The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1917-06-21
Dorothy DiT Says
BY DOROTHY DIX
Worlds Highest Paid Woman Writer
What Is Love?


what love is.
Poets and romancers, Ine self-con-
stituted authorities on the matter,
have used up many barrel or INK
and wasted many ton OF good Whlte
paper, picturing it to US as a sort OF
dope dream-a trance of ecstat1c DilsS
in which we experience strange thrills,
see pink gods and goddesses in ordin-
airy, commonplace men and women,
and are otherwise afflicted with hal
lucinations.
According to these false prophets,
love is wholly a matter of the emo
lions and 9 state Of temperature. They
describe it as a vague, intangible feel
ing over which we have no more con-
troll than we have over the wind,
which goeth and cometh as it listeth-
and mostly goeth-and, which, like
the wind, is equally liable to kiss our
cheek with a soft caress or blow us
to pieces
This fallacious doctrine has been
the cause of many confiding people
mistaking a mild attack of chills and
fever for the grand passion, and con-
tracing marriages from which they
suffered ever after. 1t has also fur
nished blanket excuse under which
myriads of little, mean souled indi-
viduals have tried to cover up some
of the most despicable traits in the
human character by claiming they
were the result of love. Still other
men and women have been so con-
fused by all of these mysterious theo-
ries about love that they have been at
loss to diagnose their own symp-
toms, and tell whether they are in
love or not
Stuff and nonsense! Love is not
mysterious. 1t is one of the most
practical and concrete things on earth,
and there is no difficulty in knowing
whether one is in love or not, or
W mi iG loved There iG
acid test that never fails to show
whether sentiment is pure gold or
pinchbeck.
For this is the real definition of
love:
Real love is the feeling we enter
tain towards another that makes us
prefer that other above ourselves;
that makes us think of that others
happiness before we think of our
own; that makes US find our own
happiness in ninistering to another
This is the only real, genuine.
blown-in- the-bottle brand of love. All
others are spurious counterfeits.
Real love is unselfishness. 1t is
sacrifice. 1t is not selfishness. 1t is
not poetry, nor romance, nor fine
speeches, nor hot and cold flushes
when you hear a certain footstep APP
preaching, nor an aching void in your
breast when you are parted from some
particular man or woman. 1t is what
you are willing to do for that man or
woman. 1t is the way you treat that
particular man or woman when you
are with him or her.
If your one thought is to make that
man or woman happy. if your one
thought is to advance his or her in
terest and well being, and you count
every sacrifice sweet that you make
for him or her, then you love.
But if your whole desire is to pos
IN hiTT1 nys
her regardless of whether or not you
are blighting his or her life: if you
permit your jealousies to turn you into
a jailer who makes a prisoner of an
other; if you are bound to have your
own tyrannical way no matter who
suffers; then, indeed. you love, but it
is yourself you love. Not another.
That other only exists so far as he or
she ministers to your own happiness
and comfort and pleasure. You are
Supremacy selfish and supremely ego
tisticaI and mo egotist can be a real
lover.
1t is queer how many crimes are
committed in the name of love, and
how many people honestly think they
love another when the only real pas
sion they will ever know or that they
are capable of experiencing in their
self centered hearts is for themselves.
1 know a girl who is married to a
brilliant Young lawyer. He is ambi-
tious and keen to get on in his pro-
fession, and he has explained to his
young vie that in order to do this he
must study at night at home. But
the minute he gets out a book or pa
per and begins to work, she begins to
weep.
Il can't bear it," she walls II want
you to hold my hand and tell me how
much you love me. You are away all
4, 7 "A III R,,% s,i%
how much I love you, and then. when
you come home you get out that hor-
rid old book and absorb yourself in
it so much that you might just as well
be down at your hateful office"
The husband tries to explain to her
the necessity of his studying if he is
to succeed and keep up with his COM
petitors. but she cries out that she
doesn't care whether he succeeds or
not, that all that she wants is Just
| him. And when she thus tries to de-
| liberately wreck her husbands career
to crafty her silly vanity in being
fattered. this poor little selfish idiot
thinks she is showing how much she
| loves.
An older woman, demonstrating
with this young wife, said to her:
"Once my husband had a big offer
in business way that necessitated his
going away to a place where he could
not take me, and stay three years. II
meant everything to him in the way
of advance. He left the decision to
me, and I packed him up and sent
him off without ever letting him see
anything but a smile on my face"
You don't love your husband like
1 love mine" said the young wife.
No" replied the older woman with
quiet scorn, Il didn't love my husband
like you love yours. 1 loved him
| enough to be willing to make a STEP
ping stone out of my bare heart for
him to climb up on, if he needed it, >
Mother love is supposed to be the
purest and most Unselfish love in the
world, but how often do you see a
mother sacrificing her children to the
pleasure she finds in their society
She may know that it is for their good
to leave her, out she will not lei
them go.