_Late Student, Aged Twenty-three_
Were you an older man, my dear Ray, your letter would be consigned to
the flames unanswered, and our friendship would become constrained and
formal, if it did not end utterly. But knowing you to be so many years
my junior, and so slightly acquainted with yourself or womankind, I am
going to be the friend you need, instead of the misfortune you invite.
I will not say that your letter was a complete surprise to me. It is
seldom a woman is so unsophisticated in the ways of men that she is not
aware when friendship passes the borderline and trespasses on the domain
of passion.
I realized on the last two occasions we met that you were not quite
normal. The first was at Mrs. Hanover's dinner; and I attributed some
indiscreet words and actions on your part to the very old Burgundy
served to a very young man.
Since the memory of mortal, Bacchus has been a confederate of Cupid, and
the victims of the former have a period (though brief indeed) of
believing themselves slaves to the latter.
As I chanced to be your right-hand neighbour at that very merry board,
where wit, wisdom, and beauty combined to condense hours into minutes, I
considered it a mere accident that you gave yourself to me with somewhat
marked devotion. Had I been any other one of the ladies present, it
would have been the same, I thought. Our next and last encounter,
however, set me thinking.
It was fully a week later, and that most unromantic portion of the day,
between breakfast and luncheon.
It was a Bagby recital, and you sought me out as I was listening to the
music, and caused me to leave before the programme was half done. You
were no longer under the dominion of Bacchus, though Euterpe may have
taken his task upon herself, as she often does, and your manner and
expression of countenance troubled me.
I happen to be a woman whose heart life is absolutely complete. I have
realized my dreams, and have no least desire to turn them into
nightmares. I like original rôles, too, and that of the really happy
wife is less hackneyed than the part of the "misunderstood woman." And I
find greater enjoyment in the steady flame of one lamp than in the
flaring light of many candles.
I have taken a good deal of pride in keeping my lamp well trimmed and
brightly burning, and I was startled and offended at the idea of any man
coming so near he imagined he might blow out the light.
Your letter, however, makes me more sorry than angry.
You are passing through a phase of experience which comes to almost
every youth, between sixteen and twenty-four.
Your affectional and romantic nature is blossoming out, and you are in
that transition period where an older woman appeals to you.
Being crude and unformed yourself, the mature and ripened mind and body
attract you.
A very young man is fascinated by an older woman's charms, just as a
very old man is drawn to a girl in her teens.
This is according to the law of completion, each entity seeking for what
it does not possess.
Ask any middle-aged man of your acquaintance to tell you the years of
the first woman he imagined he loved, and you will find you are
following a beaten path.
Because you are a worth while young man, with a bright future before
you, I am, as I think of the matter, glad you selected me rather than
some other less happy or considerate woman, as the object of your
regard.
An unhappy wife or an ambitious adventuress might mar your future, and
leave you with lowered ideals and blasted prospects.
You tell me in your letter that for "a day of life and love with me you
would willingly give up the world and snap your fingers in the face of
conventional society, and even face death with a laugh." It is easy for
a passionate, romantic nature to work itself into a mood where those
words are felt when written, and sometimes the mood carries a man and a
woman through the fulfilment of such assertions. But invariably
afterward comes regret, remorse, and disillusion.
No man enjoys having the world take him at his word, when he says he is
ready to give it up for the woman he loves.
He wants the woman and the world, too.
In the long run, he finds the world's respect more necessary to his
continued happiness than the woman's society.
Just recall the history of all such cases you have known, and you will
find my assertions true.
Thank your stars that I am not a reckless woman ready to take you at
your word, and thank your stars, too, that I am not a free woman who
would be foolish enough and selfish enough to harness a young husband to
a mature wife. I know you resent this reference to the difference in our
years, which may not be so marked to the observer to-day, but how would
it be ten, fifteen years from now? There are few disasters greater for
husband or wife than the marriage of a boy of twenty to a woman a dozen
years his senior. For when he reaches thirty-five, despair and misery
must almost inevitably face them both.
You must forgive me when I tell you that one sentence in your letter
caused a broad smile.
That sentence was, "Would to God I had met you when you were free to be
wooed and loved, as never man loved woman before."
Now I have been married ten years, and you are twenty-three years old!
You must blame my imagination (not my heart, which has no intention of
being cruel) for the picture presented to my mind's eye by your wish.
I saw myself in the full flower of young ladyhood, carrying at my side
an awkward lad of a dozen years, attired in knickerbockers, and
probably chewing a taffy stick, yet "wooing and loving as never man
loved before."
I suppose, however, the idea in your mind was that you wished Fate had
made me of your own age, and left me free for you.
But few boys of twenty-three are capable of knowing what they want in a
life companion. Ten years from now your ideal will have changed.
You are in love with love, life, and all womankind, my dear boy, not
with me, your friend.
Put away all such ideas, and settle down to hard study and serious
ambitions, and seal this letter of yours, which I am returning with my
reply, and lay it carefully away in some safe place. Mark it to be
destroyed unopened in case of your death. But if you live, I want you to
open, re-read and burn it on the evening before your marriage to some
lovely girl, who is probably rolling a hoop to-day; and if I am living,
I want you to write and thank me for what I have said to you here. I
hardly expect you will feel like doing it now, but I can wait.
Do not write me again until that time, and when we meet, be my good
sensible friend--one I can introduce to my husband, for only such
friends do I care to know.