The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1918-02-14
NOROTMY DIX TALKS
BY DOROTHY DIX
Worlds Highest Paid Woman Writer.
The Fatal Gift of Beauty.

/
! Beauty has always been a woman's
one best bet.
The first question man ever asks
about woman is not whether she is
good, or intelligent. or interesting. but:
| rs she pretty?
If every women were given the de-
sire of her soul she would ask not for
brains, or talent, or a lovely character,
but for a peaches and cream complex
ion aud golden hair; large blue eyes
and a willowy figure. No woman yet
has yer reached the point where she
wouldn't prefer to be living picture
! to a genius, and who wouldn't rather
bear people say as she passed, flow
beautiful" rather than, How cleveri"
Yet after all isn't beauty an over
rated quality in women? Is it the
open sesame. in reality, before which
all the doors of opportunity fly open
to a woman? Has the beautiful girl
any more chance of happiness and
success in life than her plain faced
. sister,
Take marriage for instance. One is
inclined to- say off hand that a girl
| face is her fortune when it comes to
marrying, and that the beauty can cut
matrimonial circles all around the
1 honey girl.
| Strangely enough this is not true.
and for all men are such theoretical
worshippers at the shrine of Venus,
]
another thing altogethe;, yet, y un-
derstand, MawrusS
! Men like TO philander with beauty.
| They like to dance with her at balls.
1t gratifies their vanity to take a girl
| to theaters, and restaurants, and pub
! lie places who is so good looking that
! she makes people rubber, but for
some occult reason they don't want to
| tie up with her for life Therefore,
while the beauty has many beaux. she
has few suitors, and afte- having been
a belle for a long time she generally
ends by picking up crooked matri-
monial stick
If you will think over the extra
! ordinarily beautiful women you have
/ known, you will hardly find one who
1 has made a really good match. Also.
, If you will look at the wives of the
successful and famous men that you
! know, you will observe that they are
all ladies who would have never won
a blue ribbon in a beauty show. Like
wise, if you will consider the women
or your acquaintance who have in
| sp1red the deepest affection in their
husbands breasts, you will note that
not one of them has a pinch of good
! looks to spare.
All of which goes to prove that men
are not such devotees of feminine
pulchritude as they pretend and that
II they worship beauty they are con-
tent to worship it from affair."
The-truth is that while a man likes
| a woman who is easy on the eyes
| that's about as far a his demand for
| good looks goes. After that he wants
something more substantial than pink
and white I.rettiness. He wants to be
| interested and amused sympatlIfzed
| With, pettod and cajoled AMI admired
| himself, and when he finds out that
I the teauty's attractions arc only skin
! deep they soon begin to pallupon him.
After all, old mother nature evens
! things up pretty we'll amopZ her
daughters and when she GENEROUSLY
adorns the outside of a womaE's mead
: she is mighty apt to skimp the n
side furnishings. OF course there are
exceptions to this rule, INT gen
eral thing a beauty carries avery shy
| lot of brains as a sideline attraction.
\ Worse still, from the masculine
point of view. she is sure to be self
/ conferred and demand that the domes-
| tic spotlight he turned perpetually on
| herself All her life she has been the
| considered one, the admired one, the
| one to whom the whole family was
| sacrificed, and without realizing ii she
/ has been made a monster of selfish
| ness and egotism-
| The beauty expects a man to spend
/ his life f1attering her, humoring her,
and effacing himself for her. and
little of this goes long way with
him It is only women who have the
| endurance to he perpetual incense
| burners, and this is where the homely
| woman has her innings.
Between the woman who admires a