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VOLUME r I WO
ALUMS E « TH I KEY.
WHAT WE THINK ol> WHAT WE SEE
The Summer is past and gone, the long struggle
is ended, the shouting and the tumult die, and in
the blessed calm that rests upon Georgia, the
Empire State of the Earth, there is a sweet con
sciousness that is balm to every heart, that ban
ishes care and bids sorrow to recede a considerable
distance and assume a sitting posture. Stated in
plain, every-day words, Atlanta’s team has the
pennant. Now every citizen of this Commonwealth
has time to look back over the weeks of struggle,
of ddubt and uncertainty and can see what a won
derful baseball season that of 1907 A. D. has been.
Atlanta had to have the pennant. Other questions
have arisen, have for a time agitated the public
mind, but they were evanescent. The Real Ques
tion was the standing of the team, the batting
average of the players and whether it would rain
on Saturday between three and six P. M. When
the Prohibition Bill was before the Legislature
there was some confusion in the galleries and a
personal encounter on the floor of the House. The
reporters said it was prohibition enthusiasm. On
the surface it was: but it was but the direct pro
test of nerves and bodies overstrained by nights of
worry over the chances for the pennant. But all
that is past and done. The pennant is ours. Let
us now, dear countrymen, rise to our duty as citi
zens and patriots and give our attention to the hon
orable and necessary, though humble and compara
tively insignificant details of supporting our fami
lies and getting the money for our new Fall suit.
It is well for every man to strive to keep abreast
of the times. In the close competition of business
affairs there is very little margin left the average
man in the matter of time for reading and study
But he should seek to so economize his time that
he can read something besides the daily newspapei.
The most important thing of all is that he make
himself, by close application, able to converse intelli
gently with his wife. How many marriages have
proven unhappy simply because the husband could
not attain the intellectual level of the wife and
was unable, utterly so, to discuss with her the vita*
question of the new styles. A little time devoted
to this branch of reading would make any man a
delightful companion for his better half. And is
there not ample attraction in the idea? W hat could
be more delightfid during the coming Winter even
ings, before a blazing grate, than to discuss the new
hats and cloaks and compare them with the styles
of last year and the year before that, and what
could make a more delightful evening program than
a symposium composed of articles by the husbands
of the neighborhood on “The Styles of Yester
year” and kindred themes? Sages of all ages
have pondered the problem of How to be Happy
Though Married, and we believe we have found the
answer: “Keep up with the styles.” This is di-
ATLANTA, GA., SEi 19, 1907.
Sy A. E. RAMS A UR. Managing Editor.
rected of course to the husbands —for it has been
their fault that the home has not been happy. How
could any tender, trusting woman be happy with a
brute who thought only of stocks and bonds and
bricks and polities and preaching and prohibition
and getting his picture in the paper?
The most useful article we have seen in a long,
long time was the article, with diagram attached, of
tlie change in the style of female figure to be worn
the coming season. It certainly gave us an insight
into our own ignorance on such questions. We
had presumed in our folly that females used the fig
ures with which they were endowed by a gracious
Providence; the lean after their kind and the stout
after their kind; but not so. We were iu error.
A brief morning visit to the upholsterer does the
trick. Many there be who go in at the door of
said upholsterer, built after many plans and in many
directions, but coming out therefrom all are alike
straight. It is certainly interesting.
The new hat styles are worthy of attention. We
would, if we had space, reproduce in another col
umn, an article we have been fortunate enough to
read, describing them. There are The Marie An
toinette, the Tam O’Shanter, the Tyrola, the Merry
Widow, the Fluffy Ruffle and Gage models among
others; everybody seems to have had a hat shape
named for them except Carrie Nation; and her
time is coming. The mourning styles are said to
be very attractive this season. One hat being shown
reminded the writer of the article of the negro
woman, lately bereaved, who didn’t want the crepe
veil to her hat, because her case was not exactly
one of mourning—just “light distress.”
at
There are so many things in this world that need
setting right that we are at times discouraged lest
we may not have time to attend to them all. But
if we can correct one error in living each week, it
won’t be many years until we have arranged every
thing beautifully, and this will be a most delight
ful planet to live upon. Last week we discussed
the matter of grumbling and talking trouble; this
week uppermost in our mind is the problem of liv
ing within our income; or, rather, not so much that,
as the manner in which we spend it. A recent ar
ticle by Phyllis Dale is apropos:
“Every day we hear men and women bewailing
the times, lamenting over the high prices they have
to pay for food, the difficulty in finding a place with
in their means, the impossibility of finding compe
tent servants, who don’t want all of one’s income
for wages. One woman I know has an income of
$2,000 a year. She pays $75 a month for her apart
ment, and S2O a month to her maid-of-all-work.
How she manages to eat three meals a day, dress,
and spend three weeks at a fashionable summer
hotel every season I can’t imagine, but she docs.
She also complains constantly of the high prices
of everything, and in spite of her pretty home and
luxurious style of living looks worried to death.
“The other day, when she was more plaintive
than usual, I asked her why she did not adopt a
simpler, less expensive mode of life. ‘Take a little
fiat and a cheap maid,’ I suggested. ‘lt’s bad
enough to live under a constant strain when one’s
income is precarious and dependent upon one’s own
efforts, but in your case it is a folly to be worried
by ways and means. ’
“She looked at me keenly, as if she thought I
was making fun of her. Then she evidently de
cided that I was simply mad, and said soothingly .
“ ‘You are a child of nature. You must have
been born in Arcadia. In New York neighborhood
is everything and one must pay for it. I wouldn t
have a good time if I didn’t live in a neighborhood
so situated that it is no bother to come to see ms
or invite me out. It isn’t that they don’t care
enough about me to take a little trouble as your
frown seems to imply. It’s simply a matter of
time. Every one is in a hurry. If you are near by
the lines of travel you are in it; if you are not
you are forgotten. It’s like the telephone. The
girl who hasn’t a ’phone loses many an invitation
to the theatre. And men who are in demand won’t
waste time calling on a girl unless they are sure
that she will be at home.’
“Because most of us are snobs without sense or
sincerity or backbone enough to consult our own
comfort and convexiience and pocketbooks rather
than our silly snob friends’ opinions we live in
dark rooms and sleep on sofas because a house is in
a good street and has an elevator and a boy in liv
ery at the door. And then we lament at the out
rageous cost of living.
One reason why many of us can’t live within
our incomes is that we are afraid to. Now’ of
course this does not apply to any except city folk.
People who live in the country or even in the small
er towns, should be happy; they generally are, and
they are more sensible, as a rule, touching all the
practical questions of life, than the city folk.
There is a glamor, a spell, a something in the life
of a city that distorts vision, alters opinions and
creates false values. In every city there is a
street that is considered the gilt-edged residence
section. To live on that is the fondest dream of
many people who are not financially able to do
so, and who should net desire to, for many other
reasons. If they can’t get on that particular street
itself, the idea is to get just as near it as possible.
It is like Heaven and Near-heaven. They struggle
and plan and worry to get some kind of a living
place which they regard as desirable simply because
it is near a stylish street, when with less money
they could live more comfortably and without wor
ry elsewhere, among people whom they might ex
pect to claim as real friends. But there will al
ways be people who would “rather be nobly damned
beside a Duke, than saved in lesser company.”
TWO DOLLARS A YEAR.
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