The Washington herald., 1917-11-14
Nu and N OF Interest the Women Readers of The Herald
THE ROUGH DIAMOND
By DOROTHY DIX.
The worlds Highest Paid Woman Writer.

Here Is a queer case in which my
advice has been asked.
A young man is in love with a
pretty girl who has many admirable
| qualities of character, but execrabie
manners. She sprawls in uncouth at
| titudes as she sits. She eats like a
savage. She does rot even under
! stand the proper use of a handker-
| chief. and she lacks all the little re-
| finements 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
I way in which she may be taught the
| conventional usages of good society
and to conduct herself in a refined
| manner.
OF course there is. The one remedy
| for a case like tris 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 Of
a lady.
All of this would he a process ex-
ceedingly painful to the subject. now
! ever, and it could only be successful
if the girl realized her deficiencies and
| was eager and anxious to correct
| them. There have been innumerable
! instances of girls whose carly lives
had teen spent in the backwoods, oI
| among rude and uncultured people,
who have gone into finishing schools
Doors and come out of them the glass
I of fashion and the mould of form.
But these were girls who were will
| ing to sacrifice their vanity on the
| altar Of their progress, who begged to
| have their faults pointed out in
order TO correct them, and who
! suhordinated their Ccnceit of them
! selves to their ambition.
! Women are initiative by nature. 1t
! does not take them long to
i change from being chambermaids to
! countesscs. or to pick UP an accent,
or the latest way, of doing things.
J This makes it possible for Cinderella
; to be her own fairy godmother and
/ change herself from the kitchen
! drudge to the belle of the ball in tbs
| twinHlnG of an eye If she makes up
| her mind 10 perform this miracle.
But the important thing is that she
desire to change and become the
| princess.
Certainly it does not indicate that
| a girl has much power OF obse-va-
tion or much ambition If she has per-
mitted herself to grow up with clown
| ish manners in the midst OF A modern
| city where she is presented with con-
| tinual object lessons of the way in
| which people OF intelligence and re-
| fnerent dress and conduct them
| selves.
But why, In a world full of pearls Of
girls. should a young man pick out
this rough diamond for a wife? OF
one thing he may be sure and that is
that if her manners CRATE on his SEN
siDility 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 someone
always clears his throat before speak
ing, or the noise that another makes
as she drinks her coffee, or the eter-
nal creak of another's shoes. or the
perpetual shifting of another becomes
harder to forgive than would the COM
mission OF some actual crime.
II 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 mans
spotted morals any more repulsive TO
dainty woman than a man who
dribbles soup and gravy over his
clothes as he eats.
Therefore, it is well for both men
and women TO save themselves as
much domestic disillusionment as pos
sible by at least picking out as life
companions those vino have been
trained in the amenities of civiliza-
ton. Thus do they preserve them
selves from having their sensibilities
unduly laceratcd and from precipitat-
ing 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