Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 36, Number 73, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 May 1904 — IS THERE REAL SENTIMENT? [ARTICLE]

IS THERE REAL SENTIMENT?

Is It Right to Call Deep Emotion “Sheer Sentimentality” ? Some years ago I should have been tempted to declare that the exact female equivalent of the practical man —my anathema be upon him! —did not exist. To-day 1 dare not go so,far in assertion. For to-day there be women—to me they’ seem sexless as hockey sticks or golf chilis—who take very much the same line. They speak as if passion might be doused, like the burglar’s glim, by diet; as if adoration could be killed by a hearty regimen of grape-nuts, a broken heart be mended with platinum. One such qharmer recently said to a tortured sister, whose life had been laid in ruins by a man: “My dear, take up typewriting!” The remark would appeal to the practical fool. It is often assumed nowadays that any real deep emotion is “sheer sentimentality.” But sentiment is not sentimentality, whatever the practical one ’may bellow’ with machine-inade eloquence. There are people, nnd often they are the very finest, the most sincere, tjie most delicate, the most truly human, who, having once given their hearts, can never take them back. They do love once, and once for all. Matthew Arnold—no fool, I fancy! —wrote the “Twin soul” that halves one's own. I hear the practical man's guffaw’. The very word “soul” always sets him off. Nevertheless, roar his ribs out as he may, it is a fact that thousands, millions of people, both men nnd women, go through life copsciously, or unconsciously, seeking that twfln soul. The seeking Is hope. The finding Is joy. ns perfect ns exists in this uncertain world. —London Queen.