The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1917-12-29
DOROTMY DIX TALKS
BY DOROTHY DIX
Worlds Highest Paid Woman Writer.
The Virtue of Explaining Things.

The Virtue of Explaining Things.
You have seen this scene on the
stage hundred times
The heroine of the melodrama
noble, angelic being who has lived
blameless life, is discovered by her
husband or sweetheart reading a let
ter The man asks her who the writer
is Instead of answering the woman
thrusts the letter in her bosom and
refuses to tell. ThereupOn there en-
sues four acts of suspicion, jealousy.
general heartbreak, tears and woe,
revelation that the letter was from
the heroines grandmother and con
tanned nothing but grandma's recipe
for making spiced peaches.
OF course in the theater we can
understand why the heroine didn't
acter of the scrap of paper. It would
have ended the play Immediately.
There wouldn't have been any chance
for injustice, recrimination, sob stuff
and big scenes. We smile at such
twaddle when we think of it seriously,
and yet such plays are built on one of
the fundamental peculiarities of
human nature that, often enough,
bring about real tragedies in real life.
And that is the deep rooted aversion
that most of US have to explaining
things We would rather be mis-
understood, misjudged, suspected of
any crime under the sun than to say
the two or three words that explain
why we do thing. We prefer break
ing the hearts of our family. alternating
their affections and losing our friends
to giving them some perfectly simple
and adequate reason that would justify
the course of action we pursue.
Queer. isn't il? But true. AS silly
as the act of the woman in the melo-
drama, but isn't it what we all do?
It's the lack of explanation that is
responsible for half of the friction in
domestic life. The average man would
rather die by slow torture than tell his
J wife anything about his business af-
fairs and because his wife hasn't got
a., any facts to go upon in picturing how
| he spends the hours that he is away
| from her she gives her imagination
| full Scoop to conjure up scenes of
| revelry with pu1chritudinous ladies
| that he meets in business, and she is
! filled with torments of Jealousy that
| she takes out on him at home.
| Women are not such fools as, they
often appear to be, and there are very
| few wives who wouldn't understand
and appreciate the exigencies of bust
ness that keep a man down town now
and then of evenings, or that make it
polite for him to entertain business
| associates ),
| if only the husband would take the
| trouble to explain just the situation
| that necessitated his doing SO.
! But when husband stays away from
/ his own hearthstone and gives no rea-
| son for doing it but a cryptic murmur
| of business it is no wonder that the
wife is filed with suspicion of she
| knows not what.
Men are always complaining that
their wives are extravagant, yet there
| isn't one woman in a hundred who
couldn't be cured of wastefulness by
a little explanation from her husband
| of why she should cut down expenses.
| A man grumbles about the bills until
| his wife comes to think it is a con-
stitutional ailment that he can't help.
She has never been told anything
about the state of his business, SO she
goes along spending money because
she has been given no special incen-
tive to save.
Far otherwise would it be with her
if her husband would explain to her
that the reason he asked her to econ
omize was because he had a note COM
ing due that must be paid, or that
some particular condition made trade
bad this year, CT that he was trying
to save up enough to buy an interesi
in the business. or start a little store
for himself.
1t would be money in the pockets
of husbands to explain their bushes:
problems to their wives, because once
you give woman a definite objec,
and good reason for saving, she car
hang on to a mic KEEL until she makes
the buffalo howl with agony
Most of the trouble parents have il
getting obedience from their children
is due to the high and=mighty way il
which they issue tyrannicaI comma nd;
to the young ones without condescend
! JTG fn I1ir Inv
thing should be done. The children
resent this, as we all instinctively re
sent arbitrary authority, and they re
slst 1t wherever it is possible, but the,
would be perfectly amenable to guild
ance if reasonable explanation o
any course of conduct was given them
Issue an abrupt order to little John
| ME that he must not do so-and-so ant
he Will disobey you if he dares, or cir
cumvent you if he has the wit but 81
down ana explain thoroly to him VIII,
it is wisest and best for him to fol
low the plan you suggest and ninety
nine times out of a hundred he ia II
i'll with your wishes
You can even take the sting ont n
dlSappo1ntment to a child by explain
ing to him just why he cannot do tn
thing he wants to do or have tn
thing you promised him, but merely t.
tell MIN CURLY that you've change,
your mind about permitting him t
do something he had set his heart OF
: doing, or that he can't have the thin;
. he had been dreaming of POSSESSING
. simply adds insult to injury and in
tensifies the bitterness of his loss
Moreover, it makes him regard you a
a tyrant, a liar and a breaker O
promises, whereas a little expla natiol
would clear up the whole situatioI
and leave the child sympathizing wit
: you instead of plying himself
AS for friendship. more friends ar
lost thru lack of a word of explana
ton than in any other way, for it is
curious fact that we are as loath t
ask for explanations as we are to offe
them.
We have a friend whose affection
fidelity and loyalty we have prove
o> over and over again thru long years O
!. l..