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Copyright, 1913, by the Star Company. Great Britain Rights Reserved. I Am a New Husband, and Proud of It, philip^boileau T will surprise many, especially, i suppose, my commuter neighbors, that I have given my aid and con sent to my lovely young wife’s going on the stage. Those who know me inti mately simply say: “Boileau has a reason for everything he does,” which ‘is quite true. My reason for permitting a beau tiful girl to go out of her home and into the fray we, call “earning a liv ing” is, 1 assert, a good one. Also it is a progressive one. The world whirls along and we must keep up with it. The life of the home has become easier for women. Its de mands are slighter. It is a far less exacting existence than it was fifty, even ten, years ago. The multiplica tion of machinery and the change in the husband’s point of view have made it so. A woman’s life used to be crowded. Now she has elbow room and breathing space. 1 am a new husband and am glad of it, yes, proud of it. The new hus band is one farthest removed from the cave man. He is a thinking crea ture who applies the rules of reason to the conduct of his home, and I have the authority of the wise Em peror of Rome for believing that rea son will solve all our problems as easily as lightning strikes the high est point or a stone, obeying the law of gravitation, rolls down hill. Apply the rule of reason to the conduct of your home and the result is, what? That you regard your wife as an individual with a right to her individuality, not a mere “yes, dear,” “no, dear,” echo of your self. You will realize that she has talents probably as marked as your own and you will no more interfere With her exercise of those talents than you would permit her to sup press your Wall Street activities if you are a broker, or 1 my picture making, since I am a painter. Hav ing a sense of justice, which the old husband has not, when Mrs. Boi leau told me she would like to go upon the stage I consented. The new husband is wise. There is something of fatherhood in him, especially if, as in my case, he has married a woman only half his age. He will no more restrain his wife's bent than he would a child's unless that bent were a wicked one. When 1 fell in love with Miss Emily Gil bert she was a student in a dramatic school and expected to go on the stage. She would have adopted that career had she not married. Since, after five and a half years of mar riage, she wishes to take up the work her marriage Interrupted, I have no right to interfere. The woman one has married has rights even a husband is bound to respect. The new husband realizes that housekeeping has become so simpli fied that household management even of the highest order does not absorb all a woman’s energy nor time. The best housekeeper has a margin of- time left from these duties and she should be allowed to use it in the development of her in dividual talent. I don’t like to hear this personal expression called a fad. It is some thing much more dignified. Unless there are children, marriage is no more an absorbing occupation for a woman than for a man. It is merely a more or less happy by-product of living, which will degenerate into the irksomely commonplace unless each has a personality and talents which the other respects. Mrs. Boi leau and 1 have no children. If there were children they would make the situation more complex, the problem less easily solved. After our marriage Mrs. Boileau sought this persona] expression, as I encouraged her to do, though in different channels. She took up the study of languages. One year it was French, another Italian. A third year she studied drawing. A fourth she made an extended tour of Europe. This year she desires to go on the stage and I am very willing she shall. That T expect and hope that in three months she will be content to give it up makes no difference. If she finds, instead, that she wishes to make a life career of it. T shall not interpose the slightest objection. I have no fear of the temptations of the stage for her. Once, yes. Once, perhaps, for every girl these temptations exist. But I hope, and believe, that my wife thinks, and will think, me as interesting as any man she has met or will meet. 1 believe I approach as nearly her ideal as does ^ny man who lives and I am not jealous of either Lord Chester field or Napoleon. They . are dead. Most seriously I assert that the man who is afraid of granting his wife Ihe liberty for pursuing a career that he himself demands, fears not his wife, but himself, He has made himself the measuring rule of her life. He is the yardstick by which she measures other men. If bo fears this . comparison with other men it is because he knows he will fall short in it. He is not sure of himself. He is an old husband and unworthy his wife. He deserves to lose her. The necessary absences, when the wife who is on the stage travels with her company, are mere matri monial vacations, for which every married pair are the better and more appreciative. Mrs. Boileau and I believe in them. From experience we are convinced that absence does actually make the heart grow fonder. We must stand at a distance from an ideal or renew our perspective of it. I have told Mrs. Boileau to apply the world’s test to her ambitions. If she makes much money on the stage that will be a sign that it is her vocation. The weekly or month ly incomes is the world’s yardstick and a fairly reliable one. There is only one offense for which a woman is justified in hating her husband. That Is cruelty. Cruelty has many forms. A man may strike his wife, with tongue or fist. He may be unfaithful to her. But repressing her nature and sup pressing her ambitions, crushing her talents and her hopes, 13 an extreme form of unkindness. Of that I re solved not to be guilty. Fancjt»her saying to me “Philip, I do not wish you to draw any more pictures. I do not wish you to go out among other artists and pub lishers. I expect you to stay at home and amuse me.” What should I think of her? That she was in sane. I have no wish to appear insane in her eyes. Every man who refuses, except for the children’s sake, to allow his wife to measure herself and her tal ents against the world, once she has had the experi/ftce of marriage, is a tyrant. Provided the marriage has been a happy one, as has ours, and the wife has been a good pupil of life and conditions, as has mine. © •* PfHor Boiue*v P HILIP BOILEAU, the celebrated portrait painter, and creator of “The Boileau' Girl,” has solved a domestic problem in an original way, and in so doing has made a rule for the government of the home and the management of wives. He has lost his wife, yet kept her. No single woman should go out into “the fray which is called a earning a living,” is his discovery, “but every woman who has been married f for six years should have that right.” Mr. Boileau’s reason for this Mr. Boileau’s Favorite Painting for Which His Wife Posed. Artist Boileau, Painter of Beautiful Girls, Tells Why He Will Gladly Do His Own House keeping While His Wife Conquers the Stage ing methods of thought and work than of the fact that he is the son of a Baron and himself entitled to be called Vicomte. For example, he says his pictures, by which he lives, are "rot,” but that his music, with which he amuses himself, is admir able. He rises at half past four every morning. He goes barefoot all Summer to the scandal of his conventional neighbors at very proper Douglas- ton. He shaves himself and cuts his own hair. “I wouldn’t let a barber touch me for a hundred dollars,” is his declaration of independence, made before every barber pole in the city. - ' He likes a quiet life and wants . to work in privacy. Therefore he has erected about his Summer home a ten feet high fence which the neighbors crudely term a “spite fence.” He is one of the best cooks in New York. When his day of paint ing is over he delights in preparing a meal for himself and wife and friends. Mr. Boileau’s views, expressed to this paper, follow. They will Inter est all husbands and the wives of those husbands. . I Mrs. Boileau Who Is Going on the Stage Because. She and Hef Husband Relieve a Six-Year Wife Should Follow Her Ambitions. belief is purely his own. All life, be says, is the pursuit of an ideal. It is human to chase the will o’ the wisp of what we believe is perfect. Art, business, marriage, all conform to this, truth. When a girl weds she marries her ideal, or as nearly v ' her ideal as she can find. If he is a fairly decent fellow, in Mr. Boi leau’s opinion, he cau hold loyally to that ideal. And what happens? The wife has acquired her unit of measurement, by which she esti mates other men. Her husband, Mr. Boileau says, is the standard by which she measures all other men, and, it is his own fault if he fails to keep that standard in the family. Guided by the standard it is safe for the wife to go forth and conquer the world, or that portion of it which she wishes to subdue. There is then no temptation m the society of other men. But, on the other hand, argues Mr. Boileau, the unmarried woman has not found her ideal. At least she has not lived side by side with him for years. Therefore is she without a standard of measurement, and association with unscrupulous men she may meet in her career may be her undoing. Six years of apprenticeship as a wife are a necessary prelude to live lihood earning, to his mind. The husband and wife have then ad justed their natures and tastes to each other. The standard is fixed. In other words, matrimony is a pre paratory school for livelihood earn ing. If the wife is a good student she may safely be graduated into > the world after six years. Mr. Boileau has the courage of his theory. The beautiful Miss tEmily Gilbert, whom he married six years ago, after she had been for a brief time his model, has changed her mind about being wholly satis fied with domestic life. When she was married she said: “Although I was preparing to go upon the stage, I am happy to be only a wife and a .housekeeper.” But she has grown restless in the well-ordered studio at No. 11 West Thirtieth street in New York and the Summer home at Douglaston, Long Islapd. "There' isn’t enough in my home to occupy my mind and time,” she says. “Mr. Boileau is one of those men wh’o is a natural housekeeper. He directs every thing as easily and smoothly as though he waved a wand and said ‘Presto,’ and it is done. We have no children and what could I do? Naturally, I thought of the preparation ana en couragement I had received at the dramatic school. I asked him what he thought of my going on the stage and to my delight he answered: ‘If you wish, Emily, certainly.’ If all husbands were so kind and broad minded as mine there would be few divorces and few unhappy wives.” Mr. Boileau is happy in having married his ideal. For years he had been winning fame by the Boileau girls he drew; tender, sweet, sym pathetic, the essence of delicate femininity. He met Miss Emily Gilbert and realized that ideal. She has had a strong influence upon his work in the six years since their marriage. Philip Boileau is one of the most picturesque of modern illustrators. The nephew of John C. Fremont, t who was called "The Pathfinder,” he is prouder of his own pathfind- <£> BY Philip 6« IL E''C.. Another Charming Boileau Picture for Which His Wife Was Model.