OCR Text |
Show I Dorothy Dix Talks THE YEARS OF INDISCRETION ' By DOROTHY DlX, The World's Highest Paid Woman Write! At a dinner party the other night a tman told this story: "In my home town in the -west," he I Fald.. "I know a couple who have been i married for over 30 year? and who have apparently, gotten along unus- ually well together They never quar- relcd, or said cuttings things to each other as so many married people do. They raised a fine family of children. prospered and grew rich. The wife ' was a quiet, amiable, domestic woman. The husband, the typical American business man who vibrates between his factory and his home, and who delights In lavishing luxuries on his family. "Suddenly, however, without a word of warning, or making a single excuse the man quit. Quit cold. He sold out his business. Settled a handsome little lit-tle fortune on his wife and each of his children, and said good-bye to them. Told them that he was going away forever, for-ever, and his only request of them was that they would let him alone, let him go, and not try to induce him to come back. "There is no secret about where the man is. There is no scandal connected con-nected with his going, no woman in the case so far as anybody has been able to discover. He is in New York, living a blameless existence apparently, apparent-ly, and perfectly happy lolling around one of the most gilded of gilt hotels in the gladdest of glad raiment, driving driv-ing a fast car, and going to theaters and cabarets. "But the thine that makes us sit up at home at night is wondertnc what made him do It ' What cosmic urged made a staid middlo aged business man convert himself into a lounge lizzard? Why did a husband who had meekly trudged alonp In double harness har-ness for more ihan thirty ears suddenly sud-denly kick over the traces9 That's what has got us guessing And none of us know the answer." "Oh." cried a woman, easily, "he had merely reached the years of indiscretion. indis-cretion. There is no folly which either a man or a woman is incapable of committing: between the ages of 45 and 60. About about the lack of wisdom wis-dom and prudence of youth. Seventeen Is Solomon and Poor Richard rolled into one compared to 57 or 47." I think that the reason the man flew the domestic coop." said a man with a sidelong glance at bis own wife, ' was because he was determined to enjoy a little personal liberty before be-fore it was too late. For thirty years he had been a slave without so much libertv as a ticket -of-leave man. Every Ev-ery night he had had to puneh the time clock at 6:30. He had never been able to go away from home for 24 hour? without furnishing an alibi for where he was every hour of his absence. "For thirty years he had never moked a clear at home without beinc told that it was bad for his heart. He had never eaten a meal without being warned against his favorite dish because be-cause they were supposed to give him indigestion. He had never taken a drink without having to eat cloves. He had never cone down the street on a rainy day without being warned to put on his rubbers, or of a cold morning without being adjured to turn up his roat collar. He had never done one single solitary thine without havlnc to give a long explanation about why he did it. Finally, the time came when he could endure it no longer The worm turned. The last straw was laid on the camel's back. He suddenly realized real-ized that he was getting old. Perhaps he fiKured out that he couldn't reasonably rea-sonably expect to have, at the best, more than ten or fifteen years of life, and he determined to spend them as a free man, to do what he wanted to 3o. and had always wanted to do, and had never done in his life. So he made a break for liberty and heres' hoplnc lhat he will enjoy it." "I think you are right." acreed the lark woman with shrewd understand ing eyes, 'and If that man's wife had rmough intelligence and grit to hold steady and wait until after her husband hus-band has had his fill of beinc alone and doing as he pleases, he ll come trotting meekly back to her and be slad enoueh to slip his neck once more into the domestic yoke. For there is something psychic about matrimony even about unhappy matrimony, that unfits both men and women for single sin-gle life. "A man raav be bored to extinction by the nagging of a fussy wife. A woman may rebel against the exactions exac-tions of a tyrannical husband, but when they come to the place wtier'-they wtier'-they realize that nobody cares whether wheth-er they make themselves sick or not, and nobody watches for their cominc they find out that their last estate Is worse than their first, and they are slad enough to take on even a famny boss. Oh, the wandering husband always al-ways runs back home to wife when be gets old and rheumatic, and dyspeptic, dys-peptic, and needs somebody to nurse and coddle him " "I venture to say that the trouble trou-ble with this man was that he had no outh," said a lawyer. '"For a cood many years I have kept a close tab on the scandals and follies in which middle mid-dle aped men and women have become involved, and I have not found a single sin-gle case in which they had not had a poor, starved, hard worked youth. At the play time of life they had to toil and sacrifice. They were denied the Joys of brightness that they craved and that belonqed to their age. "Always in their souls was this long Inc for the joys that the could have taken innocently and wholesomely in their youth, but that were a crime in their middle age, for when the time came when they could indulge their longlnc they were too old. They made" themselves ridiculous and brought sorrow sor-row and shame on others. "For proof of my theory consider the scandals In which so many of our self made men have been involved. A man who climbs by his own unaided efforts from the bottom of the ladder to the top must he-in when he Is very young. He Is tolling and saving and struggling while other boys are dancing danc-ing and flirting and making love to every pretty face. There's no time in which such a man's youth for play, sentiment or romance, but the desire for these things lives in his breast, smothered down for the time being by ambition. "Finally, the man reaches his goal. He has money. He has leisure. He wants to play like a boy and to indulge in the romance of youth. And then ft Is that he makes a fool of himself over painted women, and lands in the divorce court. "And when you find a middle aged woman who is mad for the admiration of men, who swallows the grossest (lattery, and who gets Involved in disgraceful dis-graceful scandals, you will find that she was a girl who had no beaux, nc admiration in her youth, no pleasures That is why she is taking her playtime play-time too late. "All of which Is a reason for glvint the youth their flinc while they ar( still young, and letting them sow ar innocuous little wild oat crop whllf they are boys and girls, Instead ot waiting until they are old. For the follies of the young are rimmed with laughter, but the follies of the old arr soaked In tears." ' The years of indiscretion," repeat ed the woman, "they last from the cradle cra-dle to the grave." oo |