Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1906-12-06
Get Out Of Ruts.

Women. beware of ruts! They are the
stumbling block Of our sex-the pitfall
wherein has languished many a noble as
piration, many brilliant talent that might
otherwise have filled its owners life.
Oddly enough. most ruts are merely the
result of good qualities being carried too
far. Criminals are rarely unprogressive
along their own particular lines; if they
were they'd soon cease to exist.
The woman who sinks into a domestic
rut Is really the victim of her own sense
of duty. She neglects her back hair, wears
frayed shoelaces and leaves the pages of
the last magazine uncut in her determine
ton to make her house a TIT abode for
her husband, then defeats her own end by
her lack of companionableness.
There's the woman who gets into an In
tellectual rut. She has all of Maeterlinck' S
theories at her fingers ends; she really I'M
derstands the situation at Panama; she can
even do long division with six figures at
pinch. Yet, after all, she is a dead failure.
She never seems to realize that these
nuggets of wisdom would not be less val
liable for an attractive setting. She can
not comprehend why Rosa Jones, who
went to school with her and always paid
as much attention to her stocks as she did
to natural philosophy, should be the re-
cipient of the attention of extraordinarily
society a second time. By and by she con-
soles herself with the conviction that
really brainy women are shut of from
most companionship because their true
worth is misunderstood, and she sinks a
little deeper into the rut that really has
been her undoing.
There's the woman who gets into a reli-
gious rut, and she's most difficult one to
deal with, for 1t seems to smack something
of irreverence to take a woman to task
for saying her prayers too much.
All the same. she's in a rut. She wouldn't
stay home from church If the skies fell or
han Ia hnr loo f6a hao Of ho
house developed appendicitis. She thinks
1t wrong to read certain books on Sunday,
and nobody would mind If she didn't read
them herself and would let other people
alone; but that isn't her way. She doesn't
mean to be selfish, or carping, or unchari-
table, or boring, but she's every one Of
these things, and more also. and it's all
because she has got into a rut.
There's the woman who has got into the
rut of her work. 1t may be very nice work
very interesting, up to a certain point to
her fellow beings, but it has it's limitations
Perhaps she Is an artist. She talks color
schemes and high lights and perspective,
with her collar under one ear and the dust
on her tea table even more than artisticaly
thick; and should your features wax re-
bellious she is convinced that you have no
soul.
Or she may be a musician who can rhap-
sodize over naught but harmony and coun-
terpoint; or a business woman whose heart
is tuned to additions alone; or dress
maker whose world is bounded by tucks,
gathers, seams and cores. 1t doesn't make
any difference what the work is. you have
no right to let 1t make you narroW-to put
you into rut
your hand has found to do; do your best
in the circle that is specially yours, but
don't forget there are other things in the
world; don't look down on the people who
believe, don't want the things you want.
Beware of ruts!