Atlanta tri-weekly journal. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1920-19??, 1921-01-18
DOROTHY DIX TALKS
BY DOROTHY DIX
Our Just Deserts
Copyright, 1920, by the Wheeler Syndi-
cate, Inc.

N the world, woman who is no longer
young, and WI suffered from an in
jury to her foot that made every step a pain
full effort.
Good Heavens!" 1 exclaimed one day
when l saw her face white and drawn with
agony after long climb of some temple
steps, Whatever induced you to undertake
trip like this in your state?"
Because" she replied, ~ am growing
DID, and old people are necessarily left much
alone, and I want something to think about
in the long evenings when I Lave to sit by
the fire and knit I'll never lack for good
company now, because I'll always have with
me the memories of the entertaining things
have seen all over the world.
Then she added: 81 have spent lot Of
money in my life, but the only money that
l have spent that / still have, is the money I
have spent ON travel. enjoyed going to
places when l went, and 1 have enjoyed
them ever since in retrospect
"Right-o" I responded, ''Talleyrand adj
vised everyone to learn how to play good
game of whist in their youth, so that they
might not spend miserable old age. He
might better have advised them to travel,
for the consolation prize of age is a rail-
road or steamship ticket. Nothing else
makes old people so endurable to them
selves, or to others, as getting away from
home and getting something different to
think about and talk about.
Indeed you might almost Sly that travel
is panacea for hal the ills, bodily and
mental, and spiritual, that afflict humanity,
and that the best remedy for whatever ails
us is to take trip somewhere.
Especially is this remedy effective with
women, and more especially with middle
aged women About the time TOman's chill
dren get married, or settled in their careers,
she is apt to take kind of slump and grow
fat and dull and uninteresting, and peevish,
and disconnected. She isn't satisfied with
her home, she finds fault with her husband,
and either becomes a morbid recluse, or
taken up with faddy religious, or literary
crazes.
| "The reason is because she is bored. She
has been busy all her life, and suddenly her
occupation is taken from her. Her job 10
finished. She is thrown back on herself for
amusement and companiOnship and she Ia
dull company for herself.
1.-THE remedy for her case is a railroad
| ticket. Let her get out of her treadmill into
fresh fields and green pastures. Let her go
and fill her mind full of new thoughts, new
| Impressions, ideas, new experiences,
and she will come back home happy, and
contented, and with a sane viewpoint on life.
"Why, even month away from home 10
equal to refurnishing the house from top to
bottom and marrying new husband, to any
woman
"And there is nothing like travel as a
gossiping and scandal-mongering, most of
the blackening of characters is done by
women who think that all the world must be
| judged by their little inch-high standards,
and that everyone who doesn't do exactly
as they think right is going to the eternal
bow-wows.
"They will tell you that Sally Sue Jones
is no better than she should be, because
they think her frock is an inch too low in
the neck, and too short in the skirt They
will call Jennie Smith huzzy because she
paints her cheeks. They look askance at
the man who is supposed to be flirting with
two girls at the same time. But when they
go to far countries where woman is con-
sidered modestly clothed if only her eyes are
hidden, no matter how much of the balance
of her person is naked, where even baby
faces are painted to show they have good
mothers, and where the wives a man
has, the better citizen he is thought to be,
they find out that morality is merely mat
ter of geography, and they are not so quick
to sit in judgment on others.
''For the only way to be, sure that you
live in the only place whose .tandards are
absolutely correct, and that you way OF
doing things is the only proper way and
your point of view is he only point of view.
is never to go anywhere else. The only peo- -
pie to whom Sqeedunk and Rabbit Track are
the centers of the universe, are those VINO
never get outside the limit of Sqeedunk and
Gravel is also the only real cure for the
divorce evil, and for domestic infelicity gen.
orally. Most married couples really are
more fond Of each other than the. think
they are. They quarrel because they are 50
fed up Oh each others society that they have
gotten on each others nerves. Years upon
years ago they said everything to each other
that they had to say. They have heard each
others pet stories and "reminiscences over
and over again, until each feels like scream-
ing when the other hits the old familiar trail
of the hoary joke, Or the chestnutty recoi-s
lection, which wasn't interesting; in the first
place. and has acquired charms through
ago.
"When things reach this pass in the FAM
lily, if one or the other would only buy tick
ct around the world instead of to Reno, how
much misery and heartbreak could be saved!
absence would crk it's perfect cure ana
the travelled one would not only come back
with fascinating line of conversation but
after having seen tic men and women or
many countries, would not find his or her
choice so bad after all.
"But the main advantage of travel is that
it gives you imperishable memories tnat
are a iov to you as long as you live. IL :
broadens your horizon; it makes you mill I
lionaire in experience; and you can never be
dull or lonely, because you always have
thousands of strange peoples to bear you!
company in your thoughts" r.