Daily capital journal. (Salem, Oregon) 1903-1919, 1913-12-20
BY DOROTHY DIX.

Among my acquaintaintances there
is dear little girl who is everything
that we sum up in the adjective, nice.
She belongs to nice refined family,
she has been nicely brought up. She s
lno beauty, but she's nice and pretty,
and wholesome looking, and she dress
es nicely and she has been taught not
only all the useful domestic accomplish
ments, but is fine musician and per-
forms equally well upon the gas range
and the piano.
This girl is exactly the sort Of girl
that every mother and sister would like
to see her son or brother marry She s
the very type of young woman to
make a good wife, but for some reason
that nobody can explain she dOesn t
attract men at all. She never has
beau. She is never invited to go any
place Of amusement by man and she's
left looking wistfully after the other
young people when they go trooping
off without her to have good time
Naturally, this distresses the girl very
much. She's young, and she Graves
the enjoyment that belongs to her time
of life, and she wants to know if there
is anything that she can do to take her.
self out of the wall-flower class, and
get into the bunch so to speak.
Of course nobody can really tell what
it is that attracts man to a maid. In
its essence it is that Elusive something
that we call personal magnetism, and
that is the gift of the gods.
Personal Magnetism.
We have all seen girls who were home.
ly and commonplace to the last degree,
who had neither conversation nor wit,
and yet men flocked about them as
bees about honey pot. We have seen
other girls beautiful, attractive, intel
lBouJj anu duOIu6u l4h6 OOlOulOu III Hi
his glory, that no man ever gave sec
ond thought to, and the explanation Of
the phenomenon lay in the fact that
one girl had that mysterious attractive
power for men, the come-hither look in
her eyes that draws men on, while the
other had it not.
Personal magnetism is the result Of
nature, not of cultivation, and yet a
girl can do much to make herself at
tractive to men, for, after all, men are
simple creatures and easily pleased.
Any girl with ordinary intelligence
can learn enough about the things men
care for to talk interestingly; she can
acquire the art of listening with an ex-
preston of absorbed interest while q
man talks to her, and unless she is an
utter fool she can lead a man to talk
about himself. So vast is human vanity
that every man or woman we meet with
in five minutes gives us a tip on his
or her peculiar weakness, and we have
only to follow that lead in order to
make ourselves agreeable to that par
ticular individual.
Most of the girls that have known
who never had beau had only them
selves to blame. They were girls that
terrified men by either being so self
conscious and shy that man had to do
all of The entertaining himself, or else
they were girls who were so monopolis-
tic that they made a man feel as if he
had been kidnapped, and was in danger
of being dragged to the altar by his
captor.
However, in case like that Of my
little fri friend who wants to have a
good time, and who is left out of all
the frolics Of the girls and boys about
her, the difficulty is squarely up to her
mother There isn't much that a girl
can do herself to help the situation, but
her mother can do everything.
What this girl needs, and the only
thing she needs, is opportunity, and that
her mother can give her, If her mother
will get busy giving the girl a series Of
little parties, she will force the other
girls to invite her daughter to their
parties, and the young men to pay her
attention.
Mothers to Blame.
The other boys and girls can't 90
off and leave Mable sitting at the win.
dow watching them if they have just
been entertained at Mable's house, or
are expecting to be entertained there.
Many girls social success rests on
basis of her mothers cakes and sand.
witches. If nothing for nothing is the
rule Of the world, it is equally true that
something for something always goes,
and we can always get what we want
If we pass the legal tender over the
counter.
Mothers can make or mar her daugh
tors popularity in society, and it is
well for them to remember that you can
make people fight for any Kind Of a
package of tea if you will give an at