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Show Dorothy Dix Says ; The best thing that any woman can be endowed with by j nature is woman sense. !; j By DOROTHY DIX, The World's Plighest Paid Woman Writer ; Intollectuallty Is a good thing for a woman to possess. Good hard horse sense is bettor, but the best thing that any woman can be endowed with by nature is woman sense. Woman sense Isn't education nor is it talent It isn't common sense. It isn't intuition. It isn't fascination. It is something deeper and broader and more comprehensive than any of these a subtle something, a guiding force, that always enables a woman to choose the right path and that leads her to success in life. When the good fairy bends above a girl baby's cradle, the supreme gift that she leaves, in the dimpled hand is not beauty nor genius nor wealth. It is woman souse. It is woman sense that teaches a woman how to make the most of her womanhood, and to recognize that there are certain Jmmutable laws of sex that cannot bo altered. Also, that each sex is most admirable when it does not transgress Its own limitation. Therefore, the woman who has woman sense makes a first class woman of herself instead of trying to be a second sec-ond clads imitation man. She wears women clothes, and as pretty as she can get them, instead of horsey men clothes. She cultivates the manners of a lady instead of those of a stable boy. She may be scintillating scintil-lating in conversation, but she does not consider it necessary to swear nor to tell vulgar stories to make herself entertaining, for she's wise enough to know that woman's greatest and most potent charm is womanliness. Woman Wom-an sense teaches a woman that the masculine woman Is just as much a thing of horror as the effeminate man. Woman sense teaches the woman who has to make a living to do it in a lady-like manner. It Inspires her to choose some occupation in which the hereditary talents of her sex have full play, and in which she has the greatest chance of success, for she perceives per-ceives that it is the women who have done in for making hats and dresses and keeping boarders and doing clerical cleri-cal work who have made real money, and not with the lady longshoremen who have not the physique to compete com-pete with men. Having selected her job, the woman with woman sense goes about it in a decent, womanly way. Woman sense ( teaches her that she does not have to ! be hail-fellow-well-met with all her masculine fellow workers, nor is it necessary for her to go about with a prunes and prism expression on her face as if she expected to be insulted at every turn. Woman sense teaches her to be j friendly and polite to the men with whom she works and yet to put a barrier bar-rier of reserve botweon them. Above all, it enables her to perceive that a business office is neither a five o'clock tea nor a watting place, that flirtations flirta-tions and goo goo eyes and tears and complaints are equally inadmissible, ' and that what she's hired for is to do j good work, and not to try out her fas-' cinations on her employer nor the head clerks. Thrice is she armed against the dangers of commercial life who has woman sense, for it enables her to i keep sentiment at arm's length, and to appear so very business like that no j man ever talks anything but business to her in a business house. In matrimony an ounce of woman sense is worth tons and tons of .all the standard virtues, for it is the one thing that enables a woman to make marriage a success. It is the iron hand in the velvet glove that makes It possible for a woman to manage her husband and rule her household without with-out her despotism oven being suspected. suspect-ed. It is woman sense that makes a woman realize that all men have a certain childlike vanity that chiefly exhiblts itself in desiring to pose as the head of the house Therefore, the woman who has woman sense never arrogates that empty honor to herself. She never says, "t did so and so," or "I have decided to do this and that," no matter how much it may be the case. On the contrary, she always prefaces pre-faces every remark, especially In her husband's hearing, with "John says so and so," or "John has decided this or that." Also she makes a point of consulting con-sulting John about everything from the shape of her hats to how the children chil-dren shall be educated, and this pleases pleas-es John and gives her the right to go on and do as she likes. It is woman sense that teaches a woman that the biggest man, and the cleverest one, and the strongest one, is also the "biggest baby, and that he wants the woman he loves to pet him and mother him and show him off before be-fore company. It is woman sense that teaches her that a man has to be flattered flat-tered and jollied along, and that If his wife doesn't do it, he will hunt up some other woman who will. It is woman sense that teaches a woman that she cannot fight the battle bat-tle of life as a man does, that her weapons are not her fists, but her tongue, and that she can gain more by gentleness and diplomacy than she. can by force. Very few men are ever just to women, but very many men are generous to them. No woman can trust to ever getting what's due hcr because it is her right, but she can collect all that s coming to her, and then some, if she has the woman sense to do It It is woman sense that makes women wom-en perceive that women cannot shock public opinion, nor go against long established es-tablished conventions, without hurting themselves. They must take the way around. It is woman sense that keeps women sweet and womanly, and that makes them effective in whatever they undertake, and it will take a woman farther along the road of success than any other talent. |