chin to the lower edge. All the collars' are high, but soft and enveloping the neck and chin in the manner that was considered correct in the eighteenth century. ■ w

one with regular features coultl adopt this headdress with much benefit, but pretty girls with small and uncertain noses would do better to copy the second style which shows a narrow bandeau of multicolored beads drawn round hair dressed in Julia James fashion. In this latter headdress the hair is cut in a fringe across the forehead and loose curls over the ears. Artificial waves have completely gone out of favor and all our best hairdressers are trying to give natural effects, even when making use of. the waving tongs. Kiss curls over the ears are still in favor and straight fringes are vv*orn by every second smart one one meets.

BIG DESIGNS IN CRETONNES

Tendency Is Toward Large Figures, Especially for Window Curtains and Chair Cushions. There Is, perhaps, no very distinctive thing about the new cretonnes and chintzes and printed linens —and, perhaps, that is just what gives them their characteristic charm. For among them can be found one to suit every sort of taste. Perhaps the tendency is toward big there are charming small designs if you want them. But the big designs are more effective, it is safe to say, for window curtains and cushions in chairs —and nowadays yards and yards of cretonne are used for these purposes. Moreover, the bags that are made now are so huge that even large designs show well on them. The bird has come to stay in cretonne, and-he appears in more gorgeous plumage than ever this year. He is most often a parrot, perhaps because the parrot has such gaudy plumage by nature that unexaggerated It makes colorful cretonne. Sometimes he is some other sort of tropical bird. As gayly colored plumage, Occasionally he is an almost colorless bird of some sort—and in dull rose and gray-black he is quite as effective as the brilliant parrot. Then, little figures, chiefly of Chinese and Japanese sort, appear on some of the new cretonnes. "These are very attractive in some places, and are quite unattractive in others. In many of the smartest new bags they are used to distinct advantage. And sometimes they may be employed in hangings with very good effeeL

PRODUCES SLIM LINES.

The large woman with good cause has always considered surplus weight a detriment to her figure. Lately she has begun to change her opinion and think of excess avoirdupois In the light of an asset instead of a liability, for the new system of designing provides her with gowns that give the figure of generous proportions slim lines. This evening gown, designed according to that new scientific method, produces the much-desired effect of slender lines. It is a pretty model trimmed with beading and cut to convert all excess avoirdupois to an aid In forming good lines.

Pocket Shaped Bags.

Silk bags are much in vogue, and one of the prettiest Is a long pocket bag with a broad band of the same material continuing from the bag to form the part which Is slung over the arm. This bag Is in the shape of the old ring purse, but It Is very big and it is often made in some material to match the dress with which it is worn.

Straight Lines.

In skirts for generat or sport wear, the straight lines are usually employed, says the D.ry Goods Economist. Plaits are. noted in some models, sometimes the entire skirt is plaited, sometimes plaits are used In cluster effect. Many novel ways of introducing plaits have been brought out.

Gingham Collars.

Gingham collar and cuff sets that proved so attractive early In the summer on light frocks are now worn or frocks of serge. They add a smar touch to these very serviceable cos tunes. * .

War Time Life on the River Plate

..rpHE PLATE” and “Rio I Grande” :*What pictures are conjured up in one’s mind * by these names!—pictures of windjammer days, when the chanfey, “We’re bound to the Rio Grande,” had a meaning which it has now lost and will never regain. For its size the Rio de la Plata was. In the piping times of peace, one of the busiest rivers of the world. Between its three chief ports, Montevideo, Buenos Aires and Rosario —with nothing else worth mentioning—there are some 300 miles. As for Its width during the first 100 miles or so, the low shores are scarcely visible during the first day’s steaming, and the sunsets are some of the most gorgeous in the world. - Indeed, between Buenos Aires and Rosario there was one that will stand to me always as the sum total of gorgeousness In sunsets, w’rltes J. E. Patterson in the Graphic. In spite of nature’s limitlessness in such things, I doubt if she could go one better. The sun was dead ahead up the river, which was then about a quarter of a mile wide. He was a hand's breadth above the horizon (holding the hand at arm’s length), already darkly ruddy enough to look straight at without eye-strain. To right and left of him, over the dark-green country and the subtropical banks of the river, all conceivable tints of gold, pale yellow and the very thinnest of greens stretched aw’ay to the indefinite grayblue of evening. Whilst straight down the middle of the erstwhile faintly terra-cotta stream there was the most regal, purple pathway that mortal eyes ever saw, and from it to the luscious green of the swampy banks the water shaded away through deep terra-cotta to pale reddy-brown. Said I to the captain, who was a seahoned visitor to those latitudes: “Jove, but that's ‘some’ sunset! I haven’t seen one like It before the world round 1” “No," he replied; “even Kaiser Bill and his war can’t alter these River Plate sunsets.” War Hits Rosario Hard. As the Indescribable beauty' of that sunset has led me away up the river I

will begin with Rosario, a semi-Span-ish town, built of quarried stone and of over 100,000 inhabitants, with open, yet rather squalid-looking suburbs. It has a fine shopping center, although the streets are much too narrow for so hot a country. There is an efficient electric-tram service, by which one can go well into the country; and along the riverside, abreast the center of the town, extends a quay (there are docks), where dozens of vessels can lie to .load or discharge, in addition to grain elevators above and below the town. In peace-time twenty or more steamers and a few sailing craft were a common sight at that quayside, with others anchored in the stream to boot. Now the maximum is about half a dozen. Consequently the once-thronged streets, the bustle of shops and offices, and the merry life of evening resorts, have become things of the past. By day shops and streets are sparsely frequented, whilst restaurants and other places of amusement are comparatively quiet by night. The place pretty nearly lived on its shipping and the general handling _of goocfe in transit. The shipping is almost gone; therefore the circulation of money has dwindled to half of what it was. Buenos Aires a Bit Subdued. In Buenos Aires one finds a capital of something like a million people. “The Paris of the West,” they tell you, as they point to their really splendid avenues, squares and palatial build-ings—-all comparatively netv —to their programs of gland opera, drama, variety shows and other phases of gay evening life. To these the war has made but small difference, say some, whilst others maintain that the change is deep and far-reaching. They back

On the River Plate.

up their arguments by pointing out the rise in the cost of living, the closing of some places of amusement (as in Rosario), the decrease in shipping and so in the circulation of money, find the sort of armed neutrality between the British and German elements, Instead of the fraternizing that used to go on between them. “The Paris of the West” Buenos Aires undoubtedly is, despite the war; but it is a slightly subdued Paris, all the same, and all because of the war. In ordinary times it is more than a gay imitator of the French capital. It is the commerce and the money center of South America, and, apparently, It will long remain so, now that it has got the start and has behind It a country whose natural riches are in abundance and not yet more than tapped. But although the Argentine capital has now great and beautiful marble buildings, wide, subtropical thoroughfares and rest-places, it also has many narrow, mean and repulsive streets. For the present labor far exceeds the demand, and prices are exceedingly high. Still, when the war ends, trade on “the Plate” must naturally return to its former very comfortable proportions, and grow and grow. Montevideo Lesa-Affected. In Montevideo war changes are not nearly so great as in the Argentine ports mentioned. True, shipping has decreased there, yet not in the same proportion as elsewhere on the river. There Is a falling off in trade, therefore in labor and money, as is only natural during a war that has economically affected every inhabited coastline and hinterlatjjl in the world. At the same time, Montevideo is the capital of a country that can easily supply Itself with all the necessities and many of the luxuries of life, and pretty well does so now. Again, by some curious, racial bent the Uruguayans seem to be a more resolute snd Independent, thpugh not a more initiative people than the Argentines—that is, those of Montevideo give one that Impression. In Montevideo prices have gone up more than 10 per cent on the whole; and so far as I could ascertain even this was unwarranted, except on a few

Urbano Park, Montevideo.

articles of commerce. The city and its neighborhood have taken the war very philosophically; it has affected the real natives so very little, and they say they have no fear of trouble, in any case, with the German colonies amongst them.

Shepherd Dog Herds Goats.

F. A. Pierce, a goat raiser of Canyonville, Ore., has little to do except market his goats and collect the money. His collie dog “Shep” does all the work arid - shoulders the responsibility of herding and protecting the animals. “Shep” has a method all his own id taking care of his charges. Instead of driving them “Shep” leads the goats. At sunrise “Shep” is stirring around trying to get someone to open the gates. After that he Starts off for the mountain pastures with his flock scampering along behind. All day he leads them to the choicest spots for feeding. Late in the afternoon “Shep” gives the, signal and the procession starts for home. If he arrives before the children of the household have come home from school, “Shep” leaves the goats at the gate and rushes to the schoolhouse to notify the children that it’s time to open, the gates. If molested by animals or; strangers, the goats Vun to “Shep” for protection. Pierce, with the aid of “Shep,” raised the champion goat exhibited at the San Francisco exposition. The aHlmal’s hair measured 41% inches long.

Jane Willis—Miss Oldbud says she has Just passed her twentieth births day. Marie Gillis—Passed It coming back, no doubt.—Life. -■>

On Return Trip.