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Show II l' - j I: Dorothy Dix Talks b WOMAN'S CROWNING CHARM ! I By DOEOTI.iY DlX. The World's Highest Paid Woman Writer J J (A young girl asks mo what quality men admire above all others in women. 5r Gentleness. t Just as strength is the quality that I appeals most to women in men, so gentleness is the quality that appeals j most to men in women. Men are enthralled by beauty. They are charmed by intelligence. They are ' 1 fascinated by wit and gaiety. But the thing that they admire most in woman, ' and that holds them after the beauty : has fled, after laughter is hushed and , they have grown weary of talk ,no mat- ' ter how brilliant it has been, is just ) '' plain old fashioned gentleness. Just i. ; tenderness and sweet unselfishness 5 just womanliness. ; This is the quality that a man re-'. re-'. ' members in the mother he idolized, i This is what he wants in the woman he marries. This is what he dreams : of coming home to after the long, hard day's struggle with the world is over, and if he finds it waiting for him on the hearthstone, marriage is a success for him, no matter what els'e is lacking- And if he fails to find it, marriage mar-riage is a failure to him no matter ' what else he has I It Is because gentleness is the most ; appealing quality of woman to man i . that world worn rogues marry demure little country maidens young enough U to be their daughters, and why lenrncd j ': college professors wed silly little geese who can't spell a, b, and artists ;. seletc as wives homely ladies who : I have Mona Lisa smiles. It is why a low soft voice, and meek gray eyes, and a :j shy manner will do more to get a worn-Jtf- an a good husband than all the beauty : and Intelligence in the universe. "A Not only in matrimony is gentleness lit a woman's one best bet, but it is equal- !j J ly efficacious in business. If you will ' a look around you, daughter, you will obscrvo that the women who have ar- I w rived and who are roosting on the top rung of the ladder of success are most- I . Iy feminine little things, with a sweet , and winning way with them, who look 1 ; as if they had just strayed out of their own i parlors, and gotten by mistake 7j into a counting room, or the head buy- I i er's office of n big store. I I have known thousands of success- i ; ' j ful women women who have done all sorts of wonderful things, and filled all sorts of high positions, and made big money but at this moment I cannot can-not recall a single successful woman who was suggestive, bumptious and loud voiced, or rude and rough mannered. man-nered. No, the successful women, so far as my obsenation goes, have all soft-pedaled their way to their goal. Nor need one go far to seek the reason rea-son for this. When a woman fights with a man for the things she wants she is outclassod. He is bigger, stronger, strong-er, and has more experience in slugging slug-ging his opponents than she has, and the result is that she is knocked out of the ring in the first round. No woman ever yet got anything from a man by force. What she gets she obtains by asking for it pretty. And this goes double in business a.s tvcII ns in domestic do-mestic life. jiuicn sex loatnes the other when It poaches on its preserves. Women cannot can-not abide an effeminate man. Men detest de-test a msaculine woman. Men nev"er pick out a woman who has on a tailor made suit as being the best dressed woman in a crowd. They like women to wear frills and furbelows and high heeled shoes. And they like a woman's personality to be as feminine as her clothes. Therefore, a woman never makes a bigger mistake than when she tries to make an imitation man of herself in her business dealings with men. She repulses them by her assumption of being a good fellow, by drinking and smoking with them, and by telling risque stories. They want nothing to do with such a woman. But the woman they like to de.fl with is the quiet, modest, gentle little Tvoman who looks and acts like a ladv, and talks like a lady, and who has merely added business sense and ability abil-ity to her other, feminine charms. That kind of a woman makes an eternal appeal ap-peal to a man. She soothes him in-stea in-stea dof irritating him. She makes him think of his mother, his wife, his daughter, all of the women he loves and honors, and, without realizing, for their sakes. and the sake of his reverence rever-ence for all womanhood, he helps her along. Thorefore, I would advise all girls going into business to cling to their femininity as their most valuable asset. as-set. Let them do their work as well as men, but do It in a womanly way. Be as modest and lady like behind your typewriter or ledger as you would be behind your own tea table. Remember Remem-ber that the only voice that ever persuades per-suades ti man into doing anythin" Is the one that Is keyed clown to a gentle murmur, never the one that is pitched to a fog horn shriek, and that a gentle and pleasing manner will open office doors for a woman that she couldn't break into with a battering ram. Men don't like women who are loud who laugh too much or talk loo much! or women who put themselves forward too much, or who are argumentative, and always ready for ti scrnp. They like women who smile, rather than those who laugh, women who are always al-ways ready to listen, women who are understanding and sympathetic, and who are charitable in their judgments of others, and women who are gentle and womanly. Just to be a woman Is a. woman's best graft, if she only had sense enough to know it. |