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Show 1 1 Dorothy Dix Talks LOSING LOVE. I j By DOKCVTIIY DIX, the Wo. Id's Highest Paid Woman Writer ! . , y There is nothing 'hat people com-r com-r plain about more bltterh than then do rixnji losing love. 1 "My hufband no longer loves ine," I vails tin heartbroken wife. "My fri'-nds no longer love me," f complain the lonely. "No one loves me. No one w;inu-I w;inu-I mo. I am left desolate and forlorn," m cry the old. I And the loveless invariably at'ri I bufe their misfortune to the fcina f,i I other?, ii appjrentlj never occurs to C 1 1 -in thai 1 In- i.uit is theirs, and thai P v. hen those who have once loved us t Cease to love us it is because we hrr e I become unlovable. It is the custom to speak of love as Hf it were as evanescent and in I bio as a moon beam. In reality love I Is not an illusion that a mysterious I fate turns on and off of our lives, as E the stage electrician handles the spot-I spot-I light. It is a substantial, work a day '".net. f guided entirely by the laws of cause I and effect, and we neiihor have it, nor los. it without reason. The qualities in an individual that inspire affection in our breast never j lose their power to charm us nor to f hold us, and it la only when the con-I con-I Jurer gets too indifferent, or too lagy I to exercise his or her magic that we drift away to other spell binders. In I deed, wc often lovt people long after there js nothing to love in them be- cause In time affection becomes a ha-r ha-r bit that is almost unbreakable Those whose lamentations over lost I love are loudest are the neglected I wives. These consider themselves the I victims of the perfidy and falthless- ness of men, and tliis view of the sub-I sub-I ject is generally shared by the whole feminine sex. To the average woman, holding her I h husband's love, is a matter o.r pure, t lurk, or a feat of sleight of hand com-1 parable only to holding a handful of j I slippery eels. If she does it. she' Blesses her stars for her good fortune, j f but if she lets his In art slip through ; h-r Hneers she doc.s not blame her-I her-I self, or hold In r negligence in any yay responsible for the accident. Such a woman never asks her.'elf If she is presenting the same line Of l attractions to her husband that first I caught his fancy When sh'- v. as' I young she was pretty, and neat, and , attractively gowned Perhaps as a1 1 wife she has gTown slouchy and care-j I less of her appearance, and the pic-1 1 ture he takes away with him when! he goes to work of a morning is of a Rloppy woman in a soiled kimona and P'With cold cream on hpr face and her hair in crimpers As a girl she was gaj ami good hu-j I mored and coinpaniouable. She flat-1 I tered and jollied him, and made him i 1 f' el that he was an oracle who w :i -aeven feet high and with a chest ex ' I "pansinn like Jess W'illard B. As a. I wife she Is whiny and complaining. J and fault, finding and naptnc, and1 I about as pleasant a companion as a; wet blanket full of nettles J; Such a woman wonder-! thai sh lise, her husband'-' love. The miracle B would be if she kept it. You ne.-r: I see a cheerful, amiable, thrifty, sen-! Mhle woman figuring in the roie of the neglected wife. The women who. 3 keep themselves lovable and who sh , their husbands hearts something in; feed upon besides the bills and ills of i I matrimony don't lose love. They've I got it locked up in a safe deposit j I. vault out of which nothing goes astray1 FOR DINER OUT till 1 and into which no heart thief can break. When we lose our friends we grow cynical over the lack of loyalty in humanity. We say that our friends have left us to run after the rich, or the socially elect, or those who have favors to gT.nt Wc are always the aggrieved parties. We never look Into our own souls and ask our-1 Ives what we have done to alienate the affection af-fection of those who have once loved us. or what there is in us to attract any one to us at the present moment. When we were young we drew people peo-ple to us by our enthusiasms, bv our high spirits, by our interest in everything every-thing that was happening, by our gen erosity, by our quick aympathies lor others. Perhaps the passing of the years has quenched our enthusiasms and left us pessimists who put out the tire of hope on everj altar. Perhaps we have grown bitter and hard, and Stingy and self-centered Perhaps we have become bore? whose onlv convt i sat ion is a monologue about our owrr affairs. Why should any one love us If we have become unlovable0 Why should old friends cling to us when there i3 nothing of the person they once loved in us? There is no answer, and. as a matter of fact justice settles this mat ter inexorable. Those who keep themselves them-selves worthy of friendship keep their friends. The unworthy lose them. The lovee;sne?s of the old is upon their own heads As we sow we reap, and those who in their old arc sit forlorn, for-lorn, forgotten and neglected In 'h ir desolate, homes are parnering nothing but the harvest of their own solf'-h-ness and lack of kindliness to others It is a terrible thing lo think of a man or a woman living for sixty or seventy years without binding a single sin-gle human being to him or her, without with-out inspiring any gratitude and appreciation appre-ciation in the breasts of those with whom he or she has lived, without leaving behind a single iragrant memory mem-ory In the path he or she has trod. Whenever ou see old people neglected ne-glected and unloved it is because they haVe lived unlovely lives It is not because the world is heedless of age. If we realised that when w;e complained com-plained of losing love we indict our- Ives we shoud spend less time In lamentations la-mentations and more in trying to keep the greatest thing in the world. 6 |