The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1905-09-02
Of Interest
TO Women.

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NsSS%$<sSsS~$@sSs
The Girl With The Red Hair had
been gazing off into space with an ex-
preston of dreamy abstraction for ten
or fifteen minutes. When she "came
out of it" in response to a general de-
mand, it was to ask: do you think
there's anything in this theory that the
cold, naughty, disdainful beauty is so
attractive to men? They crack them
up to surpass the orchestra in books,
but in real life I haven't noticed them
doing the Cleopatra stunt to any great
extent. They sound good in novels,
too. Maybe it's because the styles SO
utterly different from mine, but there
was always something irresistibly
fascinating to me about Edith
that her name Pin Dombey & Son,
so chilly and proud and beautiful and
indifferent, who went about scorning
the world and herseIf-most of all her
self and her loneliness and treating
every man who came near her as
though hewere the dust under her feet.
OF course I know better than to as
sumo the pose for which I'm not suit
ed, but I've always had a sneaking
longing to be like Edith and trample
on hearts looking all the time as if it
We're matter of the supremest indif-
ference to me whether my French
heels planted themselves upon a mans
neck or a common fuzzy caterpillar.
Then there was Lady Pippinworth
or something; I can't remember
names-in Tommy and Grizel. You
recall her? She was very tall and in
credibly thin but instead of looking
thin she had the irritating gift of max
ing every other woman look thick and
clumsy. If she hated a woman all she
had to do was to go and stand beside
her. She had extremely long eyelashes
which had a trick of getting tangled
and made man long to help extri-
M we g n 1Nfi FIJI hI1f
she looked helpless and disdainful and
1T was said no man could move her
and so they were all dying to try. Her
husband proposed to her in a fit of
p1que because she sneered at his fam
lily portraits and poor Tommy met an
ignominious death chasing after her
because she looked him over scornfully
and said too fat!'
have always been perfectly mad
about her but do you know I have
suspicion that in real life a woman of
that sort wouldn't break SO many
beauties. myself, but they don't seem
to make such a hit. Indeed, unless
they're SO exalted in station so that
their very position exactS a certain
amount of homage. they're usually
neglected and forlorn. I have one in
mind right now: she's one of the pref
test girls in town; she's rich and tai
ented and her family is excellent, but
she's probably the most unpopular girl
in Topeka. And all because she goes
about with her nose in the air and
won't take the trouble to make her
self agreeable to anybody. If she
would only unbend little and jolly up
she might be one of the most popular
girls in town. AS it is, 1 don't think
she's ever had more than one sutton
and she treated him so like a dog that
she finally lost him.
After all who are the popular girls
AZ F.n-f
jolliers? I honestly believe that that
gifts worth more to a woman than
beauty, style, money. brains or any
ng else. Men in books seem to be
Ed1nerent but the men one really meets
don't wear their lives out worshipping
at the shrine of some cool divinity
who never looks at them. Indifference
is much touted quality and it no
doubt comes, into good play at a later
stage OF the game but the thing that
gets a man going on first acquaintance
is an animated interest in him and his
affairs Willingness to listen to and
laugh at his stories and to respond
enth usiastically to his suggestions.
After that if a girl is good natured,
happily disposed, and generally avail
able, she'll never need grieve on ac-
count OF masculine neglect
20 Well popularity" said the Old
Girl, what does it amount to after
all? Sometimes think it's a doubtful
sort of success and that for a girl to
have lot of men tagging after her
isn't so much of a compliment after
That's good from yoa," retorted the
Debutante, I'D like to know where
you'll find anyone with more dangIers
than you--and it's been going on for
you're the one to sheer at popularity"
We'll. " replied the Old. Girl, 'it's not
my fault started out wrong, I sup
pose, but after I'd wasted six or seven
in the ctxy1a ~i,.I
loafers, having one love affair after
another and hearing myself reported
engaged to two or three different men
in year got tired of it. 1t happened
that L had an opportunity to try
change of scene just about that time
and went away for years visit de-
termined to cut out frivolity and lead
the Higher Life. l had thought it all
out and decided there was nothing to
it. The incest girl gets herself more or
less talked about if she keeps up that
sort of a gait. don't-mean seriously
or harshly but just the sort of uncom-
plimentary comment that her useless,
purposeless existence calls forth. 1t
isn't an admirable career or a worthy
one and girl realizes it if she is capa-
BILE of anything better.
when one gets started in that way
in the town where she's always lived
it's hard to change but this protracted
visit seemed to offer me an opportunity
to chuck the whole business and do
something worth while. I was about
twenty-four then and I was thoroughly
sick of wasting my time. I decided to
study, to learn something, to accom-
plish something. So I went in for
settlement work-awfully hackneyed,
know. All the girls do it nowadays
when they're disappointed in love or
make a failure of the society stunt
But I couldn't think of anything else.
I found however, that it wasn't so diff
ferent from the other role. That is,
there We're still men and if one wanted
them one had plenty of opportunities
for flirtations. But didn't. / had de-
cided to Live My Own Life (whatever
that may mean. People always use
the expression under those circum-
stances, thought and I assumed an at
titude discouraging to anything of the
sort