The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1917-11-15
DOROTMY DIX TALKS
By DOROTHY DIX
Worlds Highest Paid Woman Writer.
The Rough Diamond.

as she SltS- she eats ike savage
She does not even understand the
proper use of a handkerchief, and she
lacks all the little refinements and
daintiness that one thinks of as being
instructive with women.
In spite of all this the young man
is still fascinated with the girl, and
he wants to know if there is any way
in which she may be taught the con-
ventional usages of good society and
to conduct herself in a refined man
ner.
OF course there is. The one remedy
for a case like this is for the girl to
be taken away from her family and
sent to some good school where they
make a speciality of polishing up rough
diamonds. Or, if the girl is too old to
go to school the same end could be
attained by putting her in the care OF
some gentleWoman who would teach
her the bearing and manners OIL
lady.
All of this would be a process ex-
| ceedingly painful to the subject, now
ever, and it could only be successful II
the girl realized her derlciencles anu
was eager and anxious to correct
them. There have been innumerabIe
instances of girls whose early lives hao
! been spent in the backWooos, or
among rude and uncultured people
who have gone into finishing Sehools
| Doors and come out of them the glass
! of fashion and the mould OF form.
But these were girls who We're VIII
! ing to sacrifice their vanity on the al
| tar of their progress, who begged 10
have their faults pointed out I III ~ lin
to correct them, and VINO suooroln-
| ated their conceit OF themselves ~
| their ambition. tt
| Women are initiative by nature II
does not take them long TO chdhSe
| from being chambermaids to coun-
Ni0lr accent,
| latest way of doing things. rms MAKES
| it possible for Cinderella to be ner own
| fairy godmother and change herSSiA
| from the kitchen drudge to the pelie
of the ball in the tWlnkhng OIL an eye
| if she makes up her mind to perform
this miracle. But the important th1hS
| is that she desire to change ana pc
/ come the princess.
| Certainly it does not indicate that
| girl has much power of observation or
! much ambition if she has permitted
| herself to grow up with clownish man
ners in the midst of a modern city
where she is presented with communal
object lessons of the way in which
people of intelligence and refinement
| dress and conduct themselves.
| But why in a world full of pearls
| of girls, should a young man pick out
this rough diamond for a Wlfe! OF
| one thing he may be sure and that is
| that if her manners CRATE on his SEN
| sibility before he is married to her,
| they will be intolerable when he has
| to contemplate them every day.
1t is the little peculiarities of those
with whom we live that get upon our
| nerves, so that the way that some one
always clears his throat before
speaking, or the noise that another
makes as she drinks her coffee or the
| eternal creak of anotherS shoes, or
the perpetual shifting of another be-
| comes harder to forgive than would
| nj actual
| If she committed half the sins on
/ the calendar she would not be so
| loathsome to a scrupulously tubbed
and scrubbed, neat man as is dirty
and slovenly wife, nor are a man s
| spotted morals any more repulsive to
a dainty woman than a man who drib-
bles soup and gravy over his clothes as
| he eats.
Therefore. it is well for both men
| and women to save themselves as
| much domestic establishment as
possible by at least picking out as
life companions those who have been
trained in the amenities of civiliza
ton. Thus do they preserve them
| selves from having their senSibili-
| ties unduly lacerated and from pre-
cipitating a state of civil warfare on
their firesides.
For experience shows that the one
| thing that neither husband nor wife
/ takes kindly from the other is criti-
cism of personal peculiarities. This
is easily comprehended, for both hus-
| band and wife like to think that each
is an ideal to the other, that each ex-
lists surrounded by an aura of roman
1 tic perfectness to the other, and this
fond delusion is shattered into smith
Greens the minute husband begins to
tell wife that she does not know how
to use her fork properly, and that real
! ladies, such as he has been accuS-
/ toned to- don't perform certain rites
nf in M XX-h 80
/ corrects husbands grammar, or tells
him that gentlemen don't do thus and
so.
Moreover, those who marry the
rough diamond husbands or wives
with a view to polishing them up run
another risk that is extremely dan
gerous. And that is the danger of
| their pride.
Love can stand a great many things,
but it is very seldom strong enough
to survive being ashamed of its OBJ
ject, and there is little domestic happi-
ness in those homes where the man
/ bushes for his wife, or the woman for
the husband.
And, curiously enough, people are
more often ashamed of silly little
things than they are of big ones. A
man is more mortified by his wife be-
ing ill dressed, and awkward in her
manner, and rough of speech, of her
not knowing how to hold her own So
! cially than he would be if she had
some serious defect of character. A
woman bushes more for her husband
looking and acting like a boor than
she would if he had committed a
) crime. She would almost as soon he
would murder a man as to murder
} the kings English.
: On the other hand, pride is the
hand maiden of affection. The man
who is proud of his wife, who likes
, to show her off, who finds his chief
pleasure in making a show window
of her in which to exhibit his pros
: perity, is ever the adoring husband.
And the woman who lives in her
husbands career, who thinks him the
wisest, cleverest. handsomest man on
earth. and who likes to flaunt him in
. | the faces of her friends is the wife
who has found marriage a success.