Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 246, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 1 November 1917 — Page 2

Little Problems ff Life

By WILLIAM GEORGE JORDAN

(Copyright) - DANGER OF GROWING APART MENTALLY. When two friends start out for a long walk together they seem instinctively to adjust their steps so that they walk side by side, within touching distance of each other. If one gradually quickens his pace until he is yards ahead of the other and, in his self-absorption, increasingly widens the distance between th?in, they cease to be two "walking together and be•<come two walking alone. Marriage Is • lifelong walk together of two who have selected each other from all the world. It is community of thought, ideals, alms, needs and sentiments that tends to keep them in step. It does not mean a sacrifice of individuality, nor does it demand unanimity of opinion, but there should ever be progressive harmony on essentials and progressive sympathy on nonessentials. Some men feel a pleasant glow of satisfaction in fulfilled duty when they divide generously with their wives their material prosperity. If money were the only thing in life, or even the greatest thing, their view Would be correct, but the really greatest things in the world are those that money cannot buy. When a man finds himself growing broader mentally and does not share his new self with his wife, he is taking an intellectual elevator and letting her trudge alone up the stairway as best she can. When he grows into a larger and finer social world and does not make her a part of it he is traveling in the parlor-car and keeping her in the day coach. When the larger interpretation of life and its problems strengthens his spiritual and ethical vision, while his wife continues in the narrow horizon of unilluminated household cares, he is monopolizing the telescope, whichbrings things near and larger, leaving her the microscope which only incyases the importance of her trifles. Growing apart mentally must, under these conditions, become inevitable. It may be that he atone la to blame; it may be her fault, or it may be the blind thoughtlessness of both. His repeated: attempts to talk over with her his ideals, his dreams of ambition, his plans, purposes and progress, to stimulate her interest, to share with her his intellectual uplift may be met with no real comprehension, no sympathy, no inspiring response. When comradeship in marriage dies, it really makes very little difference what the postmortem verdict as to the decease may be. ■ When the husband is out in the world of business which tends to blend with the social world, he may' broaden mentally as he prospers materially. He travels over the country, and in a wider acquaintance with men and conditiops has many of the rough edges of provincialism worn smooth. He meets men of attainment and action, men of power, and prestige, and under a more stimulating environment develops latent strength of his own. He brushes up against keen minds that put a new edge on his thinking; he is In closer touch with current thought and opinion; he has acquired a polish. The keynote of his living, so far as society is concerned, is higher. His tastes become more discriminating, his demands more exacting. If he has not been sharing these things with the wife of his youth, he finds she has been standing still while he has been progressing. She who faithfully struggled with him and foi* him, helped him to get the foothold of his present success, and became absorbed in working, planning and saving, may now be a mere drudge. He has a new standard of life now, and she falls sadly short of IL He measures things more superficially, and though her heart may be unchanged, her head is not up to date. He may be ashamed to introduce her into the new society oi which he has become a part; she is plain, unattractive, overretiring or overloquacious. She is aggressive in her dress and display ; she is not familiar with the rules of the, social game—with the “technique” of his new set. The old equality between them has been destroyed—killed through neglect. It is not the work of a moment, but the slow, widening process of years of growing apart. But the realization of it all may come in a moment. There may be suddenly an illuminating flash of consciousness, when he tarily faces it, in comparing her with other women. j r Some little mannerism of hers that ''once was sweet, just because it was hers, jars on his sensibilities and strikes a discordant note. Once he did not care whether she thought it was Homer or Carlyle who wrote “Silas Mariner,” pr whether she had heard of either author or book. Perhaps at that time he did not know the book himself. The red tape of society’s cards, passwords and methods may have, become second nature to him, and he is unjust in his condemnation of an ignorance which would not have existed had he been sharing with her his expanding life. He may notice with a grating sense of dismay that she does not put the soft pedal on her 4 laughter to conform to the proper "fippHng—notes of mirth prescribed by the social code. She, too, may hme her saddening morhents of realization and refuse to enter a world where she feels her inferiority,

or not realizing, may, to his chagrin, insist on her rights. Usually she*boldly takes the plunge into the social waters, confident that she will, somehow, get back to shore. She may live, In his presence, in an atmosphere of patronizing tolerance, fearing at every word that she may stumble into some pitfail of mispronunciation or an Inadvertent phrase, or, growing self-assured and reckless, she puts on a full head of steam In the presence of a position requiring tact and just crashes through it like an engineer running his train over a burning bridge. His bearing may reach its melting point; In his acquired supersensitiveness he puts fictitious values on points where she Is deficient and his tolerance fades into positive neglect. He may then devote his ‘whole time to finer minds, fairer faces and freer morals. How far they may drift apart, no one can tell. It may be that it is the wife who advances mentally, and he who is the laggard. The Increased prosperity may mean close confinement- for him to the drudgery of business. The society of a few’ old friends, survivals of the time when he was poor and struggling, may be all he cares for. Literature may not appeal to him. His dally paper supplies all his needs. The activities of the world of modern science, thought and culture have for him no real interest. His wife, left free to the rounding out of her mind and life, may develop a taste for reading, for companionship that is mentally worth having, for original thinking, for the ch nr tn of true conversation, for the discussion of subjects of real Importance. She may gather around her a circle of friends who feed her mental hunger and stimulate her thinking. He feels vaguely out of place with these new friends of hers, like a poor relation at a Christmas dinner. She has found her way into the land of the Intellectual and has established a residence there, while he, In his loneliness and isolation, is camping on its He feels somewhat a stranger in his own house at social gatherings of her friends. He may chafe under the feeling that he is on the wrong side of the proscenium arch; that he is not one of the performers, but merely a spectator. He longs to cut but all “this heavy intellectual business” and go off quietly with a friend or two and just sit, and talk, and smoke. This growing apart mentally may assume any of a hundred phases. Husband and wife may be subjected to any class of differing environments that change their mental standpoint and their moral sympathy. New ideas and new ideals may sweep old landmarks of mutual understanding far ©ut to sea. It is a sad outgrowing of a union of love and companionship, a growing unsatisfiedness where speech that meets no sympathetic response lapses into silence. When sympathy and recognition of one’s ideals are found only outside the home walls, when the instinctive impulse to tell of a success or a failure turns to some one else, when ears grow hungry for outside praise, there is serious danger to the happiness of married life. It is so easy to keep together if both realize the vital importance to all that is sweetest in life in keeping in step, in true comradeship. Talking over the affairs of their individual lives and their life in common, the hopes, the longings, the doubts, the joys and the problems, gives each the basis of knowledge from which most truly to understand and advise each other. Reading the same books, discussing the same current events, hearing the same music, seeing the same plays, criticizing the same pictures, having dearest friends in common, agreeing on the same spiritual and ethical attitude towards life, and sharing in thoughts and plans will do much towards making a growing apart mentally an impossibility. This keeping in step does not mean the sacrifice, of the stronger to the weaker, but the stronger ever, through love, raising the weaker to higher planes of thinking and living. It is; not necessary that they should even agree as to the value of each other’s pursuits or views, but that both should know them, understand them and respect them and be lovingly tolerant where they are not united in their sentiment or desires. They should give ever their best to each other. When the husband is a clever, delightful companion at some one else’s dinner-table, but a sad, still-life study in silence at his own, he is not giving his best at home. He is retaining his best for the export trade and reserving none for home consumption. When the wife has charity, consideration and sympathy for the cares of others outside the Ijpme, and only sharpness and sarcasm those inside, the timetable Of fthaL-hpnie requires instant revisiorE’or- there will be a crashing disaster to their train—o£ happiness. Sources of discord multipljfetttee Australian rabbits when the growing apart intensifies. It is the sacred duty of both to prevent it at the very beginning, to determine that they will permit no thoughtlessness, drifting, no false sense of duty to family or to the world, to separate them from each other.

Passing It Along.

“And did you let the office boy off?” “Said his grandmother was dead.” “You swallowed that old excuse.” “I may not swallow it, but I accept it. My boss used to honor it when I was a kid.” , * * >

The Other Way Round.

“Do you stand while they are playin the national anthem?” “In these times it woul,d be more appropriate to say: ‘Do you sit’ when it is not being played?”

THE EVENING REPUBLICAN, RENSSELAER.

Laned of the Flemings

Battlements of Castle of the Counts of Flanders.

THERE is something about the name Flanders that seems immediately to call up to the mind visions of romance, of chivalry, of art and history that are produced by the mention of no other country, unless it be old Venice. The land of the ancient Flemings and of those medieval counts who ranked almost as high as kings is again living its romance in the bitter struggle against the Germans. We read how the people In London heard the guns roar in Flanders; of how the great offensive was being launched In Flanders, and yet the bounds of Flanders to the average man are something of a mystery. While Flanders proper Is nowadays divided into West and East Flanders, says the Philadelphia Public Ledger, the Flemish peoples of Belgium, who number rather more than one-half of the whole, are In the majority in the provinces of Antwerp and Hafnault also, and in the remaining provinces they may be said to divide the honors. These few facts tend to show that the Flemings are not by any means extinct, and that those persons who confuse Belgium with Flanders, or believe the two names are synonymous, are not greatly to blame, for they are only technically wrong. The Flemings are in origin a Germanic people, while the Walloons, the Belgians of the East, are more Celtic In their genesis. The Flemings are kin to the Dutch, and at one time they were a part of the United Netherlands. But they have had a long and strange history, and have, during the last 1,500 years, owed allegiance to many princes and countries; yet they have continued to preserve, their own language, to produce their own art and to maintain their love of the and the simple life. It is true that the great gambling place, the seaside resort Ostend, lies in Flanders, but it was the late king of the Belgians, Leopold, who made that quiet summer resort what it became. With Nieuport it is one of the most ancient towns in Flanders and dates

back to the times w-hen the Northmen came down and tried to make the Flemings slaves. Formerly Opposed the French, t Although the Flemings are fighting side by side with the French, they had for years prior to the war united in opposing everything French, and many parents in Flanders have pursued the inhibition to the extent of declining to permit their children to learn a single word of that language. There are no braver people In Europe than these selfsame Flemings, but they have been the victims of conquest over and over again. Had It not been that the Walloons dwell principally in the eastern provinces, those abutting Germany, there is reason to believe that long ago Belgium would have fallen to the German empire, and probably without any serious struggle. The events of the opening days of the present war, however, have changed the entire face of Belgium’s history and that of Flanders also. Today the people of Flanders have seen their beautiful cities reduced to ruins and their people enslaved by a cruel conqueror. At the same time they have seen France and England come to their assistance, and Flanders hereafter probably will not be so proud of its Low Dutch language that it will neglect the study of French, which is the language used largely in other parts of Belgium. Some years ago a more or less determined attempt was made in Flanders to popularize the Flemish language. Some of the foremost literary pien in the cdbntry consented to write only in that tongue, among them Maeterlinck and Verhaeren, but it Y’as not long before the former found that he was at his best in French, and so the “Belgian Shakespeare,” as he has been called, does all his writing in the language of France.' Land of Famous Counts. In the Middle Ages Flanders was a powerful principality, which, while under the suzerainty of the French king.

was virtually independent. The northeastern provinces were added to the Holy Roman empire in the eleventh century? Tfls thelandofthe Counts Baldwin. The first of the line, known as the Iron-armed, married Judith, the daughter of Charles the Bald of France, and obtained the newly created country as a gift from his father-in-law. In those days the counts of Flanders were regarded as therichest princes in Europe and were said to be far more wealthy than many of its kings. Baldwin IX will be recalled as the founder of the Latin empire in Constantinople. The cities of Bruges, Ghent and a few others at this time were proud and felt their might, bidding to become free cities, and were permitted their independence with the suzerainty of the counts of Flanders. The country was united with the Netherlands in the fourteenth century, but a century later passed to the Hapsburgs. It has been in the possession of the Spanish and of the French, but in 1830 finally liberated itself from Holland and from France. Ghent has been called the City of Flowers and the_Snul of Flanders. It was the home of Flemish art, and here was to be seen before the war Van Eyck’s masterpiece, “The Adoration of the in the cathedral of St. Bavon. It was here that the peace of 1815, which concluded the War of 1812, was signed by the commissioners of Great Britain and the United States. Bruges a City of Bridges. Bruges is a picturesque old city, a city of bridges and the Venice of the North. There the early printer Mansion taught his art to the English merchant Caxton, who carried the art to England and bfegan printing, preserving for us some of the most remarkable pieces of English .literature, for he was the first printer of Chaucer. All the arts have flourished in Flanders. Indeed, in the early Middle Ages it might be said to be the center of industrial art in Europe. Even now the tapestries of Bruges, the laces

Canal Scene in Bruges.

of Ghent have their praises sung; and the towers of the ancient country have inspired a host of poets, for its old bells and its ancient architecture have been the joy of artists from every part of the world. Alas! the cruel isvasion of the Germans has reduced to ruins the historic Cloth hall at Ypres, which was built by that Count Baldwin who afterward led a crusade at Constantinople, and have made other towns unrecognizable. Flanders was the home of the guilds in the Middle Ages, and many of the guild halls are to be seen today, the product of an age of artistic architecture. The loss to rite world of art by the invasion of Flwiders cannot be estimated, and now most of its art objects are merely a memory.

“Potwalloper" Word With History.

Potwalloper is a slang word with a history, meaning literally a pot boiler. There is an old English word wallop, meaning to boil with a bubbling sound. Before the passage of the so-called reform act of 1832, persons in England who had occupied a single room and boiled a pot for six months claimed the right to vote in an election for members of parliament, on the ground that boiling a pot and cooking food at their own fire ipade them householders. The act of 1832 recognized their claim by providing that those who had previously exercised the right of suffrage on that ground should not be deprived of it, but the act gave a new definition for householder. 1 Pot boiler, the modern form of potwalloper, means one who does literary or artistic work job, mainly to keep the pot boiling.

Putttrig on one’s overcoat is sometimes so much of an effort that one is disposed to agree with the old negro who said: “Fust yo’ puts in one ahm, den you puts in de uddah ahm, ah’ den yo* gibs a gen’al conwulsiou.”

Well Described.

IND.

ODD GIRDLES USED

Ire Designed to Take the Place of Draperies on Skirts. Some of Them Closely Resemble Little Waistcoats Formerly Worn as Suit Accompaniment In designing skirts for fall and winter, plaited and straight-line effects are shown in far greater number than are the draped skirts. Virtually the only kind of drapery featured consists of low placed loops on either side, with the skirt proper narrowing to the hem. Odd girdles and belts are designed to take the place of draperies, and in addition to the clever Spanish girdle here shown, another is the “waistcoat” girdle. This closely resembles the little waistcoats that were shown by some dress accessory designers during the past season as suit accompaniments; Of course when designed as part of a skirt it 13 attached to and becomes a part of the skirt It slopes up over each hip and is cut in points in front. Frequently two rows of buttons are set on to give a double-breasted appearance, and again a single row of buttons centering the front of the girdle aids in the. waistcoat simulation. The actual fastening of the girdle is at one side. Usually it .is equipped with one or two tiny “change” pockets. Another odd and very attractive gi|dle shown on one side of the new satin skirts is a 6-lnch wide section of the fabric laid in very fine knife plaits. Rows of stitching hold it in the center, and at the upper and lower edges it flares, Of course a girdle of this kind could be worn becomingly only by a very slender woman, where line rather than curve was the dominant note. Plaids and stripes are being used extensively in the development of

The Spanish Girdle.

sport skirts, and one of the popular fabrics is a plain color with border stripe. Black satin skirts are to be extremely smart, and these are often of the two-tier type, the skirt consisting of two wide flat plaited ruffles of equal width.

LAMPSHADE BAG IS NOVELTY

When Properly Constructed It Can Be Made to Look as Though It Came From the Orient. Bags have come to b e important accessories of dress. Nowadays a woman has as many bags as a man has pockets; but, of course, she is privileged to carry but one bag at a time. The creative ability has .surely been overworked by some persons, according to the variety of the bags seen on the market. There is scarcely a shape, a material, a design or a combination of colors that has not been brought into service. The novel thing of the moment is the lampshade bag. This, as its name implies, is made of a lampshade, the wicker variety. The shade, of course, is inverted, the narrower end forming the bottom of the bag. The inside of the shade is lined with silk of any color one prefers—the handsome figured silks are very good for the purpose. Allow sufficient silk to form a deep bag. If the shade is not very deep the silk can make up for what the shade lacks in depth. Finish the top with a hem and through it run cords to form the handle. Weight the ends of the cords with bead tassels and put one of the tassels at the bottom of the bag. The result will be a bag that looks as though it came from the Orient.

The Newest Veils.

Veils having square, ring, chain, pear drop, egg-shaped, crescent moon and the full moon dots, are worn in New York. Also veils called the nightingale, acdrn, berry or the lotus flower are shown. . L y '

SUIT MADE WITH WAISTCOAT

This tweed su!i is a veritable Louie Seize affair, so far as the length is concerned, and is gendered more interesting by being effected in a big bold check. For general utility a dark pepper-and-salt rough tweed is the choice that commends itself, with, for the waistcoat and side pieces of the skirt, a gray and black plaid, overchecked with fine lines of powder blue and yellow. The coat is cut on severely straight lines, although the adept tailor knows how to introduce Just a suspicion of shapeliness without detracting from the elongated elegance. A collar that is part of the waistcoat plays a decorative part.

NEW FASHIONS ARE KINDLY

One May Find Something to Meet Her Requirements Whether She Be Stout or Thin. The woman who is not grateful for the delightful things fashion bestows upon her this season is unworthy of her good fortune, declares a writer in Vogue. Be she svelte, the straight lines with the long close-buttoned sleeves and drooping shoulders will enable her to feel that she is akin to the haunting Botticelli women. But if she be stout, these same straight lines will do all they can to prevent her betrayal. Also, she may rejoice either in a moderately short costume, or in one wherein the long coat and the overskirt are in collusion to produce the new double tunic effect. And her more severe sister may prudently cover her ankles and select the unbroken lines which are also correct. And fashion decrees velvet for street costumes, in black or in some dark shade of brown or red or blue; and the narrow handings of fur will be, preferably, of nutria, kolinsky, gray squirrel or coney. Not only are coats most accommodating as to length, bijt they even offer the pleasing diversity of a broken line about the bottom. And, to add to this infinite variety, one may go belted or unbelted, as one pleases. Best of all, however, the thin neck may retire from view and the full throat may display its charms.

TO STENCIL PAPER SHADES

They Can Be Painted In Designs and Stripes to Match General Decorative Scheme. The girl who stencils will recognize in her <oiled stencil paper a possibility for magipg one of the new paper lamp shades. The oiling of the board of paper makes it translucent. They can be painted in designs and stripes to match the general decorative scheme. Used in the natural old-gold color they are equally lovely, especially if the base of the lamp is of a solid bright color. Another way to treat the paper shade is to paste cut-out designs from cretonne on the paper and paint in the background with black enamel thinned out as much as possible. This method makes the ’’ght shine through the colored designs and leaves the background opaque. Such a shade should not be used, however, where there is only one lamp in the room and where plenty of light is needed. A clever way of mellowing the light from these more decidedly designed paper shades is to cover the outside with a layer of delicate gauze in a deep cream or rose color. This will not interfere with the effect of the design, but will prove to give a much softer lighting effect than the plain shade. <

Pique on Slipon Sweaters.

Pique cuffs and collars are new features of the slipon sweaters which the young girls wear w"th white flannel skirts and • sports shoes, and they find time between Red Cross stitches to knit themselves still other models iu different shades. . •• •