The Chattanooga news. [volume] (Chattanooga, Tenn.) 1891-1939, 1919-07-12
DOROTHY DIX'S TALKS
By Dorothy Dix the Worlds Highest Paid Woman Writer
WHAT rs LOVE?

A group of young girls have writ
ten me- letter asking this momen-
tous questions:
WHAT is LOVE?
Well, to begin with, girls, 1t isn't
what you think 1t is. From the time
you were born you have been con-
sciously, or unconsciously, taught
that the most important thing in a
woman's life is love, and that to love
and be loved was the chief end of
your existence.
Therefore, you have figured love
as a combination of romance and
adventure, and a career-something
that would be full of hectic thrills in
ana solid comfort
in its latter estate.
Now love may have all of these
earmarks, or it may have none of
them. Sometimes Cupid delivers his
divine gift wrapped up in all the pink
chiffons of romance. Sometimes he
simply shoves it under a girls door,
plain and unadorned, without even
a blue ribbon bow tied on it, which is
to say that sometimes a girl falls On
love with a man who looks like a
fairy prince and who woos her in
beautiful Booth Harrington language,
and sometimes she falls in love with
a red headed, freckled faced gro
GERS clerk who shutters and chokes
on his Adams apple every time he
tries to tell her that she certainly
does look good to him.
Also sometimes a girl has palpi-
1rn .-N fit,nA he
hears the mans footsteps, and some
times she doesn't, and her heart
keeps doing business in the same old
reliable way no matter who ap-
proaches. 1t depends on her ner-
vous system. and not on the state of
her affections. Therefore, one must
eliminate the thrill business as an
indication Of love, or else the crop
of old maids would be unduly large.
Nor does love invariably result, in
real life, in the old fairy tale end
Ing land so they were married and
lived happily ever after" Love often
brings poverty, hard work and sacri-
flee, and so you see a girls dream of
love is very far away from the real
thing.
But what is love? Love is made
up of many things. Perhaps it begins
in physical attraction-that mys-
ferrous something that draws you to
one particular individual, that makes
you like to be near him, that makes
the touch of his hand agreeable to
you, that renders his whole per-
sonality charming to you. There can
be no real love between a man and
woman that has not physical at
traction back of it, and yet this is
not enough. Nothing is more short
lived than the love of the senses.
Do not conclude that you are in
love with a man because you like
to dance with him or to have him
hold Your hand. He may thrill you for
the moment, but custom is death on
thrills. and you would find that you
handn't a single one of them left in
your system by the time you had been
married to him a month, and had
gotten used to kissing him at break
fast every morning.
Love must have congeniality of
tastes in it. Don't be misled into
thinking that you are really in love
with the man with whom you are
forever having misunderstanding
certain fascination for you. that may
delude you into thinking that You
really care for him, but this attrac-
ton of opposites is a cruel game that
nature plays on us in order to keep
up the average of the human race.
But this very attraction of oppo
sites that makes people think they
love each other before marriage,
makes them really hate each other
after marriage. for the only love that
endures is the affection that is
founded on a similarity Of tastes and
ideals. The people we enjoy being
with are those who soothe us with
their presence, not those who are
constant irritation.
Love must have respect in II.
Especially for women. A woman who
is married to a weakling may come
TO have a sort Of maternal pity for
him. as a mother for a deformed
child. but this is a poor substitute
for the SPLENDID. proud love of a
woman who is married to a man