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At One Stroke She Solved the Problem of Living Apart,
Supporting Herself and Humiliating Mr. Sheffield
W HEN a husband is behaving badly it is not always
easy for a wife to punish him. If the wife does not
happen to have independent means of her own it is
not convenient to leave him—or if she sees a way to take
care of herself it may be a satisfaction to him rather than a
punishment if she leaves him. It has remained for Mrs.
Justus Sheffield, of New York, to find a way to solve all
three problems at one stroke—to leave her husband's uncon
genial presence, to support herself and little daughter
and to “get even” with Mr. Sheffield in a way he doesn’t
relish This she accomplished by writing a novel, the sale
of which is paying her living expenses, and her portrayal of
her own husband as a conspicuous character in the book
has made him furious.
• HE Golden Hollow” is the name of a little
novel which has accomplished three results
—it has enabled the writer to live apart from
an uncongenial husband, its sales have paid her living
expenses, and the characterization of one of the per
sonages in the book has extremely annoyed the hus
band. Mrs. Justus P. Sheffield, the wife of a New York
lawyer, is the author of the book. She is now living
in Short Hills, N. J., with her child.
“I might as well tell you,” said Mrs. Sheffield, “what
brought about the final separation between Mr. Shef
field and me. He sent a telegram up to New London,
the day before Christmas, three years ago, saying that
he was coming on Christmas Day, but would bring no
money and make no provision for the children’s
Christmas. At the time he had money for taxicabs
and seats at the opera. We had two children then.
“In spite of his non-provision for the kiddies’ Christ
mas I had a tree, which my women friends fixed for
us, with gifts on it for Mr. Sheffield, which the chil
dren had made, and one of my own verses framed,
which read:
LIFE’S AUTOMOBILE.
When the world is out of kilter,
And the running gear’s askew,
Tighten up your grit a little,
And you’ll surely buck it through.
—RENA CARY SHEFFIELD.
“Mr. Sheffield arrived Christmas Day, not armed
with good holiday cheer or wishes, but with a legal
paper drawn by himself, which he spent the entire day
trying to force me to sign.
"When I refused to sign this paper he tormented me,
and threatened to turn me out into the streets unpro
vided for, with my two children. As a clincher, hoping
to force my hand, he said he had decided to put Bar
bara on the stage in child parts to earn money for him.
Barbara w*as not four at the time.”
Mrs. Sheffield’s book takes the form of a series of
imaginary letters written by "Babs” to a sympathetic
friend and confidant. “Captain Calderwood.” In this
series of heart-exposing letters is frequent mention of
a character named Mac. It is in this character of Mae
that Mr. Sheffield declares he sees a mirror of himself,
though distorted, and he has asked the publishers of
the book to stop printing it.
Early in the book Babs writes in one of her letters:
“Why am I unhappy? A case of diametrical opposi
tion. Mac’s mind is unusual and brilliant, but, some
how, he does not understand. He cannot understand
anything that is not built upon geometrical lines and
backed by logic. Life to him is a simple and pleasure-
able adjustment of facts, not necessarily corelated—just
facts. Life to me is an algebraic problem, X equalling
the unknown mystery of-things. I stand in awe of logic
and I never was gyod at equations, so I doq»'t get any
further than the doorstep of Mac’s mind, and I sit
there like a child tvho has been locked out all unknow
ingly. It is the lonely little spirit of me waiting in
the darkness—and 1 am afraid!”
Not a promising outlook for per
manence in marriage, and we are not
surprised to come in a later letter
hpon this in the book:
“To-night there is a dinner and I
am hostess. Long ago Cornelia gave
me that honor, as she does not like
to preside. At the last dinner party
Mac slipped into the dining room and
changed the place cards. He thought
I might find the man on my left too
interesting. Mac guards me from
what he considers temptations. I am
always put with the chauffeur on any
motor trip if there happens to be a
goodlooking man along. Just how
he reconciles it with his manners I don’t sec Peo
ple attribute it to his eccentricities.
Things are moving backward with Babs and Mac, ac
cording to a speedily following letter:
“It is a sombre me who is writing you to-night.
Mac’s last sally into stocks went up like a rocket, with
an alluring spray of gold that vanished, and the stick,
when’ it fell, struck home. He is game tosjthe end,
though, and goes about as usual. One cou.'d uot lieip
admiring him, if it were in a worthier cause. The
children go about on tiptoe and ask innumerable ques
tions.
“I have begun sorting over the household things. Mac
won’t tell me just how far he is involved, but 1 surmise
it is more than a little. I wish I could care for him,
for I want to stand by him now, but 1 don’t care. He
is such a bully. He takes so much tor granted. He is
unsympatnetic and unreasonable. He has shown for
months that we are going to the wall, yet he hasn’t
drawn in on his extravagances nor changed his mode
of living. He seems almost to have dared the gods to
do their worst.”
In a letter written by Babs is this:
I am caught up witii the storm. No suggestions of
mine are tolerated. It's his affair, he says, and he in
tends to run it to the last. He is like a drunken cap
tain that knows his channel, but cannot keep it. yet
refuses to give up the command. I am waiting breath
lessly for the crash. It is nearly upon^us.
“The Japanese butler stir opens the door with much
ceremony to the casual visitor, and a chef
turns out marvels of epicurean art from al
most nothing, and a French maid buttons
and unbuttons my frocks that are beginning
to grow a little shabby. But yesterday the
gas was turned off. To-day they discontin
ued the telephone service. The circle is
narrowing. Soon I shall be like the boy
that stood on the burning deck, whence all
but him had fled.”*
The story of growing poverty and a side
light on Mac’s personality is shown in these
words:
“His library has increased amazingly in
the past years. Its hundreds of volumes
that filled the shelves when I first came
now run into thousands, most of them de luxe and
very charming. The editions retain their worth intact
and, I might add, appreciate in value, as he seldom
takes them down except to exhibit them to some ad
miring or inquiring connoisseur, and the pages are
still, nearly all of them, uncut.
“There was a rap at the door. The servants stood
there an angry, righteous mob. ‘We want our money,’
they demanded.
“Mac smoothed the backs of his thin hands. He
calmly looked the servants over.
“‘I have no money,’ he said, finally. 'I don’t see
that you are so badly off. Haven't I "fed you for
months and provided a roo^ over your heads? You are
unreasonable. I have no money. How can I give it to
you if I haven’t any?’
“ ‘Sell the rich things in the house and pay us off,
rejoined the butler. ‘If you don't we”l stay right on
till you do.’
"Mac shifted his position.
“‘You are welcome to remain if you like,’ he said.
To-morrow we leave for the country. I shut up the
house. If you stay you starve.’
“I took up Kipling’s ballads. Mac resumed his
study of the book catalogues.
“‘Are your hands clean?’ lie questioned me. glancing
out over the pages he was perusing. ‘Yes,’ 1 answered.
‘I try to keep them so!’
“ I fid you wash them before or after dinner?'
“ ‘Before dinner.’
“ ‘Well, go and wash them again, if you are going to
read that book.’ ,
“I complied with good-humored tolerance.”
Toward the end of the book the author gives a snap
shot of Mac’s personal appearance. “His light hair
hung very flat across his forehead.”
That, the residents of Short Hills remember, was
characteristic of the vanished Justus Sheffie'd. He
was very tall and thin and pale, even to his hair, which
Mrs. Justus F. Sheffield,
Above—Miss Barbara Sheffield, Whose
Parents Quarrelled About Her Going on
the Stage. To the Left—Mr. Justus Shef
field, Who Resents the Resemblance of
“Mac” to Himself.
was thin and lay flat upon his head. Mrs. Sheffield
confided once to a visitor to Short Hills that he was so
“tall and pale and forlorn looking” that she married
him because he “needed somebody to take care of him.”
The handsome author has said but little about the
book and the identity of its characters. But she has
admitted that much in her novel grazes the truth, and
that this passages embraces it: "I could hear Mac dis
coursing on the respective merits of music at the other
end of the table.
“ ‘It's this way,’ he was saying. ‘When I don’t like
an opera I keep going to it over and over again, that I
may discover why I don’t like it.’ ”
That Justus Sheffield was an inveterate opera fre
quenter admits no denial. “I
didn’t dislike music, but I did
not care enough for opera to go
with him to hear it six times a
week,” is his wife’s retrospect.
In the novel Mac and Barbara
split upon the rock of her
charge that he had lived for
years upon her money. That
Mrs. Sheffield says is mere
novelist’s license, a needed
climax. The climax came in
the affairs of the Sheffields, so
the author-wife will state in
court, when her husband pro
posed to place their six-year-
old daughter, Barbara, on the
stage to increase the family in
come. Indignant, Mirs. Shef
field left their home.
In the book Babs says it in this
way: “I am saying to the man on my
left, ‘Yes, we have seats for the opera
as usual this Winter. Mac adores it
and 1 always go because I want to
please nim. I don’t care as much for
music as he does. I get so tired
hearing ovef and over a lot of
people I ’don’t know screaming about
a lot of things I don’t care about in
a language I don’t understand.’
That sounds raw. doesn't it”?
Who Wrote a Book to Punish Her Husband and
Replace His Support.
Mrs. Sheffield, as all her friends know, is essen
tially domestic. She craves the simple life, and even
in these days of feminine unrest finds it eminently
satisfying. She makes Babs, her other self, say:
“How I long to live a plain life, witfi my folderol
sewing, and my books, and bother my head over
menus, and a daily husband.. Mac would be an inter
mittent one. Good night to you. I want to cry.”
Her mood is a purple one in a succeeding letter
for she writes: “I pictured myself dead, and the earT
being shovelled down upon me, and I hoped they woul
arrange my hair becomingly and not ask a lot c
people. I hoped Mac would not wear black. He in r
tall and fair, and black is unsuited to him.”
Nor does she share "Mac's” liking for golf, ..
his method of playing it.
“Mac is so carefully consistent in his score that •
don’t even dare think a shot without counting it. No
golf for me. I always seem to be holding up every one
and never getting anywhere—just standing around
while they .shout themselves hoarse yelling ‘Fore’ at
me. No golf for me. It makes me feel like a country
without any boundaries. Jacques says that’s exactly
what I am, ‘a country without any boundaries.’
Babs refused her suitor twice, but accepted him the
third time. For this she gives her reason, shedding
some light on the continually recurring question, Why
Joes a woman say ‘No’ when she means ‘Yes’?
“A man should have three chances, I think. The first
time he asks you to marry him he is carried away by
his own ardor. The second time he feels he must make
good. But if he asks the third time it’s safe.”
/
Some Very New and Curious Fashion Novelties to Be Seen in Paris
Paris, Nov. *24.
I T'S the silhouette that counts now
adays. The outline is the main
point, and if the sleeves arc, not
just right how can you get anything
that looks correct? How can you carry
out the idea of skirt and over-skirt
unless you study the sleeves, and
what sleeves there are? They are
kimonoesque, and yet there is a dif
ferent touch. The sleeve is loose,
and yet it is caught up* in various
ways, making the task of the dress-
makef more difficult. But the effect
is far better than has been seen for
years.
But the most interest
ing and novel feature's of
the latest creations are
the collars and vests. /
These exquisite com
binations are charming,
and—what is far more
to the point—new. The
edict has been issued:
“You must go with neck
exposed. No more high
collars under any pre
text!” Some of the col
lars lie far back from
the neck, Japanese
style. The head looks
like a blos
som issu
ing from its
calyx, and
this calyx
is made up
of tulle
and e m-
b r o i dered
laces. But
styles are
sometimes contradic
tory, and we see also
some Medician collars
of very fine lace rising
behind the neck.
The vests are all
colors, all embroidered
and of greater variety
than ever. They are
slipped into the robes,
or appear under the
reers, reaching down
even to the waist.
The cuffs are very long,
even falling over the hands,
but some are made with rows
of tulle or fine lace in con
centric rows.
But the greatest attention
is being given now to the de
tails and the foibles of the
toilette, especially in connec
tion with afternoon and even
ing gowns.
The Persian tunics arc not
kept stiff any more with
metal, but they have been
made more beautiful and
practical by adding a
simple border of fur. When
these tunics are made of
different colored tulle, em
broidered in silver or gold,
over a black and j&kite
skirt, or even white tulle
over a skirt of violet tint,
they are wonderful in ef
fect and quite in perfect
taste.
For the theatre and din
ner in a restaurant the
English style, has won a
real victory, for even in
the most modest _ music
hall a stylish woman may
show herself
fully decollete
and without a
hat. This means
c o n s i d e rable
progress from the point of view of
elegance; in a stylish restaurant or
at a private reception, there is a
kind of homogeneity now which did
not exist fifteen years ago.
Jewels will play a leading role this season in even
ing toilettes. At the opera or even when attending
receptions we shall wear diadems, dog-collars and
sunbffrsts without stopping to inquire whether the
occasion permits them or not. Magnificence is to
be the rule all Winter.
The leading jewellers have found ways and means
to design diadems for every head, making them so
graceful that no woman can withstand them, even
Copyfaght, 1913,
for a family dinner. But
do not think that gems
are any cheaper. But
every one must have jewels,
no matter whether they can
be afforded or not. How they
gif them and what they are no
one knows—but
they have them.
As to pearls, as
every one can
not wear them on
account of their
fabulous cost, it
is now admissi
ble to use good
imitations, not
too large, giving
very fine effects
on dark gowns.
But no one wears
false diamonds—
that is the law.
They may be replaced by
rhine-stones which light
up a gown splendidly, but
are not intended to im
pose upon any one.
As to rings and chains, it
seems impossible to wear
too many and the fan has
its chain as well as the
lorgnette. Even the rings
have fine chains running
up to the bracelet, giving
a very odd effect.
Veils and bandeaus are
worn in tremendous va
riety, and almost any way that suits the
wearer. Head-dreses are more fantastic
than ever before, possibly because of the
banishment of the hat. 8
The cloak and shawl are to play leading
parts in the boxes of the opera and theatre ff
this season. It is quite the thing to sit
against the background of a magnificent
velvet coat, or even a silk one. The latest
thing this year is the shawl. It is the latest “cry” with
the sticklers for “chic” to wear a shawl, falling to a point
on the back and running down low, with the ends short in
front, crossing and pinned at the waist, or falling to the
finger-tips.
These shawls are made of the most magnificent ma
terials—damask, velvet, gold and silver brocades, and
even broad-tail, in all materials, even
the heaviest. All are bordered with
broad bands of fur, either of sable or
skunk.
Otter, being a little flat, is used only
for square collars, falling over the
shoulders and making a seeming sleeve.
A small scarf, ehaped and made of
ermine, bordered with white moire, is
a masterpiece of arch coquetry, worthy
of the shoulders of a capricious, Du
Barry.
The extremely high price of furs ex
plains this tendency. A cloak of ermine
does not cost less than four thousand
dollars, a mink coat costs three thou
sand, a chinchilla two thousand and a
tine coat of sable, the queen of furs,
twenty thousand dollars. Last year
Ida Rubinstein ordered one at this
price.
The materials out of which the
gowns are made are sumptuous, in
deed almost royal in their magnifi
cence. They are embroidered anil
decked with splendor, but are not
si iff as formerly. On the contrary,
they are marvels of modern work
manship, being soft and clinging, as
if they were muslin. Draped and
redraped, they are truly Oriental in
style, but more deli
cate than before.
We shall not see
the high girdles of
a few months past,
but more drap
ing over the hips,
with straight gpr-
dles, made of me
tallic materials, rib
bon wound into
ropes, or even gar
lands of flowers,
one below the
other.
The skirts are
formed of folds of
China crepe or very
light silk, with some
times a rose in full
blossom embroidered
on it.
by the Star Company. Great Britain Rights Reserved.