Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1903-10-27
WOMEN AND COMMON SENSE.
A Writer Says It's the Rarest Combina-
ton in the World.

From the New Orleans Picayune.
The rarest combination in this world is
women and common sense. Women Of abil-
ity. of talent. Of genius even. are plentiful
as biackberries. but the woman who has
the supreme endowment Of calm and log
ical mind and who can see a subject just
as it is without prejudice, passion or fear.
is as scarce almost frost in June.
Not only do women seldom have any COM
mon sense, but they do not desire to have
any. 1t is not a virtue that appeals to
them and it disconcerts them when any
body calls on them to meet situation with
reason instead of Mysteries. 1t comes by
nature to them to be self-sacrificing. ten
der to suffer-the more unjustly the bet
ter-but when they face situation shorn
OF heroics and only needing good, hard
common sense to deal with 1t. they feel
themselves at a disadvantage. They are
out of their running.
Yet the need of the world Is for common
sense. 1t is automatically true that half
of the tragedies of life. and most of the
troubles, we make for ourselves because we
persist In looking at things from every
point of view except the practical one. This
is true of men as well as women. but
women are the greatest offenders. The
rough and-tumble fight Of life knocks some
sort of common sense into even the most
visionary of men, while women. from the
sheltered nook of their own fresides. bland
~ continue to look out upon Il life of theor-
les Instead Of facts.
l. Tradition and custom alike have con-
spired to foster this weakness in women. 1t
is taken for granted that they will be IL
logical and unreasonable and that they will
burst Into tears and swoon when the time
for cisive action arrives. and that they
will generally be guided by their hearts in
stead of their heads. And women encour-
bi.. hnx t. l.
ing thought artistic. intellectual, poetic
aesthetic. but 1t seems to them almost bru-
tally unfeminine for a woman to be sensi-
bile. They look upon her with the suspicion
they feel toward woman who doesn't
wear corsets, and who has the nerve to re-
fuse to be held up by professional beggars.
They feel that there is something unnatural
and uncanny about her. She may be all
right. but she's peculiar.
To this inability to look at things from
practical standpoint may be attributed
woman's talent for borrowing trouble. She
never waits for sorrow to come to her. She
goes forth to look it up. and If she doesn't
have any of her own she assumes that of
her friends. Above all. she anticipates. II
her children are well she agonizes over
what she would suffer If they were Ill;
while her boys are I'm rounda bouts she be-
gins worrying over the dangers Of college
life: while her girls are still babies she Is
miserable. thinking how unkind their pos
Sible husbands may be to them. In Mr.
Dixons new novel he tells about a man who
had carved over the mantel in the library
this sentence: Il am old and / have had
much trouble. but most of 1t never hap
pened." No woman would have ever adopt
ed that for her motto. and she couldn't
have lived up to it If she had. She has
plenty of troubles and the troubles that
never happened troubled her more than the
ones that did
The folly of making love the whole feast
of life. instead of merely side dish. Is an
other feminine misfortune that is the direct
result of woman's inability to see things as
they are. To love and be loved perfectly
are the two supreme happinesses that fate
can bestow upon u.s. but because one misses
either one of these good things. or both, is
no more reason for making ones self mis-
cradle than 1t Is to starve to death because
one can't AFFORD terrapin and champagne.
Without doubt, one prefers the banquet to
the frugal table d hote, but one may dine
comfortably on roast beef and beer, and
even tea and toast are not to be despised IL
one can get nothing else
There Is so much in life besides love-so
many interests and amusements, so much
work to do, so many rewards to gain-that
| 1t seems incredible that q woman could let
| the mere fact that she was overlooked by
| men wreck her happiness. yet how many
| bitter and sour old maids have we known.
| who might have found solace, one would
! have thought, In merely contemplating
| their married friends domestic infelicities
| and rejecting that it was. at least better
| to be lonely than 1t was to be bulldozed.