The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1911-10-31
EVENING CHAT
BY RUTH CAMERON

''In all that concerns eating and drink
ing. company, climate and ways OF life,
community of taste is to be sought for
1t would be trying, for instance. to keep
bed and board with an early riser or a
vegetarian. In matters of art and intel
lect I believe it is of no consequence.
For there are differences which no
habit nor affection can reconcile, and the
Bohemian must not inteTmarry with the
Pharisee. stevenson.
81 think we are well suited TO each
other because we are such exact op-
posites.'
So 1 heard woman say of herself and
her fiance.
In answer to my query as to how they
were opposites. she further explained
that he was light haired and she dark,
that he liked to read and she didn't that
she was fond of society and he was re-
weather and she warm, and several 9TH
er similar differences that l cannot re-
call
As to the effect of the contrast be-
tween light and dark hair on their matri-
monial happiness 1t would be difficult to
predict, but as to the effect OF the other
differences cited, should think the most
simple-minded could be an accurate
That is, unless he were blinded by that
most foolish and misunderstood of catch
words-''the attraction of opposites.'
1 think that the notion that the more
two people differ from each other, the
each other and be happy together. be-
cause of this law of attraction of on
posites, is a popular fallacy that does
Again and again I have heard people
refer to differences in taste and attitude
as likely to promote happy match-"it's
the attraction of oposites, you know"
If there is anything at all in the at
traction of oppoSiteS' it is, of course, in
the attraction between opposites in tenn
permanent.
It may be that the phlegmatic and the
highstrung, the even tempered and the
impatient the lover of action and the
conservative objection-raiser, the reserved
and the chatterer, get along we'll togeth-
er, although it has always seemed to me
that people of similar tenperaments are
quite as likely to understand and bear
with each other.
ever be regarded as a desirable condition
in the Siamese-twinship of marriage,
would be unbelievable if it were not so.
Similar tastes make similar interests.
And every interest which married folks
share is one more tie between them, one
more bond to counteract the rending
power of selfishness and Individual inter
ests and the natural tendency of all souls
towards isolation.
OF course, you may point me out two
people with widely diverging tastes who
apparently have happy married life
But I can show you a blind man who
will not think that he attained that posi-
ton because of his blindness, will youe
You will know that he has done what he
has in spite of his handicap, not because
of It,
I firmly believe that any two people
with widely diverging tastes and interests
are undertaking a mighty perilous voy-
age when they embark on the seas Of
matrimony together.
And I wish that that foolish catchword
THE attraction of opposites," could some
how be stricken from the language for
believe that a INSTRUMENTATION Of II has
caused more young folks to be mistaken
in regard to their fitness for each other
than we would like to reckon.