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Show Kathleen Norris Says: Design for Living in 1911 (Hell Syndicate W,NU Service.) fT y l )?jA y jUyy " If e have plenty of money and a charming home, and I am so bored, bored, bored all the time." By KATHLEEN NORRIS ' TOP telling me your troubles, solve your own problem, and lift just one more load off the fearful sum-total of the world's griefs! " That's what everyone is going go-ing to be saying to everyone else this year, so take warning, warn-ing, and don't expose yourself j unnecessarily to a rebuff that I may hurt your feelings. For unless we all do our best, morally, mor-ally, mentally and physically, physical-ly, to combat the mortal illness ill-ness of the good, kindly old earth, we have fallen upon evil days indeed. So don't complain about debts, taxes, soaring expenses and an inflated in-flated cost of living, for these are common to us all Pay your bills, move into smaller quarters, watch the family health with an unceasing vigilance, stop useless extravagances. extrava-gances. Don't tell everyone how things have changed, for they have changed for everyone, and what we'll want to hear now is good news, not bad. Talk Courageously. Even if the light of your life, the dear tumble-headed boy who was struggling with homework and chattering chat-tering Scout gossip a few years ago, even if he's gone away from' home for a while, don't make a martyr of yourself. Realize that a million other oth-er mothers are suffering the same helpless agonies, and that wars are made by man, not God, and that consequently we are responsible for them. It is for us to work against the next war, and all wars, rather than to bewail the perfectly natural result of our folly in supposing that any war will ever end war. Every woman you meet in the next few months is going to do one thing or another to you. She is going to depress you almost to the suicide point or she is going to give you a message, conscious or unconscious, of hope and courage. She is going to retail for your benefit all the changes and discomforts that have gone on in her own intimate circle, the expenses and taxes, her longing for her absent boy, and the general misery of the world. Or she is going go-ing to give you a sensible, courageous coura-geous report on a family that has met changing conditions gallantly and learned to live on new terms. A New National Loyalty Awakes. There are going to be lots of things we don't like about it, and surprisingly surpris-ingly there will be lots of things we do. If there is an awakening of new national loyalty, a new unity of feeling feel-ing among us all, it will be pure gain. Whatever happens in Europe, and whether we get further involved in the war or whether some sudden peace is patched up over there, we are going to face one more American crisis at home, and we have to meet it with the strength of character charac-ter that is our proudest heritage, and live through it to happier times. Which makes it all the more amazing to receive, as I did a few days ago, a letter like the following. It comes from a Pennsylvania woman, wom-an, a college graduate. "We have plenty of money and a charming home," writes Anna. "My husband is an engineer, successful enough to be sent at various times to places as distant as Norway. Per-nambuco Per-nambuco and now Alaska. I have never accompanied him on these tjrips because I have two small chil- There are other millions of women today whose hearts are breaking over lost homes, the agonizing need of food and shelter for small bewildered children. I BORED, BORED, BORED These are Anna's words as she writes Miss Norris for a solution to her "exasperating" problem. Anna has a husband whom she loves; income; in-come; children she adores; a car; beauty; youth, and security, yet she craves a change something that will make her feel alive. After you're read Miss Norris' words, you'll understand why this famous problem-solver refuses to answer Anna's letter. dren and my father and mother, whose only child I am, live next door and depend upon me for a daily visit. Bored Doing Nothing. "My trouble is that I am bored. A fine colored girl has entire charge of the downstairs region; Diantha has cooked, served, dusted, ordered, budgeted for me for seven peaceful years. The children's nurse runs everything upstairs; Peter and Pam are with me much of the time, of course, but for baths, breakfasts, suppers, and getting to and from school they are with their adored Yedda. Yedda was my nurse 30 years ago. "When Howard is here we dine with friends, play bridge, take the children to country club lunches on Sunday, go to an occasional good movie. We never quarrel. When he is away I do much the same thing, only with friends instead of husband. "And I am so bored, bored, bored all the time that it is becoming an effort not to scream! I read of other women, many younger than I, whose lives are full of change, excitement, achievement, thrills. Nothing ever happens to me. The men I meet are Howard's friends, they respect him, and like me only because I am his wife. Everywhere I go, to the club, in the shops and hotels, there is an atmosphere of affectionate affection-ate admiration for my lovely home, my fine husband, my beautiful little lit-tle girl and boy, my new car, my clever father. It sickens me! "Please don't tell me to get into book-binding or stamp collecting, or to devote myself to my children, because I am already devoted to my children, or to find some charming charity, or to pray. I want a definite defi-nite cure for a condition that is working more and more upon my nerves and gradually getting me down. I shall look for your answer, with great interest, but please don't make it too moral." No Answer. No, I won't make my answer too-., moral, Anna, for I shan't answer you at all. A letter like this from a supposedly intelligent woman, in these times, deserves no answer. But I may say in passing that to ninety-nine out of every hundred women in the world, circumstances like Anna's would seem a dream of Heaven itself. There are millions . tens of millions of Chinese and ' East Indian women who could never rise even to imagine such heights of security and happiness. There are other millions of women today whose hearts are breaking over lost homes, destroyed possessions, the agonizing need of food and shelter for small bewildered children when there are food and shelter nowhere to be found. So these are not times for any woman to yawn drearily at the boredom bore-dom of home, husband, income, children, chil-dren, car, beauty, youth and security. securi-ty. Not until a few million other women in the world get a little more of all these good things; safe homes, safe children, safe if tiny m-comes. m-comes. Safety, safety, safety. |