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Show Dorothy Dix Talks j I j THE EXCITEMENT OF BEING A WOMAN : I By DOROTHY DIX. The World's Highest Paul Woman Writer j I An eminent physician has recently declared that tho reason that women are sick so much is because they are bored. He says that the average wom an, having little to amuse her. cultivates culti-vates 111 health by way of diversion. She gets her thrills out of her symptoms, symp-toms, and she only wakes up and has a real good time when she can go to m the hospital and have an operation w performed about which she can talk B ever afterwards. K Of course there is much truth In I what the doctor says, but being a woman isn't as dull a career as he seems, to think. Of -course it Isn't as-exciting as-exciting as being a man. Being a woman wom-an Is being a kind of understudy in life where one never gets on in the big happenings except as a sort of ladies' auxiliary, nevertheless it has its diversions diver-sions and its moments of hair raising adventure. To begin with, women have the mosi of the excitement in the love chase. Hunting a husband is going after big game with a vengeance, and what cleverness It involves, what foxiness of movement, what wariness in setting traps, only the experienced know. It is the polite fiction to speak of husbands as if they came in flocks, and were as easy to knock over as tame pigeons. f in ever was mere n muiu uaavivaa fabrication. The modern man is a timid dear, and the woman who captures cap-tures him has to hustle out nnd round him up, and before she gets him he has given her a run for her money. Then there is the excitement of keeping a huBband after she gets him, i This Is perhaps a canned brand of f thrills, not as good as the fresh, but it serves as a piquant source to life. For man Is still an imperfectly domestlcat-! domestlcat-! ed animal, and no matter how old he is he is always liable to stray away i from homo or permit himself to be ! stolen. Women also have the excitement of 1 trying to keep young and beautiful In order to retain their husbands' affec-tlons, affec-tlons, and this furnishes them a never ' ending source of interest. Whether a ; husbands love is really affected by a , thirty-two Inch waist measure and a double chin Is open to discussion, but r there Is no doubt that the majority of 'women believe It to be, and that they find a perennial source of employ -m ment and enjoyment in trying to keep-young keep-young and beautiful in spite of nature. I, Another source of excitement to . women, is the servant question. A man ' who treats his employees well and '; "pays them fairly is practically certain to find them at their post every day. ' Not so with the temperamental hired ; Girl. No woman knows when she opens her eyes In the morning but what sho will find that her treasure has fled in the night. Thus Is a woman's day ushered ush-ered In with the thrilling suspense and ' uncertainty of whether she will have to getip and get breakfast or not. Life may be full of thorns to the feminine sex, but it can never be uneventful as long as we have the hired girl in. our midst. Then thero are the children. No ' woman who has children can lack for interest or excitement, for every child is a bunch of thrills. To the onlooker a baby Is just a little bundle of pink and white, of colic and yells, but no dreamer, no prophet evor had such ,ec- atatlc visions as course through its mother's mind as she holds him to her 1 breaBt She sees the little squirming red mite of humanity grown to a man's or woman's estate, supernally beautiful, beauti-ful, angelically perfect, a triumphant ' : genius, crowned with honors and rlch- ' or pniid the plaudits or an admiring t world. Uh, it's an exciting thing to be a mother, and the beauty of it Is that every mother has this thrilling long drawn out hope and faith about oacu child, that lasts for twenty or thirty ' years, sometimes longer, and by the 11 time her belief In her own cl Hdrcn be- telna to dim she raasor3 It to lif grandchildren and goes on thrill tut? ubout what they aro going to do. In America, among men, a national snnri. the only g.-ws that really cTlrips the'r nerves ufd sends i ho blood bounding through tleir veins Is the 4 B excitement of moupy making. Some American women an Increasing number num-ber every year are enjoying that along with their brothers, but American Ameri-can women, as a general thing, havo o en more fun in spending money than their men have in making it. That is Ibeir national sport. Life will always be worth living to a woman so long as there are shops and she has the wherewithal to buy. That alone gives piquancy to existence. It is impossible for a woman to imagine herself being bored in a world that still contains marked down sales, and the mad Monday morning rush -on the bargain counter. The excitements herein beforp enumerated enu-merated are those which belong to peace times. Now we have the terrible thrill of war that has filled every woman's wom-an's heart with sorrow, and ever' : woman's hands with Red Cross work, and it is significant that women have ceased complaining about their ailments, ail-ments, and recounting their symptoms, and fussing over little indispositions. So perhaps the physician is right and women do take to semi invalidism as a refuge lroni boredom. |