The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1922-05-22
Dorothy Dix Talks
The Price OF AdmIssion-t
BIZ DOROTHY DIX
WsE1d's Highess Paid wOnaA WRst1

H..
The other day I took lunch with
two old ladies, both of whom have
been conspicuous figures in their little
world all their lives. One of the old
women was complaining bitterly that
life is a sad and sordid affair, my
dear, and that even our friends care
for only for what we do for them.
You know" she said, that for
years I almost held a salon. My Sun
day night receptions have been
crowded with the most interesting
people, and strangers have pulled
strings to be asked to them. There
have always been hosts of clever peo-
and, of course, 1 always served a
rather wonderful buffet supper.
But this past winter my good cook
left me, and my butler died, and I had
a lot of domestic difficulties, so 1
substituted tea and waters for lobster
Newburg and punch for supper, and
my salon has blown up as if it had had
dynamite under it. The first evening
the usual crowd came, but it went
home early after it found out that it
was not going to be fed, and it never
returned. So this season, instead of
being surrounded on Sunday evenings
by brilliant, and witty. and apparently
admiring people have sat up in soli-
tude and meditated upon the vanity
of all earthly things, and in particular
upon the hollowness of society.
Think of the blow this has been
to my egotismI Fancy the mortifica-
ton of playing second fiddle to my
cooki Imagine how low it has laid my
pride to realize that it was not my
personality, but my food that at
tracted people to me, and drew a bril-
liant circle about me; that it was not
my wit they found pungent, but my
sauces; that it was not my converse
ton they reIished, but my salads; that
it was not my sweet and bland char
acter they loved, but my chocolate
parfaitsi Do you wonder that L am
walking thru the valley of humilia-
ton, for surely there can come no
more ignominious knowledge to a
woman than to realize that she has to
hire her society, and bride her friends
with superlative eats to come to her
house"
"Ah. my dear said the other old
thru life. If we want to go to the
show we always have to pay the price
of admission, only at different ages we
pay with different coins.
when we are young, we pay with
youth, and beauty, and freshness, and
vfvacity. Youth just of itself is at
tractive, and we like to have it about
US. We enjoy looking at a pretty
young face. We like to listen to gay,
young chatter. There is something in
the vitality of the young that stirs
our blood, and sends a thrill thru our
withered old hearts.
The young pay their way with
their youth. We don't expect any
thing else of them. but when we are
old we have lost this attractiveness,
and we must substitute other things
for it.
Nobody wants US just for ourselves,
for here is nothing in age that is at
ira ctive of itself. 1t is hard on the
eyes, because it lacks physical beauty
and grace. It is spiritually depress-
ing, because it is the essence of disil-
fusion and decay, and it is mentally
heavy, and dull because age is self
conferred, and conceited. Old people
have their whole interests in them
selves. and talk endlessly about them