The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1922-05-10
Dorothy Dix TALKS
BIZ DOROTHY DIX
wo156's HiEhess Paid Woman writnr.
More Mirrors.
z DOROTHY DIX

Il
According to the Japanese legend
| the Sun Goddess became offended
with her brother, and in high dudgeon
| retreated into a cave, thereby plunS-
| ing the world in utter darkness. In
despair, the other gods and goddesses
tried IN vain to lure her forth until
one, more inventive than the others,
devised a mirror which he hung on
a bush in front of the cave.
The curiosity of the Sun Goddess
made her come forth to look at the
strange object, and when she beheld
| in it her own face she was so enrap-
tured with what she saw that she
stayed to gaze upon it, and never went
magic of the mirror do we owe the
happy fact that the light of day never
fails us.
Also, the Sun Goddess set a prece-
dent which women have never tired
| of following, as the most doubling
Thomas and Thomasina can have
proved to them by observing that
no woman ever passes a mirror with
out stopping to look in it, and that
ninety-nine women out of a hundred
carry a portable looking glass around
with them, which they draw out from
time to time so that they may refresh
themselves with a reflection of their
own lineaments.
- This feminine mania for mirrors has
ever been considered a great weak
ness of women. Satirists have gibed
at it. Moralists have preached against
I it, but the truth of the matter is that
women do not look in mirrors too
much, they look into them too little.
What we need is more mirrors, not
fewer and if I were running a girl S
school I should have it function in a
hall of mirrors where the young per-
sons would be forced to see herself as
others see her.
Surely nothing else but the lack Of
La good, serviceable, truthful mirror
can account for some of the vagaries
eof modern fads and fashions in which
Hw0men indulge. Certainly no woman
who had a slant on how grotesuue a,
marshmallow nose is, or how repul-
sive are lips painted until they look
like cross-cut of underdone- beef
steak, would ever indulge in that par
ticuiar form of makeup again. She
would learn how to turn out an artis-
tic job of a handmade complexion.
Nor would any woman who wasn't
a candidate for a. Home for the In
surabIy Feeble Minded bob her hair
after she was eighteen, and weighed
over a hundred pounds. She would
perceive what a figure of fun an old
hen is trying to deck herself out in
chicken feathers. Moreover, if women
could get a good, square back view of
their feet and ankles, and really see
how unkind nature often is in the sort
of underpinning with which she pro-
vides the female of the species,
ninety-nine women out of a hundred
would make a ,rush for theiT work
baskets and begin sewing ruff1es on
their petticoats.
While as for knickerbockers and
bIoomers-weH, the girls who wear
them must, have taken a Ratchet and
smashed every mirror in the house,
for they can't-they positively CAN'T
know how much they look like a
human turnip in them, or else they
wouldn't be caught dead in such
garb. A woman who wears knicker-
bockers represents the quintessence of
vanity, or the essence of despair. She
either esteems herself 50 beautiful
that nothing can mar her looks, or
else she thinks herself so hideous that
nothing can improve her appearance.
Both of which assumptions are false