The Washington herald., 1918-01-25

ed to admit that she had the tenn
per Of shrew. Temper ruins far
more homes than drink or any other
vice. but we'll never get 1t under
control until we quit calling it
nerves.
Then there's sensitiveness. When.
ever you meet q woman who is
about as comfortable to get along
with as a prickly pear, a woman
who is always resigning from clubs
and getting into Quarrels when she's
| on committees, q woman who is al
ways suspecting her husband Of
flirtations with any woman to whom
he is decently polite; a woman
whom you don't dare not to ask
to every dinner and lunch you give
no matter how lily she fits in with
your other guests; a woman whom
her employers have to handle with
kid gloves II she Is a working wom-
an, you will find out that she al
ways speaks of herself as being so
sensitive"
Sensitiveness! Sounds nice and
ladylike. But it's real name is
plain, old-fashioned, unadulterated.
unlimited self-eonceit-what the
doctors call meglomania and the
alienists refer to as the exaggerat-
ed ego. Such a woman's whole
thought is concentrated upon. her
self. In her own eyes her little
miserable dignity and prestige are
bigger than any cause. To crafty
her vanity she is willing to insult
her husband and put her friends to
inconvenience. She judges the
whole world just as it reacts on
her puny self. There's Just one
cure for sensitiveness and that is
to recognize IL for the self -conceit
1t is and take drastic measures to
reduce the size of your head.
The there's temperament. When
ever you meet people who are
thirty-seven different varieties of
plain fool they invariably tell you
that they are temperamental
Whenever you find a man who let's
his poor old mother or his wife
take In boarders to support him,
he would tell you that he is tenn
peramental and that he has never
been able to bring himself to take
any part in the coarse, vulgar
struggle for existence. When you
meet a man who breaks a good
wife's heart and leaves his little
children to starve and go ragged
and cold while he philanders around
with other women and spends his
money on bottles and birds for
them. he will tell you that it is
impossible foR a man who is tenn
peramental as he is to love lust
one woman or be tied down by do
mestic duties.
| When you meet a woman who is
slovenly. sloppy and untidy, and
whose clothes appear to have been
pitchforked on to her, you don't
have to be told that she is tempera-
mental All temperamental ladies
appear to need a good bath and
have their hair combed.
When you meet a woman whose
children run wild on the street and
grow up like little savages, whose
home is a place of chaos and con-
fusion, who lets servants steal and
waste and bills grow to appalling
amounts, she invariably excuses
herself by telling you that all
household affairs. and even husband
and children, are repugnant to one
| OF her temperaments.
When You meet a woman who
has affinities and who wastes her
life in dreaming of what a great
actress or poet or artist she could
\ nave been If she had only not
wrecked her life by marrying a man
who Is nothing but a clod that sup
ports her in comfort and luxury,
! she Will sigh as she tells you her
| sad story and say that she is so
temperamental that she cannot be
| bound by the conventions that are
good enough for ordinary women.
Now, ninety-nine times out of a
hundred temperament is only the
high fallutin' name for rank sell
hshness and trifingness. People
who are bound to have what they
| want regardless of how they get
1T or the injury they do to others,
develop temperament. Johns tenn
permanent won't permit him to work
In grocery store because selling
potatoes and sugar is hard, monot-
onous labor. Mary's temperament
shrinks from the gas range and
teething babies, because it's dull,
exhausting work to cook and nurse.
And Mary and John have found out
that IL you simply duck your load
and refuse to bear it somebody else
picks it up and goes on with the
| job.
| The meanest selfishness on earth
Is that practiced under the name of
temperament, because the tempera-
mental offer us as a deliberate sac
rifce on the altar of their own
comfort and pleasure those dearest
TO them, those that love them best,
those that have the highest and
holiest claim on them. II the men
and women who are breaking the
hearts and wrecking the lives of
their poor old parents and their
helpless little children and their
faithful and uncomplaining hus-
bands and wives would only call
their temperaments by the right
name of selfishness, perhaps there
would be fewer of the temperamen-
tai amongst us,
And there's luck. Find a man or
woman who is failure and they
viii tell you that they are unlucky.
Find those who can never keep
job and they howl about their bad
LUCK. Find a woman whose family
Is always sick and she will COM
plain of her bad luck. Find those
who are unhappily married and
they bemoan their luck in matri-
mony.
Bad luck's real name is laziness
end Incompetence. The man and
the woman who are industrious and
thrifty and who work intelligently
always have good luck, just as the
shiftless and the extrayagant and
those who werk without plan or