The Washington herald. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1906-1939, 1917-07-26
DIVIDENDS OF LIFE.
By DOROTHY DIX.
The Worlds Highest Paid Woman Writer.


After all, life is just a sporting
proposition and we get out Of the
game just what we put into II.
II we 20 at It with enthusiasm.
energy and interest 1t pays a hun
dred per cent dividend, but II we go
at It slackIy, listlessly. half-heart.
eddy, It bankrupts us. Which ex-
plains why some people are happy
and successful while others are miser-
able failures.
In reality we all have pretty much
the same raw materials out Of which
to build our destiny. Most Of us
get married. Most Of US have
children. Most of US work for our
daily bread, and whether out of these
conditions of existence We extract Joy
or sorrow depends not upon some I'M
scrutable fate, but upon ourselves.
Take friendship. for instance. We
are always hearing people complain
that they have no friends, that no one
cares for them and that the world
Is a selfish place where there
is no such thing as disinterest-
ed affection. Such a wall is an
indictment OF the individS4l who
utters 1t and not of the balance of
humanity. Such one Is getting out
OF the game just what he puts into
it.
When people tell you that they
nave no friends II Is proof positive
mat they are not friendly themselves.
when they tell you that no one
cares whether they live or die 1t
Is because in all their miserable,
selfish, self centred lives they have
nAVer dnnA Nvo
heart to them. They have never gone
to man in financial trouble and offer
ed him enough money to tide him over
hard place. They have never sent
load Of coal to a poor widow, or
paid her rent. They have never given
struggling boy or girl a hand up
the ladder, or taken a child to a
circus. Why should anyone love them?
Oh the contrary you never see an
individual who has been generous and
sympathetic and helpful, and who has
let no opportunity pass to show his
or her interest and affection In his
or her fellow creatures, who lacks
for friends. The secret Of popularity
Is no secret at all. 1t is Just taking
out Of the game what you put into
It. II you want to be loved you
must make yourself Iovable. II YOU
want to bind people TO you, you can
do 1t with strings of kindly deeds.
The magnet that draws all other
hearts to US consists in having a great
big human heart ourselves.
Whether We get happiness or misery
out of marriage depends also entirely
on our attitude toward II. Nobody but
a fool expects marriage to be nothing
but romantic dream that is one long
thrill of bliss. The sensible recog-
nize that no two people can live to-
gether without having to make
thousand sacrifices and adjustments to
each other, and that they are inevi-
tably deprived of much of the liberty
that single person enjoys.
There is no husband who does not
have his times and seasons Of crouch
Ing There is no wife who upon occa-
sion does not act more like a silly and
hystertcal hen than a pin-feathered an
gel. There Is no married couple that
does not find that marriage is more or
less Of failure, and there is no mar
ried couple that could not make mar
rage more or less of a success
They get out Of 1t what they put into
IL The man who consciously deter
mines to build up a happy and sue
cessful home OF which he makes him
self the inspiring head instead of the
tyrannical despot; who is interested
in all the little details of furnishing
and adjoining his living place; who
loves his wife and makes of her his
most cherished chum and companion
finds that domesticity is a giIt-edged
investment.
So does the woman who determines
to be a real helpmate to her husband;
who sees in cooking and washing and
ironing not a sordid slavery to little
things but a high calling to the mob
lest career that any woman can es-
pouse, and who counts every sacrifice
sweet that she makes for the sake
of the man who is dearer than her
own comfort and luxury TO her.
No outside conditions can make mat
rimony a happy estate. Money, be-
yond enough to provide for the bare
necessities of existence, has nothing
to do with It. There are Quarrels and
chickering's in palaces, and peace and
contentment in novels. Whether mar
riage is an earthly purgatory or par
adise depends absolutely upon what
a man and woman put into It. That
they get out OF It
<AlO TIC eoAhC AAAlllS may NC SdlN
about parenthood. No one can deny
that children are a great care, 4
great expense, and great re-
sponsibility, and that they often are
ungrateful and unappreciative to the
sacrifices their father and mothers
have made for them.
But 1t pays to raise children. or
It doesn't pay, according to the way
you do 1t. If a man never shows his
children any affection. II he is hard
and stern with them so that they
tremble at his step and never think
of him in any other way than as d
jailer they mean to escape from as
soon as they are old enough; or. If
he is too much absorbed in business
to even get acquainted with them.
then parenthood is a losing invest
ment for him.
He gets nothing out of 1t but the
sacrifices he has had to make and
the WORK he has to do to support
his children, because that is all that
he has ever put into fatherhood. But