The Washington herald., 1920-06-25
b. DOROTHY DIX
Copyright, 1o2o.
Wheelsr Syrdieate. Inc.

people don't.
And II isn't because We have for
gotten the agony we have gone
through. or that we fAu to see the
red flag of danger that experience
fiaunts. before our eyes. It's be-
cause we are the victims of a sort
o ffatol optimism that persuades us
that this time some sort of a mira
Gle will be wrought in our behalf
that will preserve US from the logi-
cal outcome of our folly. {.
On forty occasions before we may
have had painful proof Of what our
outraged stomachs thought of a
combination of cucumbers, and Ice
cream. and watermelon, but that
doesn't keep US from blithely feast
ing on the deadly mixture. and be-
Ing surprised when we have to call
In the doctor later on.
A man will break himself down
by overwork, but instead of letting
his experience teach him to con-
serve his strength and his health,
tho minute he gets out of the sani-
tarium he plunges right back into
the vortex of business and wrecks
himself again.
A woman will buy something at a
bargain sale that she doesn't want
and for which she has no earthly use
because Ii has been marked down
from s1.50 to sI.47, and then she
will wonder why she did it and be-
| moan her wasted money. But a
hundred such experiences never
teach her to walk b va special
sale of nummery without even
turning to look back. She always
does the Lots wife act, no matter
how many times before she has been
! salted.
And why are most households
dark and bloody domestic battle
deld, with husband and wife in a
never ending scrimmage. except that
people simply refuse to learn any
| thing from experience.
During the first couple of years
after a young couple get married
| there is some excuse for there be-
ing little conflicts between them,
and for the domestic machinery to
creak and sroan from time to time
You cannot take any two people.
especially male and, female per
| son, who come of different blood,
who have had a different training
| and environment and look at every
I
/ different angle, and expect them
| to merge into a harmonious whole
at once. They have got to get ac-
| quainted with each other and find
out what each one thinks; they've
ECt to get the real life measure. not
tie counting measure, of each other;
they have got to find out each
| others little peculiarities and weak
nesses and prejudices and bigness
| and littleness.
1t takes a little time to make
these personal explorations into the
character of your life partner. but
once having diagrammed each
others personality, any husband and
wife can get along together and any
dome1 ic plant can be run on oiled
ball bearings il cnly the party OF
the first part and the party of the
second part have intelligence enough
to learn a little from experience.
It doesn't take a woman long to
find out that her husband has a
naive vanity about posing as the
Head of the House; and that he
hates to be asked where he is GO
ing, and that certain subjects have
the same effect upon him that a
red flag has on a mad bull.
How more than stupid of her
then. not TO ask his opinion on
every subject whether she takes it
or not: not to refrain from nag
ging and not to clamp the lid down.
good and tight, on the topics that
are anathema to him.
But instead of learning life's lir-
tie lesson that would assure them
devoted husbands and peaceful
| homes. the great majority of wives
learn nothing from the experience
of a hundred fights that have left
! their hearts wounded and Scared
and they go along precipitating
the rows that will end in a banged
| door shut behind an angry hus-
| band and a pillow wet with un-
necessary tears.
Nor is there any man of ordinary
| intelligence who hasn't found OUT
within six months after marriage
exactly how to work his Maria.
He's ascertained that it isn't sare
to admit to ever having particu-
! larly noticed another woman even
! If she's homely as sin and 100 years
old; that it's diplomatic to call
! ones wife's temper nerves. and
that she will forgive her husband
| anything so long as he tells her
fat is becoming, and she grows
more beautiful with age.
| But how few men cash in their
| dearly bought knowledge of femi-
nirity and get therefor wives who
| eat out of their hands and cele-
brate their virtues in the market
place? None. They go on ignoring
| their experience of how to manage
a woman, and expect her to be
| FaASOnAhla
mourn because she is not.
/ Perhaps, though. the most mex
plicable failure to learn from ex-
! perience is furnished by those peo-
pie who have made the trip from
| wealth to poverty, and back again.
and who gaily hit the toboggan
| slide for the second descent.
There is no blinking the terrors of
| poverty, and to none are they so
| horrible as 20 those who have been
used to affluence. To have been
nurtured in the lap of plenty; to
have known the freedom and inde-
pendence that a full pocketbook
| gives: to have never worn anything
but good clothes and had good food,
beautiful and cultivated surround
| tngs; to have. always had every
thing that goes with evening dress"
as kipling puts it.
Then to wake to find ones self
penniless, that all of ones money
| has slipped through ones fingers; to
be tortured with anxiety as TO
where the next meal is to come
| from, to have to wear shabby
clothes whose very touch irritates
one; to be doomed to the hell of
dirty sordid surroundings, what suf-
fertng can be greater-what fate
mora crDalo