The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1917-08-03
Dorothy Dlr Says
Why Glorify the Unpleasant?
BY DOROTHY DIX
Worlds Highest Paid Woman Writer

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Why GIorify the Unpleasant?
One of the millions of things that
I shall never be able to understand
about human nature is why we exalt
the hideous and the sordid and con-
slider that there is some peculiar virtue
in the disagreeable.
Why is it that when an author
writes a story that deals with the
most horrible side of life; when he
takes his hero and heroine from the
most degraded specimens of human
ity; when he fishes his plot out of
the gutter and suffuses the story with
the stencil of the sewer, we speak
of it with awe and admiration as real
ism?
But when a novelist depicts what is
pure and beautiful in life when he
makes a noble man and woman his
hero and heroine and lays his plot
amid scenes of refinement where ev-
erybody is trying to lead the higher
life, why do we brand his story con-
temptuously as mere sentimental ro-
nance?
ugliness in the world. There is more
virtue than vice. There are mon
good men and women than bad.
Where YOU find one lady vampire.
sucking dry the heart and pocketbook
of a man, you will find a thousand
| ly sacrificing themselves for their
! husbands and children. Where you
| will find one man who is a dark brown
| villain pursuing youth ind innocence,
| there are a Thousand Sir Galahads
ready to protect any girl with their
| lives if necessary.
Dora Copperfield and Molly Make
Believe are just true to life, and
far more numerous than Nora or
Hedda Gabler, or Anna Karanina-
Yet, because Dora and Molly are Gears
and sweets that you would love to
have around the house, and you'd
loathe morbid creatures like Nora and
Media and Anna, who were always
| indecently exposing their souls, and
/ wouldn't have them about at any
| price, one set of characters is
despised as the outpourings of vapid
sentimentalism. and the other ID ex-
allied as a triumph of realism.
Indeed it almost seems that if a
novelist wishes to get the reputation
| of being Strong and "viri1e," all that
he has to do is to be sufficiently TASTY.
and to discuss with perfect frankness
phases of life that decent people shy
away from as they would from a cess
pool. Why refined people should
wish to associate in books with the
sort of men and women that they
wouldn't speak to in real life, is an
other of the mysteries that keeps me
guessing.
However, this theory that there
must be some sort of occult virtue in
anything that is particularly obnox-
ious runs all thru life. Take the mat
ter of truth. We all have a sort OF
| latent superstitious belief that the
truth is only true when it is unpleas-
ant.
We all believe evil more readily
than good. Scandal is credited on its
mere say SO, while praise has to be
backed up by well attested affi-
dayit.
Any man who goes abo,t habituall,
praising his fellow men and calline
attention to their good qualities soor
gets the reputation of being a flatter.
| er, jollier, and is suspected of hav-
ing some Interior ends of his own tc
further On the contrary, the mar
who is brute and a knocker. and
who never has a good thing 20 saw OF
any human being, may be hated and
feared but he is universally spoken OF
| as being SO truthful and honest and
| sincere. We are always a little sus.
picious of the people who pay us
compliments, no matter how much
! we enjoy them.
Why we should take this attitude
Heaven alone knows. None of us car
explain it We know thai at its
| worst human nature is a mixture OF
good and bad, with the good largely
! III the pTeoOInlnanCe. we know thai
even If Brown occasionally drinks a
little too much. he is the kindest
hearted and most generous fellow or
earth and an adoring and adored hus.
! band and father. We know that even
1 if Mrs. Smith has a high temper, she
is also a perfect marvel of p worker
and manager and that she ic the very
backbone of her husbands success.
Why isn't 1t just as true to speak OF
Brown as 4 good citizen hid husband
and father as to speak OF him as q
! drinking man? Why ISM I. as true
4 to speak of Mrs. Smith as a woman
/ who is an example of wat a help.
meet wife can be to a h-.sband as to
I speak of her as a shrew?
/ One set of facts are jus a., authen.
! tic as the other, yet if you recited the
pleasant ones you would De esteemed
guilty of fullsome flattery, while ii
you related the other you would DUAL.
| ify as Truthful Jane.
The reason that family life is the
1 failure that it is and that PRACTICAL,
| everybody's idea of havi. an enjoy.
able time consists in getting away
/ from home and their near relations. il
because those of our twn household
| so seldom feel that they arc doine
their duty towards US unless they are
making things as unpleasant for US as
they possibly can
! For some inscrutable .,eason ever
| parental love is thought 10 show it.
self in the proper guise by means Of
eternal fault finding. and il you
/ should eliminte the word '.on't" from
1 the family vocabulary it would leave
/ the average parent stricken dumb
/ Every child grows up to an incessani