The Savannah morning news. (Savannah, Ga.) 1900-current, 1904-01-10
TAKING STOCK.
By Dorothy Dix.

s,srV business HldH So0S Se1i q "AtS 0NSA
~ possessions, listing, appraising,
I,assifving. advancing and deprecating
I,..i. worth. and valuing them by the
-orxet standards of the day. He calls
+ris taking stock. When he is
t,norgh and has balanced his ledger,
~ knows precisely where he stands
~ cash he has on hand, the assets
chat are available, the stocks that are
,,ortbless. what he has to hope and
,rbat to fear, where he may bluff, and
whore he will have to hedge.
With us, in America, the commercial
ond the inner life touch each other at
oyarv point, and 1 have often thought
.ha+ there would be less failures in
.ba world, and fewer of us would come
+o.sniritual bankruptcy if we would sit
quietly and calmly down, now and
,ban and take stock of ourselves ply
eically. mentally and morally. No
douht if would be disillusioning pro-
oass We should find out that good
many qualities that we have been in
+be habit of Valuing as gilt edge secu-
titles had no market value, but we
sbould be in a better shape to make
n success of life if we knew exactly
where we stood. 1t is just as silly to
On about rating ourselves as a million
aire of charms and graces, as it would
Cor a country store-keeper to imagine
himself a Wanamaker.
Women have a constitutional objec-
zion to facts that keep them always
dodging the truth, and just as they
avoid having their bank books bal
ancad for fear of finding out how lit
tie they have on deposit, so they are
never willing to consider dispassion-
etelv their faults and defects as we'll
as their virtues; yet, what an advan-
toqe il would be if only they could be
induced to take stock, and really what
canital they had on which to do bust
raes Suppose, for instance, instead
of deceiving herself as to her looks,
ON ugly woman would calmly face the
situation, and take an inventory of the
beauty that she lacks. Item one, an
ugly nose. Item two, a muddy COM
plexion. Item three, hay colored hair.
item four, non-descript eyes. Sum to-
tai hopeless plainness. No amount
of posing is ever going to make the
bebolder think her a Venus. Nothing
short of a miracle, which isn't going
10 occur, is going to change her into
a beatty; but is there any reason on
that account for her making an as
signment and going out of business in
society?
Not a bit of it. Having recognized
her deficiency, she is in a position to
make it good, as she never could have
done if she had gone on under the il
fusion that she was good looking. She
has to meet a deficit, so to speak, and
she does it, in the first place by ar
tistic dressing. Up to twenty-five
woman's looks depend upon her face.
After that it is ali a matter of clothes.
Half of the women who enjoy rep
utation for prettiness could prove an
albi in any beauty show. They mere
ly give a general impression of beauty,
and the beholder is too grateful to
them for it to go into details. Being
ugly, it is also imperative that she
should atone for her lack of pulehri-
tude by tact, charm of manner, intel
ligence and consideration for others.
TO keep the beautiful woman from
having monopoly of man, Providence
mercifully ordained that she should
have only one shot-her looks-in her
locker If that fails she is left without
weapon, whereas, the ugly woman
who is so charming that you forget
her LONELINESS, is the most fascinating
woman on earth.
What an infinitude Of labor, and
heart break, and disappointment it
would also save us if we could only
take stock of our talents, and scale
them down to what they would really
bring if thrown on the market The
most pathetic thing on earth are the
millions of women who are stalking
through their homes in Lady Mac
beth attitudes, under the illusion that
nature intended them for tragedy
queens instead of good housekeepers.
There is hardly a family in the land
that hasn't a skeleton in it's closet in
the shape of an unappreciated genius,
whose soaring soul scorns the humble
duties of life, and only finds it's true
expression in perpetrating realms of
slushy verse, and reciting "Curfew
Shall Not Ring Tonight" in a crack
ed-lce voice at church festivals. There
are women who go through life abso-
lutely useless, simply because they
have over-valued their talents, but
who might be converted into good
daughters, and wives, and mothers, if
they could only be convinced that their
poetry and acting isn't worth a cent a
square mile, and that their real forte
Is performing upon the cooking stove
instead of upon the Tyre or the stage.
1t IS the greatest pity, too, that
mothers so seldom take stock of their
chlIdren, and see just what they are,
ana What can be made of them. OF
course it is human and delightful, to
mink that all of our little Sallies and
Iommies, and JAMES, are geniuses,
nut our pleasure in the illusion is a
little apt to be married by the subse-
quent disappointments that we might
SO easily have saved ourselves if only
we had looked at them as they were,
instead of as we wish them to be.
We should think a merchant insane
ne had a store full of calico, and
rome spun, and pots and kettles, and
N taking stock he listed these useful,
9ut homely articles as point lace and
diamonds. We should say that he
might call common place things by fine
names until he died. but he would
never deceive the world into taking his
.pPalsement of them. We should know
mem for what they were. Yet, that
a. precisely what we do with our chill
oIeh We call their common place
;!q ordinary abilities by high sound
,i s names. We attribute to them quail
it gs lhey do not possess, and we de-
tboerately shut our eyes and won't see
bo a!n as they are, and try to make the
~, OF them on that basis.
why shouldn't a nathan IooIx her own