The Birmingham age-herald., 1913-07-19
TOUCHING A VERY OLD QUESTION
Bx DOLLY DALRYMPLK

, only had the courage to reach cut and
get it, what will happen? Please tell me
what you think about it, won't your
What think about it, my unknown cor
respondent, is very different from the hys-
terra that impressed you in the play.
1, too, saw the play and remember it
well.
An emotional actress with effective
lights, soft music and trailing, satiny
gowns is apt to confuse ones ideas of
duty with the stage version of love.
We hear a great deal these days about
duty and happiness and love.
Most of the happiness we are given TO
infer from the modern playwright's idea,
comes when a woman, to use your own
phrase:
HAS the courage to reach out and take
what is her own.
on the stage the curtain falls before
the experiment has been proved.
Her head is on his shoulders, and the
rest of the world may attend to Its own
business.
That is all very we'll and good; on the
other side of the footlights-but in the real
world-love is not the end and aim OF all
existence, for it cannot exist without the
doing of duty.
Neither, so far as that is concerned, is
| happiness.
| I've "harped" so often on this SUBJ
ject that | hardly dare say anything
else, but as I've often said before, there
never was man or woman VINO
started out on a still hunt for hap
piness that achieved even stolid con
tent.
Happiness is stray little cat that
creeps in when nobody is looking, and
| the place she likes best to take up her
above is about a hearth ilfumined by
an honest family affection, where love
is sacrifice and tenderness, and not the
blue flame brand, behind an asbestos
Theatrical curtain.
| 1t occurs to me that if the man you
love, my unknown correspondent, really
| loves you with the affection that Will
| last to a golden wedding day, he must
have something radically wrong with
his mind If he thinks that you could be
happy, cut off from all of your family,
who need you, even II he rewards you
with all the devotion and material
things, that life can give.
Again
| If he loved you it seems to me that
! the first thing he'd wpnt to do would
| be to help you do your duty toward
those you care for.
| Your father is lonely and needs you.
In spite of modern cynicism, we owe
everything to our fathers and mothers.
The voice of conscience cries out and
will not let us sleep in peace If we
neglect our filial duty; that is, If we are
the right kind.
You owe 1t to yourself not to ignore
the responsibilities of your orphaned
sisters and baby brother who need your
guidance and gentle influence now more
| than at any ether period of their lives.
In short
If were you net "all the kings
horses nor all the kings men" could
| make me marry man whose idea of
happiness was rooted on such rock of
selfshness as the one about whom you
write.
Love on the stage may be able to JUS
| tify itself, but l.fe, life is long. LONG
| read and we are often alone with our
own thoughts.
| 1t is always a comfortable thing 20
| be able to review the parts of the road
we have passed over, without regret or
| rel morse.
| Besides this. the right kind of hap
piness doesn't ever keep any one from
doing their duty to the utmost
| It adds more cares. maybe but, as
"the stranger said fn that wonderful
story of Mr.. Jerome's;
Love goes all the way"